emuse: The Clangers in Clay: Tiny Clanger

Last week I started my series on how to make a Clangers scene from polymer clay, by showing you how to make the Clangers' planet.

Over the course of July I'm showing you all the techniques I used to make my Clangers scene. Please remember that this is an ornament for nostalgic adults or older children - it's not a toy as it has many small and breakable parts. If you did want to make it for a young child's room, I'd recommend gluing the pieces together and mounting the scene in a box frame which could hang on the wall.

Here's a little video showing the completed scene:

The new series of the Clangers is a big hit with young and old here in the UK, and I was really glad to hear that those of you in the US are able to watch it too, with narration by William Shatner - otherwise you'd have been looking at these posts and wondering what Clangers are!

So, today we make the most important element of our scene - a Clanger! And of course I had to choose my favourite, Tiny Clanger! But the same technique could be used for any member of the Clanger family. I'm not going to lie to you, this is a really fiddly and challenging project, but I hope you'll give it a try and let me see how you get on!

You'll need:

Polymer clay (e.g. Fimo or Sculpey) in various shades of pink, black, yellow, orange, brown and grey
A gold marker pen
A pin or other sharp object
Liquid polymer clay (this acts like a glue for sticking clay together)
Varnish
Craft knife

1. Mix together different shades of pink clay until you get a good match for the colour of the Clangers. I used mainly Rose Quartz Fimo, which has a slight fleck to it that I liked, with a little Raspberry and Rosewood Fimo mixed in.

2. Separate the clay into different balls for the body, arms/legs and ears. Just make them roughly the size, they can be adjusted as you go along by pinching bits off or adding pieces.

3. Roll the body into a large fat sausage shape, make one end thinner and pointed, and bend it over.

4. Roll the arm/leg pieces into sausage shapes and cut.

5. Roll the ear pieces into balls, flatten them and pinch one end.

6. Roll two small balls of a lighter pink, and flatten these onto the ear pieces.

7. Flatten the end of the arm pieces to make hand shapes. Cut tiny slits to form the fingers.

8. Continue shaping the body, making the snout more pronounced in shape. Add a small dot of grey clay to the end.

9. Stick the arms and legs to the body - a little liquid clay will help with this. I was worried at this point that she looked like a penguin!

10. Roll two tiny balls of black clay and add these as eyes.

11. Roll out a small piece of black clay thinly. Cut wedge shapes and stick these to the legs with liquid clay.

12. Bake according to the manufacturer's instructions and allow to cool.

That's the body of Tiny Clanger made, and now we will continue with her clothing and hair!

1. Flatten a tiny piece of yellow clay into a rectangle. Cut slits in one side of this, and place it on Tiny Clanger's head (use a dab of liquid clay).

2. Roll a long and very thin sausage of orange clay. Flatten this, then fold it into a bow shape and place on top of Tiny Clanger's hair.

3. Make some small balls of bright pink clay. Flatten these into various different shapes, and apply to Tiny Clanger's body with a dab of liquid clay.

4. Make an extremely thin snake of brown clay. Cut it into tiny segments and place them on Tiny Clanger's armour. Use a pin to poke each end of the brown clay.

5. Bake!

6. When she has cooled, add a tiny dab of glossy varnish to each of Tiny Clanger's eyes, and decorate her armour using a gold marker pen.