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Sculpting Batwoman/Catwoman from scratch.
Work-in-Progress (WIP) Z4-01.

Foil Armature and Rough Body Form

The picture sequence starts from upper left to right, down.

I have kept my ways of sculpting pretty simple and so I could sculpt pretty much anywhere. While waiting for my girl at school parking lot, I started the foil armature for the Batwoman/Catwoman sculpt. I use heavy-duty aluminum foil. It's just a personal preference. Many sculptors use wire frame for armature. With lessons learned from my last sculpt, I twisted and compressed the foil to a minimum diameter, so that it is thin. When the foil is too close to a sculpting surface, that area of sculpt will be weak and prone to breakage.

For sculpting material, I use Aves Apoxie Sculpt. It's a two-part epoxy modeling compound that, once mixed, has 1 to 2 hours of work time before self-hardens. Apoxie has its pros and cons. If you want to do your own sculpt, almost any sculpting material will do (oil clay, Magic Sculpt, Sculpey, Milliput, etc.) - you just need to find ones that you are comfortable with.

When I sculpt, I usually free-form the basic shape. I like working in the 1/8-scale range. So, while working in the car, I imagined what 1/8-size would be. For this sculpt, it turned out that the foil armature was more like 1/9- or 1/10-scale (in the 4th pic, the body seems too small for the rough shape of the head). So, when I got home, I started to add putty to the outside of the frame to get it closer to 1/8-scale.

Apoxie putty hardens to a semi-gloss finish, and new putty does not stick well to already-hardened surface. As you can see in the 5th picture, I roughened up the surface with medium-grit (~150 grit) sandpaper before adding on more layers of putty.

I use the layering method to gradually build up the body shape and muscles. This method allows me to come back with fresh eyes and refine accordingly.