Two materials will do most of your sculpting this term: wire and clay. They feel opposite — one a single springy line, the other a soft heavy lump — but the thinking behind both is the same. Here are the four ideas that make a form possible.
The Armature: the Skeleton Nobody Sees
Clay is heavy and wet, and left to itself it sags. So before you add a scrap of it, you build an armature — a hidden skeleton, usually wire or wood, that holds the form up from the inside. You never see it in the finished piece, but it's the reason a clay arm can reach out instead of drooping to the table. Wire sculpture is sneaky here: often the wire is both the skeleton and the skin at once. Either way, the rule holds — decide what's holding the weight before you worry about the surface.
Adding Versus Taking Away
There are only two ways to arrive at a form. Additive building means you add material — pressing on lumps of clay, coiling more wire — growing the shape outward bit by bit, and you can always change your mind and add more. Subtractive carving is the opposite: you start with a solid block (stone, wood, soap) and take material away to release the shape hidden inside, and once it's gone, it's gone.
Form Versus Gesture
Here's the secret that separates a lifeless lump from a sculpture that feels alive. The form is the overall solid shape — the volume, the mass, the limbs. Gesture is the line of action or energy running through the whole thing: the way a figure leans, twists, reaches or coils. A sculpture can have perfect form and still be dead on its feet if it has no gesture — it just stands there. Strong gesture is what makes a wire creature look mid-pounce even though it's only a bent line.
In the toy, that's exactly what the readout is watching: a line that flows and curves has gesture; a line that's gone straight, stiff and symmetrical has lost it. Drag the points until the wire reads as a creature caught in motion, not a coat-hanger.