I am needing help getting started in learning how to do polymer clay characters. My books do not explain in detail as to what type or gauge wire to use for armatures. Any help would be greatly appreciated and if anyone knows of helpful links that would be great too.
TIA,
Elaine

Just about everything you ever wanted to know about polymer clay can be found here.

http://www.glassattic.com/

Hi,

Aforementioned glassattic.com here

The pages you want at my polymer clay "encyclopedia" for armatures under figures would be mostly these:

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/sculpture.htm
(...click on the Websites category at the bottom of the category list, then scroll down through the first 20 or so of the "lesson" links under that)

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/armatures-perm.htm
(...click on Wire & Other Materials...)

I'm assuming that since you're talking about using wire armatures, you're mostly doing more-slender or taller figures, rather than the smaller and simpler often-chunky characters that are often made with polymer clay (usually those need no wire armatures underneath, except sometimes to attach a head to body or something else where there isn't much area of contact and the are will be relatively thin --bits of toothpick and other things and/or adhesives can be used instead in many of those cases).

If you are making those simpler less-realistic-body figures though, you'll also want to click on the Whimsical category under Websites from the first link I gave above for lessons and examples of those (for those, sometimes a permanent armature is used to save clay or give a certain shape too but is more likely to be a ball of aluminum foil, etc., than wire).

And these pages too perhaps:

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/kids_beginners.htm
(...click on Sculpting...)

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/heads_masks.htm

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/sculpting_body_and_tools.htm

http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/miniatures.htm

And the page on using wire in generalwith polymer clay:
http://www.glassattic.com/polymer/wire.htm

HTH,

Diane B.