question about sculpting?

[True]

Ok I am very sorry if this is in the wrong place, but I thought about it, and as it has nothing to do with a pony custom, I figured I should put it here?

My question I hope, is not too confusing.
Basically, I have a lot of experience sculpting with Sculpy/other oven bake clays. But as I don't have a oven atm, and I want it to be a bit more durable anyway, I was planning on using Aves apoxie sculpt, which I have used a few times so far with great success (I love the stuff and wish I had bought some years ago!)

What I'm wondering is, How should I fill it out? Obviously I cant make solid apoxie sculpt things as that would be very expensive and probably be as heavy as a brick lol.
Iv only ever used it so far as a thin layer, so the most iv ever used inside is a wire armature.
With sculpy I used tinfoil to create a big enough mass to work ontop of.

would that same method work for this?  But also I want to avoid adding extra weight in any area that I can, so is there a better option?
The biggest piece I am making is going to roughly be 4-6inches all around (roughly) so anything that can make it light but also sturdy.. any suggestions would be great. or even if you think a better sculpting materal would be better, I just cant use oven bake (and also know how brittle they can be)

[Strawberrysweets]

I seen many use wire skeletons and fill a basic "muscle" with aluminum foil.

Wish I could get hold of apoxie without having to ship it overseas.

[Safflower]

A wire skeleton with foil around it would work

[True]

ok, i wonder if i could use fiber fill inside the foil to make it lighter or if that would make the sculpture less structurally sound? i know aves apoxie is pretty sturdy, but iv never done anything with it on a larger scale, and i know when things go bigger, they tend to get fragile

[Griffin]

Yes tinfoil works very well with Apoxie! If the figure is just going to sit on the table and not go into oven at any part of the process, I believe you can put basically anything inside. Fibre fill would probably work with smaller sculptures but I'm not sure if that would be sturdy enough for a larger project. I've also previously used paper - it's very versatile and strong! I've used paper to make lightweight "armatures" for skirts on custom ponies, and I've made armatures for wings by gluing newspaper strips on a wire frame. My favourite thing about paper is that it's pliable when wet but very strong when dry! I think you could even crumple some paper, just like tinfoil, and use that as a skeleton. Good luck!

Wish I could get hold of apoxie without having to ship it overseas.

Perhaps you could ask your local craft store if it would be possible for them to order it? I found a taxidermy online shop which sells Apoxie in my country, that's where I've ordered mine from.

[True]

ooh! Thanks Griffin! That sounds much better than fiberfill, I'm definitely going to try that!