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Arts, crafts and decorating advice are off-topic as they have little in common with the other home improvement tasks discussed here.
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Someone in my family wishes to make a custom dress form out of chicken wire as described here and as shown in the picture:
(Reasons for choosing the chicken wire approach: Reviews indicate that the commercial Dritz dress form and similar products don't adapt well to posture eccentricity, e.g. kyphosis due to osteoporosis. Chicken wire is moldable. Note, we have rejected other DIY approaches such as duct tape, paper tape, padding and plaster so let's not rehash those decisions here.)
Question: Is there another type of moldable wire mesh that might work even better?
Bonus question: the creator of the chicken wire approach finished up by wrapping the whole thing with a single layer of duct tape. As a final step, is there something that can be painted or sprayed over the whole thing to give it more rigidity?
Pretend the tag is "wire" -- it keeps converting to "wiring" -- sorry.
I've seen many sculpting tutorials and recordings of works where the artist uses aluminum wire for the armature, with aluminum foil used where bulk is needed for the form.
However, as a beginner, aluminum wire is too expensive for me to essentially waste on practice projects. I've tried steel wire, but the thicker gauges are practically unworkable. Almost every hobby and craft store I've been to only sells aluminum wire in the floral section, at very high prices per foot, and online stores sell much more than I need.
Is there a cheaper alternative aluminum? It doesn't need to be as flexible, but sturdy enough to hold the clay and be safe in the oven.