Armatures

Since having trouble with my plasticine stop motion video, I have looked at some advice people give online, about ways in which you can create a 'skeleton' for the characters called armatures:


"Armatures are the support for your new creation. Basically it is the skeleton underneath the clay, which will allow you to move your character in small increments for animation.
The first step in creating your armature is to take your spool of aluminium armature wire,  twist the wire until it looks loosely twisted. Do this as it makes the wire twice as strong, and also less likely to cause problems if one half the wire breaks during animation.
When adding the clay/plasticine, it is important to melt the clay onto the armature so it will stick to it, and not fall off during animation. I do this using a torch, but can be done using the double boiler to melt the clay. You melt your clay, and drip it onto the armature until you have a thin coating of clay over every part of the armature. You then wait for the clay to cool completely, and then apply your un melted clay on top of it. 

You can also sculpt the inner parts of your character using scrap clay, and then coat the outside of it with nice clean new clay."

Taken from: http://www.stopmotionanimation.com/handbook/19a.htm