Difficulty of Armatures

Often the non-fun side of sculpting for me can be figuring out the armature for whatever you are planning. Planning ahead in a game where it is so much easier to be spontaneous is painful.

Ask yourself these questions in advance.

          What kind of support do I need from this structure?

notice it will come into the side of piece

This one will come into the bottom of the piece

all the different pipes and flanges that it often takes

I know, I know, don't you wish that I could straighten this mess on this site but there is no place to do that. But you can see what I am referring to as to where the pipe enters into the side of a piece or the bottom of a piece.

      Does it allow for the weight of the mold?

            Where are my body part extensions, wings, neck, horns, whatever, and do I need extra support.

           Is it secure with no movement and lastly where do I want my design to have a hole in it because where your armature goes into your piece is a hindrance to both working and accessibility for mold creation.

Now the dove that will sit next to this one is just coming into the space so it will have its wings extended so I will use the side armature to come in just under the wing uplifted so that it does not interfere with detail of wing feathers. Also where my T comes out with the wire for the support of the wings it will be several not just the single wire and I use everything from aluminum sculpting wire to copper wire...whichever the strength needed.

I can already tell by the hits on this topic that it is one people are curious about and there is another earlier post that talks about armatures also so go back and refer to it. I will try to do another one on a more difficult piece this was so simple that it would have been a beginner piece.