Sculpt Using Polymer Clay
Template:CopyeditbotPolymer clays are great for casual and professional sculptor alike—you don't need to worry about keeping them moist while you are sculpting, or that it will explode while being baked! They keep a long time, and you can bake them in your own oven! We'll show you a few tips on how to make the most of these clays. Read on!
Contents
Steps
Small Projects
- Make something fun. You can make some really fantastic sculptures using polymer clay, but if you're just getting started, have some fun with simple shapes and easy projects. That way, you'll get familiar with how the clay feels, how to work it, and how to bake it.
- Make a frog. For example, a simple, smiling frog takes just a few little pieces of clay, and will be a toy might have in your keepsake box years and years from now!
- Take a piece of green clay that will fit in your closed fist. Shape it like a football, flatten it out, and then curl up the ends, like cheeks.
- Roll out a thin strip of red clay, like a little red worm. Wet the bottom of the strip, and press it into place as the mouth.
- Roll two bits of white clay into balls. Flatten them down, and use them for eyeballs.
- Add two smaller dots of blue clay into the center of the eyeballs.
- Bake it in the oven as directed by the manufacturer of the clay. Presto, you have a happy frog!
- Make a bowl.
- Start with a round piece of plain, uncolored clay about three or four inches around—about the size of a Magic 8 Ball.
- Use a wire or clay knife to cut off the top part. Set it aside for later. You should now have a little round sphere with a flat top.
- Using your thumbs, make a dent in the clay, and working around the inside of the bowl and pressing towards the outside, work the clay to hollow out the bowl.
- Keep working around and around, till the bowl is nice and deep, and the sides are about 1/4-inch thick near the top, and about 1/2-inch thick at the bottom.
- Work the top part that you cut off earlier so that it will rest on top of the bowl like a lid.
- Decorate your pot with paint, then bake it in the oven till done.
- Try something more adventurous. Once you're used to working with clay, you can try something a little more artistic or adventurous, like the cat pictured below.
- Roll out one ball of clay about the size of your fist. Flatten it out so that it's about 1/2-inch thick. Use a toothpick to rough it up a little, and give it some texture.
- Roll out another ball of clay, a little smaller, and set it towards the back of the first, flattened lump of clay. This will be the body and butt of the cat.
- Roll a third piece of clay, smaller than the cat butt. Put that in the front—that's the cat head.
- Using smaller pieces of clay, make little ears, legs, and tail. Wet them, press them onto the clay, and smooth into the original parts.
- Use a toothpick to draw little lines for whiskers and mouth, and use a fork to rough up the rest of the body so that it looks like fur.
- Add finishing touches like the fish bones, if you like.
- Bake in the oven, and when done, you have a pet cat you never have to feed!
Big Projects
- Conceptualize and size up your project. You may want to make a few sketches to work out proportions.
- Make a wire skeleton for your sculpture. This will provide support for the clay and allow it to be a bendable, poseable armature.
- Double-twist wire in any weight-bearing limbs. It is also a good idea to leave loops of wire on the ends of weight-bearing limbs. For example, a U shape at the end of a foot will hold weight better than the sharp point of cut wire.
- Try to use as few pieces of wire as possible to keep it sturdy. Major areas to be bulked out, such as the rib cage, may require loops of wire to later fill with tinfoil.
- You will also want to put wire in any thin bits that will be standing on their own, such as long ears. For fingers, you can probably get away with just using tinfoil for support.
- Bulk out with tinfoil. Once you are happy with the proportions of your skeleton, start bulking things out by crinkling tinfoil over the wire.
- When applied in large wrinkled sheets it sticks quite well, and provides a textured surface that the clay can really hold onto.
- Think about mass and musculature- you can use tinfoil both to provide a surface for clay to stick to, and also to keep your project as light as possible by filling bulky areas with tinfoil.
- After this step, your sculpture should be beginning to take shape, but just require more definition.
- Apply an initial coating of polymer clay. Breaking off chunks and working the clay between your fingers until you can press it into about ¼ thick sheets, which you press onto the tinfoil and smooth together.
- Continue until all the surfaces that need to be covered with clay, are. If the clay seems hard, don't worry, it will loosen up with the heat of your hands. If you are having a lot of trouble just start with smaller pieces.
- Feel free to keep it simple at this stage, such as leaving a nub of clay on the face for a nose, or a clump on the arm to remind yourself to add more bicep.
- Refine your sculpture. After the armature is covered with a rudimentary layer of polymer clay, go back into areas that seem to need more detail and refine them.
- Add muscle, remove excess clay, smooth lumps and shape the figure into what you envision.
- Take breaks to look at the sculpture from several angles until it looks correct from all sides.
- Optional: attach to base. Usually in the above steps, it is a good idea to have the sculpture unattached to any base, to permit easy turning in your hands, good anchorage points for smoothing, access those hard-to-reach places, etc.
- You will get to a point in refinement that the pressure of holding it in your hands is squishing detail. At this point it is time to put it down. If it is not a sitting or self-supporting figure you will want to staple it to a wood base. This can be later be sculpted over to make it a setting.
- Finalize your work. Once your sculpture is sitting in its final position, get out your sculpting tools and go detail crazy! Smooth out the skin, make facial features, skin creases, wrinkles, fingernails, scales, hair, fabric folds; all of the wonderful textures that make a sculpture look really impressive.
- Take your time and enjoy yourself; the clay won't dry out.
- Fire up your oven. Once you are happy with your sculpture's shape and detail, preheat your oven to 275° F (135°C).
- Place the sculpture on a baking sheet, and bake for 15-25 minutes. You should take it out when it looks darker in the thinner parts, but before those thinner parts turn dark brown.
- When you first remove it you may notice it is not totally hard. Don't worry—it will set after it has cooled.
- That's it! 20+ hours of work and it is all hardened in 15min.
- After-treatments. There are many wonderful things that you can do with your sculpture after you bake it.
- If you left something out you can sculpt something on and bake it again, or bake it separately and glue it on.
- Paint it using oils or acrylics. For best results, use acrylics applied in many thin washes. You can also glue on hair, feathers, fur, jewels or fabric. Be creative!
Examples
- Check out these examples. Here are some excellent, time-intensive and professional sculptures made of polymer clay:
Tips
- Although the most common type of polymer clay is “Sculpey,” which come in a variety of colors and is often used for beads or children's projects, there are also harder polymer clays which retain amazing amounts of detail and provide a base color for painting. “Super Sculpey” is easier to smooth and shape than the firmer “Fimo,” comes in a bigger package, and provides a semi-translucent, flesh-like color. These clays are often used by professional model makers in character design for movies, video games, and action figures.
- Notes: Although this tutorial is written in a numbered format, you do not have to complete the steps all at once! The polymer clay will stay workable for months if you store it out of the sun, so feel free to take creative breaks!
Warnings
- Since you are using an oven, practice your normal oven safety, such as using mitts when taking the tray into and out of the oven
Things You'll Need
- Super Sculpey (amount needed depends on size of project- for anything under 8in one box should be sufficient)
- 14 and 16 gauge copper or steel wire, (copper is more malleable, steel is cheaper)
- Two pairs of needle nose pliers
- A wire cutter
- Tinfoil
- A small wooden shaping tool, (I own 6 but only ever use one!)
- Wood base and staple gun *(optional)
- Cookie baking tray
- Home oven
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