After spending alot of time and effort making a rear nice ball and socket armature for the fox, I decided to abandon it and go with a simple wire frame armature instead.
The reasoning behind this was due to having real difficulties with the joints once heated (like they would be in the mould with foam latex). After a few test of heating the armature for a few hours at 80oC, the same temperature it would be subject to during the foam latex process, some of the joints would stiffen up, while others would loosen. This would result in me having to cut the seams and fiddle with all the joints, which I really didn't want to have to do as it would me alot of work to get foam latex to look neat again.
To make the armature, I used aluminium wire, using two slight different combinations of thickness for different parts of the armature.
For the spine of the armature I used 5 lengths of 2mm thick wire, twisted together tightly, for the legs I used a combination of 2 strands of 1mm thick wire and 4 strands of 2mm thick wire. This combination would ensure that the legs would be strong enough to take the armature weight, longer lasting and easy to bend.
To make the spine strong, but also easy to bend I doubled up the lengths of 5 stand wire, to essentially give a double spine. This would limit the side to side movement of the fox a little, but would ensure it was strong, yet easy to bend for lateral movements.
I joined the legs to the spine using wraps of 1mm wire, finishing it off with some 5min epoxy which should permanently hold it together.
So I could attach the tail at a later date I fixed a small section of KNS brass tubing, that way I could make the tail separately and simple attach it by pushing it into the KNS.
This was the very basic armature built, not to move onto the head and sorting out a way of allowing the fox to be held to the animation base by magnets.
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