Polymer Clay Eye Test Piece

I thought I'd better test bake a couple of the eyes I've been working on to see how well they make out in the oven. I've had terrible experiences when I've not done tests with pieces being ruined with oven heat, either melting or yellowing.

Here is the test for the polymer clay eye I did with Genesis paint. Keep in mind that the over all sculpted piece is no more than two cm wide, the eyes themselves are a half to three quarters of a cm . Also keep in mind that this is a rough test, there are fibers from my sweater and fingerprints in my work and they're staying there. I will take great care in the finished work but with tests I don't like to waste the time.

I started by filling the indent of this pretty metal finding with Fimo soft and smoothing it over by rubbing gently with my fingertips.
I got the metal finding from
Snapcrafty

I used a pencil end to create an indent that was roughly the same size as an eye ball.

I added the eye ball.

Added a worm of clay for the top eyelid.

and another worm for the bottom eyelid.

I used a knitting needle to smooth out the join lines in the clay and start to sculpt out the shapes I want.

I used a small flat soft paintbrush to smooth out the whole thing so there were less tool marks and fingerprints. Then I baked it at 250 for ten minutes.

Here I've added some blush to the brow ridge and the cheek area using genesis heat set oil paint. The eye has made it through one oven test and come through with flying colours, there isn't any yellowing or melting. I baked it again for five minutes to set the blush.

Here is the painted piece. I'm pretty impressed with this technique for eye making. I can go back now and make more eyes with greater detail.

I cut out a piece of black felt the same size as the back of the piece and sewed some lace to the edge of it.

Then I glued the metal finding to the felt.

I added some beads and a bow.

and I tried out some options for wearing the piece.

This is what we went with.
Maggs has taken ownership of this one.