Latest progress on the sculpt....

It is going much better. I tore off most of the clay and thinned down the armature a lot. The sculpt is less bulky now and that is more in line with what I had originally designed. Sculpey is very pliable and my sweaty hands make it even more so. That makes it difficult to work on the non-organic parts like the proton pack. Any time I make a hard edge I end up mushing it up. I was told that throwing it in the fridge for 10 mins. or so it will harden up enough to work on the details without smooshing the rest of it.

Learning as I go....

Oh, trial and error: You teach me so much. I was not satisfied with how bulky the maquette got one I added the clay so I ripped most of it off and slimmed down the foil thickness underneath. There are some important things I will not forget the next time I try one of these.

* Don't go for the complete silhouette in the armature. Get the pose down and some slight foil thickness so that the clay has something to grab, but definitely leave plenty of room for the clay.
* Make sure to keep the wire away from the surface. It is easy to compress the foil down when you need more room to work with but if wire is hitting the surface then there is a problem getting around that without adding a lot of clay. As you can see above, I tried to remedy by cutting pieces of the wire that stuck out. It mostly worked with the exception of the piece I cut out of the torso that was holding the leg on. Whoops.
* Mind the anatomy that you will have to build. Elbows and Knees have to be higher on the limbs than I would expect. I think my eye forms the implied contour of the design when I am just looking at the wire and that throws off the proportions. What I mean is, I bent the wire of the elbow to be about where I would expect the elbow bone to be protruding. Once I added the clay it made the upper arm about 1/4 inch longer than I wanted it to be. I did a similar thing with where the legs connect with the pelvis. I didn't leave any room to sculpt up the muscle of the glutes and how the pants hangs around them.

I will try to fix as much of these as possible as I go, but boy it will be nice to start fresh on the next one.