I have been working on building my lion character since my last post. Now I never thought I'd say this - or in this case write this - but I'm going to show you my balls. That's right - balls. Balls that I made as part of the armature for the lion. You might remember from my previous post that the modelling clay can be heavy and cause a model to overbalance, so I've been working on ways to cut down on the amount of clay. One way to do this is to bulk-out the figure before applying the clay. For the lion I added balls made from hot glue poured into pre-made molds, and used for the head, chest and pelvis.

My balls - yes there's 3 of them. Well there was for the first armature, but as I have 4 adult lions to create I have to make some more.

The moles From my previous post filled with hot glue

The two semi-spheres were extracted easily enough when set. I had smeared the surfaces of the molds first with vasaline (amazing stuff - so many uses) which prevented the glue from sticking to the plaster.

The two halves are then simply glued together

The finished product - not perfectly round I know but I don't need them to be as they will be covered with modelling clay.

I decided to include a length of wire in some of the spheres to use them for the heads - the wire then gets joined to the torso and provides a good support.

I first made an oval shape on one end of the wire for a more secure grip

 

Then I applied hot glue to one half of the sphere. The oval end of the wire is then laid flat onto the glue

The second half is then pressed tightly to the first - this procedure has to be carried out fast as the glue sets fairly quickly.

The extending wire can then be trimmed to whatever length is required. One advantage of the hot glue method that I discovered is that additional sections - wire / shapes - can be added (by glueing) or removed (by cutting)

For the torso I used two of theses spheres - one either end - a short section of plastic pipe (filled with glue) and a couple of wooden beads. The spheres and pipe were drilled through the centre and some 1.5mm wire threaded through them. The beads were added to allow plenty of movement. Plastic rawl-plugs are used to strengthen the legs

The yellow modelling clay seen above is a replica of the original (poster) lions torso.

I originally used 1.5mm wire for the leg armatures but found it too strong, trying to manipulate it when covered in clay would have resulted in the clay being badly distorted. I then tried thin tying wire, which was doubled in strength by twisting two lengths together. This would have been too weak used on it's own but with the plastic rawl-plugs giving added support I ended up with a sturdy armature thats very flexible at the joints. The image above shows the original wire at the back legs and the replacement wire on the front legs.

As the replacement leg armature wire is thinner than the original I ended up with too much free play where it passed through the spheres. This resulted in the torso rocking forwards or backwards and collapsing at the slightest touch. The only solution to this was to add a dab of glue where each wire protruded from the spheres i.e. shoulder and hip joints. I might still have to add some small wooden beads at these points - depending on how the armature works when its covered in clay, but at the moment it's solid and sturdy. Now I just have to make 3 more.

A few of the different poses

If your wondering what this is it's a cast I made for the buffalos head. Hot glue again, this time poured into the top section of a plastic bottle. The plastic was then cut away when set. When I started to fill this it was using up an awful lot of glue sticks so I threw in a few balls of scrunched up paper and it seems to have worked o.k. I probably should have placed the clay beside this to give a better idea of it's scale -     it's big. I realised afterwards that I never fitted a wire to connect it to the torso but thats the beauty of the hot glue - I just have to cut it in half, fit a section of wire, and then glue it back together. 

There is one drawback to using hot glue though - it tends to stick to tools if your drilling, cutting or filing down at a later stage. Even though it might be set, the heat generated from the friction of the tool caused it to melt slightly and stick to whichever tool your using. It doesn't really do any harm but it does mean that the glue then has to be removed from the tool afterwards, which usually involves scraping it off with a blade or scraper.

The next step now is to add a section of wire at the back - for the tail - and then wrap everything with cling-film. This allows for easier removal of the clay when finished. Talking of finished it's time I finished this post (think I just heard the barman call my name)