Armatures can be made out of thin or thick gauge wire, plumping pipes, PVC pipe, lumber, sticks, dowels, blocks of clay, or any other material that works for you. Generally, start with the “spine” of the piece and create branches for the “limbs”. Using your design sketch can be helpful for forming the armature, especially if the sketch was made to-scale. Anchor the armature in or to the base before continuing.
Common materials are newspaper, tin or aluminum foil, masking or painter’s tape, and cardboard. Loosely tape or join this filler material to your armature, forming just the basic shapes of your sculpture. You want to leave yourself room to build with your final sculpting material, though, so don’t go overboard!
With proper tools, the general rule of thump is that the smaller the tip, the finer the detail that tool is meant to create. Looped tools are for scraping off clay and any cutting edge is for pretty much what you would think it would be for. You can fashion your own tools from tin foil balls, black peppercorns, toothbrushes, toothpicks, necklace chains, ball bearings, combs, sewing or knitting needles, knives, etc.
