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Lifelike woman figurine from Cernit's Living Doll polymer clay

More of my sculptures in sculpting section

My first ever polymer clay woman figure has been featured here.

This one was my second, but the first one created from the Cernit's 'Doll Collection' clay. I really preferred this one, it has some sort of porcelain feel to it, and you can just see how it looks more realistic.

Now as for the experience of working with the two brands of polymer clay(Sculpey and Cernit). My hands are rather cold all the time and they never sweat (perhaps i have poor blood circulation there) so when I say that Sculpey's 'Living Doll' was too soft and almost melting in my hands it's probably indeed that clay's quality and not that my palms are too hot. This 'Doll Collection' clay was keeping shape much better and was easier to work with. For example, when you're sculpting a leg it's better when it doesn't stretch under it's own weight and flap sideways - that wasn't happening with Cernit, so I felt more in control.

That's just my own preference though, by all means try both, maybe barring long legs and arms Sculpey's clay could actually be pretty great as well. Laughing

Oh and Cernit's downside was that it was much harder to blend away the seams: you can see I gave up on the arms/shoulders area. You prbably could fix that by heating up the connecting spots beforehand, because once they cool down it's almost impossible to make much difference.

Couple of words about the concept. It's not. Not a concept I was aiming at because I wasn't aiming at any, I was just continuing to learn to sculpt))) The reason it has a chain on the neck going back to her feet is an accident. When I was baking her in the oven, her feet fell off. Damn, sounds like a line from some horror movie, doesn't it? Well, it also looks scary on pictures, observe:

body in the oven baking figurine oven


And why did her feet crack and fell off? because I was careless enough not to put wires into them. The clay appeared so firm that I - being my lazy, risky self, - decided not to bother. Well, later, I've decided to conceal the crack with this chain thing.

This time I've worked on realistic hands with fingers. I got this new set of tools that proved helpful in shaping body details - clay shapers (aka color shapers). I used them to blend the seams particularly in the eyelids, near the nose, to shape hands and finger details.

painting hair dollAnd finally, months later I've decided to add some more color to this lady. So I applied some "eye-shadows" and dyed her hair. And all with the same pastel pencils. What do you think? Better? I certainly got tired of her 'all-naturelle' look so definitely better from my perspective. Next time I should give her a tattoo or something Wink

That same pastels have been irreplaceable for highlighting all over the figure: a bit lighter here, a bit darker there..

I know I'm not giving a step-by-step guide for creating the same figurine here, but here is a book on creating realistic figures in polymer clay. I don't own it, I prefer to study on my mistakes, but if you want a handbook that one looks good.


Questions, comments, suggestions?