Polymer clay dolls. A quick tutorial for sculpting polymer clay dolls.
Dolls, like any other polymer clay figurines, are molded on a wireframe, which is wrapped in foil for baking. For making dolls, most craftsmen use baked polymer clay. Since it is strong enough, very small parts can be easily made from it. The manufacturer of the clay is not important, the main thing is that it was intended for sculpting dolls, all manufacturers write this on the clay packaging. There is also a very good self-drying clay in the air, for sculpting dolls.
For making the head we form a round ball from foil. It will be the basis for our face and head as a whole, you can see it in photo 1.
The wireframe is fixed on a stand that is not afraid of baking, as you can see in the photo. Then the wireframe is rolled with polymer clay. The body of the doll is sculpted, as shown in photo 2.
Many craftsmen sculpt clothes for their dolls. Everyone does it differently. They can do it using the same color of polymer clay, from which the doll itself was molded, as is visible in photo 3. After that our doll is painted, eyes are drawn using acrylic paints. Some craftsmen work with multi-colored polymer clay, and the doll is molded in flesh color. And the clothes are painted immediately in the color they want. This is shown in our photo tutorials, for example, about sculpting a Teddy bear figurine. Dolls and animal figurines are very similar in molding technology.
Many craftsmen sculpt dolls without clothes, and then sew them clothes from silk and other materials, as shown below. This doll and gnome are in clothes sewed by a master:
The polymer clay idea is a very beautiful doll in a ball gown. Made entirely manually.
The cute gnome figurine is made of baked polymer clay.
In this article, you have seen a very short introductory tutorial. So that you have a general idea of doll sculpting. A more detailed lesson will be posted on our site on the same page in the continuation of the article a bit later.