"Little skulls" - Polymer clay tutorial

Uhm.... to be honest, I forgot about this tutorial. As you may see from the hairpin with the skull... this was part of the advent calendar I made for my sister 2012 (I made advent calendars every year for family and friends). I made more little skulls and they were all used to create hairpins. Even if the quality of my pictures is not the best, I thought after I stumbled over it again, it would be nice to show you! :)

On a sidenote: When I brought them to the fair mostly men bought them... and used them as a tie pin! Have to find some blank for tie pins and made real ones ^^

I started with white polymer clay (fimo classic). I used leftovers with little dust in it so this tutorial is perfect for leftovers like this (and we all have polymer clay with dust in it, nai?)!

I rolled a ball, roughly formed it into some kind of pear and pressed it down. For this step as well as all others in this little tutorial: Dont try to make anything perfect! There is NO need for perfection! It would rather take away the organic and funny look. Also: Embrace your finger prints, they add texture ^^

I used mainly a knitting needle and a scalpel (or sharp paper knife) for the modeling. Now I would use my ball point tools but you really can use anything you find in your household. Pens, kitting needles, other end of a brush, wooden food sticks... you get the idea.

I pushed in the edges to get a more pronounced "skull" shape. Still you can see the imperfect rough edges. I then started with the eyes. Just a dot in the middle and then I pushed the holes bigger (circulating the knitting needle gently inside). I like the big eyes! 

A simple heart shape for the nose (or rather the missing nose... ugh...!). I gently pressed don the lover area for the teeth and then simply pressed lines down.

You have your skull!

For variations: Cut out a single teeth... make different eye shapes...

...make them angry or worried... a bigger rounder head is also cute as is my favorite: Different eye sizes!

Also nice is to create the teeth by just cutting with the scalpel one horizontal line and then several vertical ones. This has the look of a skull with the lower jar still attached.

Last step: Paint everything with black acrylic paint (I used Reeves) and wipe it away while still wet. Then just sand the surface of the skull to enhance the white there! That was it, easy as easy can be ;)

Of course you could also add some colourful flowers to get a more mexican style. Use brown or grey insteadt of black to create a softer, not so comiclike effect...

from the advent calendar