First layer of clay for the dog armature

Tracker (poodle) gets his first coat of clay. Two to three layers will follow in order to capture the poodle's fur texture.

The first image shows where the rods became embedded into the legs. Molted clay was allowed to saturate the groove and rod area.

I used a crock pot to melt my bricks of NSP hard Chavant modeling clay. The clay was applied using a brush and spatula.

Here you can see where I reattached the head to the body. A 3/4" x 12" pipe was used to join the two sections. Clay was then brushed on to fuse the sections.

The additional layers of clay will fill in the areas that do not look quite right. For instance the rib and neck sections.

The ears and jaw areas will also be revisited.

Aluminum rods used to reinforce styrofoam armature

Here I embedded a 3/8” diameter aluminum rod in the legs in order to support the weight of the dog sculpture. Aluminum is used because of its lightweight and softness in case the mold maker needs to sever the legs to make a multi-part mold.

Tomorrow I will proceed with the clay-up on the remaining exposed foam.

The groove, which houses the rod, will be filled with molted clay.