Armatures

There are several commercial makes of armatures available from craft shops such as Loc-Line and Flex Limb and I think these would be perfect for larger bears ,if you want to pose their arms, although I have no experience of using them myself.  My bears are miniatures and my preferred armatures are ones I make myself using craft wire.  I use needle nose pliers and form a loop at one end and then measure out enough wire to fit inside the arm with a little to spare.  I then make another loop in the other end of the wire.  If my bear is to be pin jointed, I insert the wire armature into the arm, thread a cotter pin through the loop in the wire and then through a disk and finally through the fabric at the jointing position.  I then stuff the arm carefully making sure that the wire armature is surrounded by stuffing material and cannot be felt though the fabric.  If my bear is to be thread jointed I insert the wire armature into the arm and stuff as above.