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Xenia Emelyanov makes wonderful polymer clay jewelry. She generously shares her instructions with her followers. Here is a DIY instruction on how to make a cute fox key chain pendant. Here you can find her other guest DIY blog post.
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This DIY is for those who have some sculpting skills already as it might be a bit too challenging for the beginners.
It took me six hours to accomplish this fox pendant.
You will need:
Polymer Clay, Fimo gel.
A baking tray.
An x-acto knife.
Carvers.
Metal findings.
A rolling pin.
Lacquer.
An oven for baking.
Start with kneading a piece of polymer clay of the preferred color, then roll it. You will need to to achieve the thickness of the layer that is about 4 mm. It needs to be big enough for you to cut out the whole fox shape out of it.
The size of the entire body depends on the size of the eyes.
Outline the fox shape:
Use your x-acto knife to cut it out. Cut out the tail separately since we want it to hang.
Start with giving some volume to the fox's face. Add a piece of clay on to the head and smooth out the edges. Do the same for the tum and the tail. At this stage I've realized that the tail was going to be too small so I made a bigger one. The tail needs a pin, so let's add it now too.
Make the eye sockets. Inserts the eyes. Use a needle if you need to move them. Make sure that the eyes are leveled. Make thin clay rolls for the eyelids and cover any hollow spaces around the eyes.
Start sculpting the beige part of the face. Look at the forth picture below. The orange fur will be covering the edge of the beige fur. Carefully smooth out all newly added clay.
Attach a black nose, make small nostrils and a line in the middle, Then form an open mouth with a ball-point carver. Fill the mouth with the black clay, add a small red tongue and the white teeth (glue them with the gel Fimo). Make the brows by attaching little white circles.
Fill the ears with the beige clay, then make the edges of the ears by attaching brown clay. I also made a small beige roll for the inside of the ears (enlarge the picture to see it):
Make a beige tum. Then start carving the fur. Try to follow a natural pattern just like the real fur grows on a real fox. The hairs are thinner on the face and thicker on the fox's body.
Make a beige tail end. Cover the tail with the "fur". Then make the bottom paws and cover them with the "fur" also. Add the gel Fimo on the ends of the paws and attach the brown feet. Now you can bake the fox for the first time.
FYI, you can bake your fox more often. I like baking my work as little as possible to save time. So I would wait till this point with the baking. However, you may bake your work earlier too.
After you've baked your work you can start attaching the back of the fox's head, the ears and the tail.
Use the gel Fimo to glue them on. Smooth everything out.
Now you can draw the fur. Make sure that all the seals is covered.
Add the volume to the back. Attach tree pins at this stage (two for the fronts paws and one for the tail to hang from).
Draw the fur, then bake the fox and wait until it is cooled down completely.
You can try and see how the tail looks like:
Bend the fox's paws backwards (they will be holding a jumping over it's head). Cover them with the clay, form the fingers with the brown clay. Draw the fur. Then you can bake your fox again.
Make sure your fox has cooled down well, then you can attach it to your key chain. Cover its eyes, nose and mouth with the lacquer.
You are finished!
Xenia Emelyanov
Online shop (Russian)
Youtube (Here you can watch this DIY as a slide show or a video)
