Polymer Clay Character
Sculptures

Students will create a character using wire armature, wood base and bake-able modeling clay. 

Overview 

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Wire Armature & Base
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Pose & Add Bulk with Foil
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Cover the foil with clay
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You can either use colored clay to add details or paint it all at the end
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Add details

Technical Skills Videos

Tips for drawing your character design
Sculpting tips for working with polymer clay

Order of Work

Research & Design
  • Research characters that appeal to you
  • Watch the video : Character Appeal in the technical skills videos list
  • Plan out what you want to make - consider exaggerating features to make it easier to communicate the personality of your character
  • Watch some more of the technical skill videos based on the complexity of your design ambitions, they give great sculpting tips and ideas
Making the Armature
  • Use a wood base, armature wire, and foil to make the skeleton of your character
  • Consider posing your character in the middle of an action, rather than standing still
  • You can either make the wire permanently attached to the wood base or removable
  • Add foil to the parts that need to be bulked up, but not too much - think about the bones and muscles, leaving room for the clay skin
Sculpting the Body
  • Use sculpey polymer clay to cover the foil and create the body, limbs, and head
  • Optional: mid-sculpt baking to set parts you really love can be a good idea - it is definitely a good idea if you have already added clay that is more than 3/4 of an inch thick anywhere - Getting the new clay to stick to the baked clay can be annoying if you made a completely smooth surface in the areas you want the new stuff to stick to. You can use an adhesive or liquid polymer to get the new clay to stick. It usually sticks to rough baked clay just fine.
  • Add details, clothing, accessories, textures and more (using colored clay - or you can paint it later)
Documenting Your Character
  • Take a photo of your character from 3/4 front view inside the photo cube
  • Make a looping GIF of your character rotating very slowly in even increments inside the photo cube
  • Fill out the reflection
  • Send either the GIF or your photo in an email to an important adult

Character Inspiration

Drawing with Personality
Make sure your character has a strong personality.

Looking at your character, we should know how your character is feeling. Big emotions are great ideas! Facial expressions help, but so does body language. Posing your character and exaggerating body parts that help sell your personality traits are great ways to improve the appeal and specificity of your character.

Without those things, you'll need to add a bunch more texture and accessories to create the same amount of personality and visual appeal.
Consider:
•  POSE & BODY LANGUAGE
•  EXPRESSION
•  EXAGGERATION

Wire Armature & Wood Base

WIRE ARMATURE - make a skeleton for your character
•  Use armature wire to make the limbs and spine for your character

DRILL HOLES  in the wood base for wires that touch the ground (limbs that touch the floor and hold up the character need a hole in the wood)
• the feet wire can go straight down into solid wood and then be removed and taken off the base or skewered through and bent and taped on the back of a hollow base for a more permanent base system

FOIL is used to bulk up the body in areas that will be thicker than 1/2"

Sculpting the Character

  • Cover all the foil with a thin layer of clay
  • You can add details to one small part at time and then bake each part, if you'd like - or you can cover the whole thing and then bake it at the end
  • Each area should have details, which could be textured surfaces, clothing, accessories, joints & skin, hair, etc.