I've posted an animated .gif on my blog. (one of these days I'll get the cameras setup and studio fit for a bit of youtube tutorials, one of these days. lolz) I offer up a bit of insight as to how I walk through wiring.

http://smallthingsclay.blogspot.com/2011/08/fashioning-wire-skeleton.html

I've worked out a non conventional organic way of creating the infrastructure to my pieces. I use jewelry wire of all gauges from heavy to light starting at the heavy for the "spine" and up to the thin for finer detailed body parts. In the end my goal is to have 100% of the creature accounted for with some wire of sorts. In the end I've found what I'm really doing is sketching in wire. As always I then apply layering of aluminum foil for volume and shape, again sketching and finding the essence of the piece. I used to draw sketches of my work before beginning, but I found I never really ended up anywhere near the drawn idea, so I work it all out structurally.

Another nice element is with a finer detailed and wired skeleton I can literally pose my creature in it's first clay application stages. A little twist, tug or bend of the underlying wires and I've completely changed it without the nightmare of removing or adding alot of polymer clay. It's very reminiscent of working in 3D software and then applying the texture maps. I've brought a lot of habits from the 3D software world into my real 3D sculpting.
I'll be adding frames to this particular animated .gif on my blog as I add clay and build up Butters. I'll finally add a photo to the post on my blog of the final piece painted and ready for the store.

It's the little things.
Kathy

http://smallthingsclay.blogspot.com
http://www.wix.com/kath42/smallthingsclay
http://www.etsy.com/shop/smallthingsclay