Building Armatures for Polymer Clay Sculpture

Armatures are vital to strong sculptures. Learn about different methods for building strong armatures. A strong armature can hold polymer clay in virtually any complicated or precarious position, even look like it's floating in air.

The Armature is the Skeleton of your Sculpture

A weak or insufficient armature can ruin an otherwise beautiful sculpture. Take your time and get the foundation of your sculpture right so it will last for years.

1: Wire cutters

2: Needle nose pliers

3: Dremel tool or drill

4: Hammer

5: First Aid Kit (I'm serious, wire is sharp you will cut yourself)

This is a rundown of common material used to make armatures for polymer clay sculptures.

1: Aluminum armature wire

2: Floral wire

3: Fabric covered floral wire

4: Aluminum foil

5: Floral or Masking Tape

6: Sculpey Ultra-Light

7: Brass or steel rods

8: Apoxie Sculpt or other two-part sculpting epoxy

9: Super glue and/or 2-part epoxy glue

10: Wooden bases (craft plaques work well or you could cut your own from lumber)

Safety First

Practice proper safety precautions when working with armature materials. Most importantly remember to wear safety glasses, especially when cutting wire or using power tools.

Build extra supports for your sculptures.

Armature stands are used to give an extra support for a sculpture while you are working on it. They are relatively easy to build and there are many different designs depending on what your needs are.

Since the burning point of wood is much higher than the curing temperature of polymer clay you can put a sculpture in the oven while still mounted on the armature stand.

Typical materials and tools needed are:

1: Wooden plaque or cut piece of lumber.

2: Dowels or threaded steel rods

3: Dremel tool or drill

4: Various bits of hardware, wing nuts, bolts, screws, etc.

I built this wire bending jig for making armatures a while back. It's made from a 8"x24" (20x61cm) piece of pine and lots of 1/8" (3.18mm) screws.

To make it I traced the male and female figure onto the board with a black marker in 1/6, 1/8, and 1/12 scale (these are the scales I use most often). Then I drew in the shape of the armatures adding screws to all the major joints where I wanted bends in the wire.

With this jig I can very quickly make consistently sized armatures.

To Make Your Own

Supplies

8"x18" Board (this is an approximate measurement, it can be a little smaller or bigger)

Drill with 1/8" bit

1/8" screws

Screwdriver

Permanent marker

Armature diagrams printed at 1/6, 1/8, and 1/12 scale

Sandpaper (optional)

Clear varnish (optional)

Instructions

1: Sand and varnish the board if desired. It will help keep the marker from bleeding into the wood and the jig will last longer.

2: Trace the armature diagrams onto the board.

3: Drill holes at all the major joints where the diagram shows the wire bending.

4: Insert screw into all the holes.

5: Make armatures!

Wire armatures are the simplest type of armature for a figure sculpture. Aluminum wire is twisted into the basic shape of a human, animal, or creature skeleton and attached to either an armature stand or a wooden base.

Or dance, do gymnastics, etc.

This technique for making a sculpture appear to be balanced or floating is a variation on the wire armatures. I've used it several times now, for my big sculpture "Odin's Runesong", for my in progress "Selkie Emerging" and "Fire Dancer" sculptures.

Article on Creating a Balancing Armature.

Polymer clay more than 1/2 thick is difficult to cure properly, either the outside get over-baked and darkens or the inside doesn't cure completely and the sculpt can break down over time from the effects of still liquid polymer inside. For this reason and to reduce the amount of clay needed most polymer clay sculptors bulk up their armatures in the torso and head areas.

The simplest way to do this is just to wrap crumpled aluminum foil around the armature and secure it with tape, glue, or floral wire.

Lightweight Alternative to Aluminum Foil

If you need your sculpture to be extra light try using Sculpey Ultralight clay. It's a polymer clay that is so lightweight when cured that it can float in water.

Foil cores are tightly compressed balls of aluminum foil used as an armature. This techniques works best for sculptures with round or egg shaped bodies such as heads and animals like rabbits, mice, or my favorite: cuttlefish!

Making foil cores is fairly simple. Crumple aluminum foil up into the general shape you want then pack it in as tightly as possible, I use a hammer to get it really tight. To help the clay adhere better either wrap the core in floral or masking tape or cover it in PVA glue (that's white glue like elmer's or tacky glue) and allow it to dry before adding clay.

Other materials can also be used in armatures.

Epoxy: 2-Part sculpting epoxies such as Apoxie Sculpt and MagicSculpt set rock hard and can make for extremely sturdy armatures when used for bulking and securing wires together. The downside to epoxies are that they set quite quickly so you have a limited working time and is much heavier than alternatives such as foil, paperclay, or sculpey ultralight.

Paperclay: Used much the same as foil for bulking up an armature. Make sure to allow the paperclay to dry fully and apply PVA glue to it before adding polymer clay.

Sculpey Ultralight: A very lightweight porous polymer clay, sculpey ultralight makes for strong lightweight armatures when used for bulking or as a core. You must bake the ultralight armature before adding normal polymer clay.

Wire Mesh: Used as a support for thin structures such as fabric or fins. Wire Mesh is very flexible and easily shaped.

Removable Armature: Sometimes you want a hollow structure and a removable armature is the best way to achieve this. Good removable armatures are disolvable clays like cold porcelain or cornstarch based packing peanuts.