In this instalment I'm going to explain how I go about making an armature to use as your frame work for applying clay on the actual sculpture. In this case I am using Cammy from Street Fighter, as the example reference, but this method works for any type of figure that has human (or human-like) physiognomy. The image I am using for this tutorial I found on Cammyfan.com (a fantastic Cammy site!) and was created by a very talented artist of T2 Art Works. I hope they don't mind me using their image for this tutorial (if you do please let me know). It is VERY important to have your reference handy at all times during this process because you don't want to be in a situation where you are making things up!The armature requires a bit of planning, time and patience in order to make correctly. It is vital that the armature is correctly proportioned and sturdy enough to holdup your work. Basically if your armature is incorrect, and mis-proportioned, then the whole sculpture will be out of whack form the get go and you will have an extremely frustrating time making it work. I noticed that many beginners tend to over look this stage only to find themselves later on with major head aches during the sculpting phase. Bottom line make sure you make your armature properly! ;)
Once I have decided on a character and pose that I want to sculpt I have to decide at what scale I'd like to make the sculpture. In this case I will make Cammy 8" tall (roughly 1/8th scale). Because she is an Anime character I am using a template I found in a book ("Drawing Anime and Manga Characters") that is suitable for this type of character. You wouldn't want to use a template with regular human proportions on this piece as it wouldn't look right. In fact proportion has a lot of influence on how you want your character to be perceived by the observer and should be carefully considered before making the armature. There are many books that cover proportion and its affects (like "Drawing the Marvel Way") so I won't be touching upon that subject for this tutorial...
Once I have my template, I carefully re-size it to the measurement (I use Photoshop but a similar imaging editor will work too or you can use a photocopying machine) I want my final sculpture to be, in this case, 8". I then select a suitable armature wire size which in this case I used 1/8th armature wire (available at most art stores) but you could even use 1/16th armature wire braided together as well. The main thing you want to look at is that the armature provides enough support for the modelling process but, at the same time, won't be too large to poke out or not allow for enough material to be laid onto it. The biggest concern for me is making sure it won't deform too easily when I'm applying clay: there is nothing more frustrating then a wobbly armature!Once I've selected my wire I carefully lay it over my template.
I then proceed to mark the joints (like elbows, shoulders, knees, bottom of feet, etc.) with a Sharpie and then carefully bend it according to my guide (make sure you don't miss this marking step as it will be important later on for posing!).I make sure I leave at least 1" of length at the bottom of the feet so I can embed the armature into a piece of wood later on: this will serve as a stable base for sculpting. I use one piece of wire, bent accordingly, for the legs, torso and arms (I make two of these).
I then use a single length of wire for the spine/neck/head area (see photo). I also Like to sometimes make a loop at the end of the middle piece to act as an anchoring point on the head later on (I will explain a little later on what I mean). Once I am satisfied with my pieces I then take a fine gauge wire (available from most hardware stores) and carefully wrap the three pieces together. 
I do my best to wrap them fairly tight so they won't move around on me too much. Its OK if they move a round a little bit as we will set them in place later on. As you can see my armature at this stage doesn't reflect the pose of my reference material: that is OK! I'm going to make the pose adjustments later on. It is important that you lay down your armature onto a frontal orthographic view or you could end up with distortions later on. As you will see we are going to set up the armature so that the posing will be easier while sculpting.
Now I have my armature together in a temporary fashion but sturdy enough to allow me to mount it onto its sculpting base. I carefully try to pose my piece so that it is close to my reference art as possible. Make sure you use pliers placed on your marked joints to make the bends (you want them to be crisp!) because if you try to bend them simply with your fingers you won't have a hard edge (the pliers) to serve as leverage and you will end up with "spaghetti" looking limbs. Remember that your real joints bend at specific points (remember those marks you made with the Sharpie?!) so you want to make sure you are bending your wire in a similar fashion and NOT like a wet noodle (unless you are sculpting Plastic man of course).Once I'm satisfied with my pose (or close enough: I can always tweak it later on), I mark my piece of 1/4" ply wood with my Sharpie where the foot pegs will go ( I do this by placing my armature over my piece of wood). I then take my trusty drill and make my holes using a 1/8th drill bit (the same size as my armature wire). If you have access to a drill press then that is better as your holes will be at right angles. A regular hand drill works great too though!
If you are using a different armature wire, like 3/16", then you would use a 3 1/16th drill bit. Don't try to use the wrong bit (go out an buy one if you don't have it already) or the armature wire won't fit snug. The reason you want the wire to fit snug is to avoid gluing it down since you want to be able to remove your sculpture once its done to then place it onto a more permanent base for displaying or for molding purposes.Using my reference I can continue posing the wire until I'm satisfied (or close enough). It is normal to tweak the pose during the clay stages as well which is why you want to use an armature that is sturdy, yet flexible enough, to allow tweaks as well. Using Apoxie Sculpt putty (a non-toxic Epoxy putty: cures to a rock hard surface in a few hours!)
I proceed to place it on the wire to act as "bones". I make sure I leave the joint free though because I want to be able to freely tweak the pose during sculpting. Remember this putty cure to a rock hard finish so there won't be any flexibility where it is placed! This is good because when you are sculpting, and you want to tweak the pose, you will only be able to bend the armature according to the joints (like a real skeleton) because they were left exposed. The last thing you would want to do is use pliers when you have clay on your piece.
The putty takes care of this as it will only bend at predetermined points!I continue to putty the figure making sure I don't bulk her up too much (keep it skinny!) or I may find myself with areas of putty poking through the clay. this is true especially for smaller scale female figures (like this one). At 1/4 scale you have a bit more "meat" to work with. As you can see (left) I also made a small ball of putty to serve as a head support. In some cases it may be ideal to make the head removable. All you would have to do is use a piece of brass tubing that fits over the 1/8th wires snugly (but not too tight!). Instead of making the ball of putty on the actual armature wire, you would make it on the brass tube (still following your initial guide of course) and you would keep the centre armature wire straight. This way you can simply remove the head with ease (just make sure the tubing isn't too tight!). Once you are done puttying all that is left to do is let the material sit and cure (usually a couple of hours depending on the temperature/climate). If you don't want to wait you can use a heat gun or hair dryer on a LOW setting to speed up the process (a high setting would cause it to bubble and expand or burn!). One thing to note is that the putty will become soft when heated and could tend to sag (it gets harder as it cools) so I tend to heat it up in waves allowing it to cool a bit in between...
Well that's about it! Hopefully this tutorial helps artists new to sculpting with this often over looked step. Of course this isn't the only way of making an armature, every artist has their own method, but this has worked for me. Of course please feel free to tweak the process so that it works best for you!
'till next time! :)
