How To Build a Wire Armature for Sculpting

in today's tutorial i'm going to show you all the basics of making a wire armature for sculpting it's going to be simple quick and you won't need a lot of materials an armature acts as a skeleton and it's important for several reasons one it helps you establish the correct anatomy and proportions two it helps you pose your figure and three it supports your clay making for a much more stable sculpture for my armatures i use aluminium wire which is lightweight and easy to bend generally the larger the sculpture the thicker armature wire you want to use here i'm using two millimeters which i fold over itself before inserting one end into my drill i support the other inward pliers and spin the drill until i have a tight uniform spiral twisting your wire both strengthens the armature and gives the clay something to grab onto if you don't have a drill you can create a similar effect by hand twisting some skinny garden wire around your main armature wire like this when creating a human figure i always start by building an armature in a simple t pose to get the proportions right i like to print out a 2d image of a skeleton and then draw a vertical center line splitting the body in two then i map out my armature wire over top creating two halves before joining the two halves together i adjust the shape against a 2d side view of the human skeleton this helps me add the s curve of the spine as well as the soft curve in the legs i roughly join the armature together with cable ties and then move on to secure my joints with a bit of steel needed or epoxy putty which i mix and add over my cable ties next we're going to create a base for the armature here i'm using a dedicated sculpting base which i'll link to below but really any piece of wood will do i drill two holes for the feet which are a little wider than my armature wire as you can see i've left a bit of excess wire here which i'm now cutting down to the thickness of my board if you want your armature to be removable you can leave it as is just using the base as a holder but if you want your armature to stay on the base as you start sculpting you can use a better kneaded to anchor the feet onto the board this system works great for small scale sculptures up to the size we're working in here if you're creating a larger piece you risk the sculpture swaying a lot under the weight of the clay if the armature is only supported at the feet therefore it's a good idea to create another support point for the armature here i'm using galvanized steel piping at a half inch in diameter which can be made out of steel piping or built from wood this is a super easy build as they all just screw together and you can vary the lengths to match the size of your sculpture i will list all the different parts and sizes in the video description the end cap here becomes part of your shirt and will stay inside this way you can unscrew your armature from the rest of your stand at any point [Music] now when we have a solid and anatomically correct armature it's time to give it a dynamic pose before adding the clay [Music] the pose can still be adjusted slightly later on but it's good to establish the rough pose you want before you start sculpting if you're working in vaseline you can now go ahead and start sculpting but if your medium is polymer clay or air dry clay you might want to bulk out your armature a bit more tinfoil is great for this i just block out my main volumes focusing on the chest pelvis and head before adding my clay over top this not only saves on clay but also makes it easier when it comes to baking your polymer sculpture or drying your air dry clay sculpture if you want to see another example of how i use tinfoil for amateurs you can check out this video here and if you want to subscribe for more tutorials you can do that here thanks for watching bye [Music]

Channel: Sofia Bue

Views: 149,369

Keywords: armature tutorial, armature for sculpting, make an armature for sculpting, air dry clay, clay, clay art, clay tutorial, sculpting tutorial for beginners, sofia bue, makeFX, sculpting for beginners, sculpting clay, sculpture making, sculpture art, how to, armature, how to make your own sculpting tools, DIY, aluminium wire, aluminium wire crafts, sculpting basics, figure sculpting, diy armature, human anatomy, anatomy sculpting

Id: js1_4ehETxI

Length: 4min 26sec (266 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022