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ARMATURES
An armature is the skeleton that all sculptures are built on and provide a foundation for the pose and act as a guide for proportions.
I've seen quite a few elaborate armature constructs and sculpting rigs that took more time and effort away from the actual sculpting than I wanted to spend. There are even a few expensive setups you can purchase ready-made that are more pricey than I wanted to spend. So, in my never-ending quest to make work easier on myself you can imagine how delighted I was to see this process for building armatures for sculptures. I can't take any credit for this approach or design, that goes to Chuck Needham, a fantastic historical and garage kit figure sculptor you can visit over at 2Bit Studio.
I have modified his design slightly for sculpting in 28mm as I show below. Keep in mind, safety is important when working with any tools, so don't yell at me for lopping off a finger.
Large Scale
Printable Armature Diagram - JPG 628k
Printable Armature Diagram - PDF 568k
What makes this design so cool is its' modular layout. The diagram here is one I downloaded from Chuck's site and adapted to different scales. The proportions are all correct regardless of what size you scale the diagram since they are all based on an average human skeleton. Creatures can even be based on this with a few modifications to the lengths of the limbs.
Once the correct size is selected, I bend two lengths of the wire in the shape following the limbs with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, one for the left limbs and one for the right. Another length is cut and curled around the skull diagram to provide a solid base for the armature's head. Chuck made a fancy bending jig to wrap his wire around but I work in so many different sizes I normally just trace the shapes with the wire directly from the print-out.
For larger scale figures I use a basic aluminum wire. The parts of the armature are wrapped with a thinner "floral" wire and then secured with either a blob of magic sculp (shown here) or sometimes with JB Kwik epoxy.
The extra length of wire coming from the head section strengthens the "spine" and is bent at the hips to create a mounting point for the stand. Alternately, you can leave additional lengths on the bottom of each foot to attach to a base for sculpting. This is what I normally do for figures in 28-54mm scales.
For large figures, some sort of brace is in order to support the sculpture as you work on it. The rig shown here is made from inexpensive parts found at the local hardware or DIY. The threaded rod is 1/4" coarse and fitted with corresponding wingnuts and lock-washers to make repositioning a snap. The small L-shaped shelf brackets are used to hold the support rod to the base rod.
It's VERY important to note that to get this to work correctly the bracket must be bent off center a bit to allow the second rod to pass through at the side. This is shown more clearly in the closer photo.
All of this is mounted to a simple wooden stand.
The whole setup cost about $20USD and supplied enough materials for four sculpting stands. That comes in really handy if you work on several figures at a time.
I tend to make up a few armatures of different sizes and keep them on hand. That makes it especially useful when mixing up a batch of epoxy putty that none of it goes to waste. There's always an armature handy to stick it onto.
Small Scale
I don't really like sculpting figures (or painting them) with integrated bases (but I will if necessary). Slotted tabs are so much cooler and provide painters a much easier alternative for creative basing. Also, there are a couple of companies now that wholesale generic plastic gaming slotta bases in traditional wargame sizes and shapes plus the new ultra-cool bevelled bases in 30mm, 40mm and 50mm. In my opinion, there's just no reason anymore to make figures with an integrated base.
I initially started off using the Reaper Advanced Level Sculpting Armatures - #75002 which was a great time saver and gave a good approximation of the size most figures are being sculpted around. There were a couple of drawbacks for me that caused me to move on to my own armatures.
First, the pre-cast armatures have a thicker metal build-up around key joint areas making knees, elbows and ankles larger than desirable on some scuplts. You can get a slender frame from using just copper or brass wire. Also, I got a batch that was cast weak at the hip and the legs kept breaking on some action poses.
Second, the only good way to secure the armature to get a grip on it while sculpting entailed some sort of vice apparatus. Also, the legs are a fixed width. To spread them, you have to cut the tab from one foot and that weakens the connection at the other foot. I got around that on my first few sculpts by cutting the middle out of the tab, leaving a big chunk still connected to each foot. Then, using my handy Dremel tool, I carefully ground each tab down to a sharp point making it easier to jam into a cork base. After a while I figured that was more work than just sticking a couple of wires together.
Now I have created a fancy wire bending jig based on the layout from the larger scale armatures shown above. I basically traced off the shape onto some really thick plastic card stock. Then it was a matter of drilling 3/64" holes at all of the joint bends from the diagram. I then inserted the same sized brass rod and secured it with a dab of CA glue.
You can still just bend the wire with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, though, but the jig makes whipping up a bunch of armatures much faster.
The main wire I use now is either copper or brass jewelry wire. I find that it's easy to solder, if I were so inclined. Since I'm rather lazy about such things, I usually stick the armature parts together with a blob of epoxy putty; green, brown, magic or milli, any variety works just as well.
I leave a bit of extra wire at the feet and bend it to where the wire forms a foot. This allows the figure to be mounted at the toe, which is very important for a lot of action poses. The wire is trimmed with a pair of wire cutters at a steep angle making a sharp point on the end. This allows the wire to be inserted into a cork base much easier. Watch your delicate fingers, though!
I like regular ole' cork stoppers to stick my figures on while painting and sculpting. The most common sizes are the ones with 1", 1 1/2" and 2" bases (or tops), the largest part. This gives a good foot spread for common slotta base sizes.
Some of the corks I mounted on 2" sections of plastic PVC plumber's pipe. This gives a more comfortable grip especially for smaller figures. I basically jammed the small end of the cork into one end of the tubing section and then hot-glued it into place.
Of course, you don't have to use corks, the armature wire can be mounted a number of ways including clamps, clothespins and even a pin vise. Use what's comfortable.
A cool tip I picked up from the Reaper Artist Con was forming slotta tabs. Once the figure is finished, you can bend the wire to fit into a plastic slotta base and pack the slot with your putty of choice. Once the putty cures you can crack the base free and there is a perfectly formed tab sure to fit your desired base.
--- Patrick
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