Making Eyes

One of the most important things I learned about making polymer clay sculptures is that it's essential to pre-bake the eyeballs before adding them to the piece. Soft balls of clay are all too easily distorted when you try to push them into place, even if you make sockets for them ahead of time. Sculpting the face becomes an unnecessarily painstaking and time-consuming task.

That's why I keep dozens of eyeballs in a jar on my desk. Some people think that's creepy, but it's very handy. And eyes aren't the only things I pre-bake. For dragon sculptures, I always prepare a bunch of claws, teeth, and horns ahead of time. It makes sculpting go much faster when you have a stockpile of all the pre-baked components you need. Plus, if you accidentally drop and lose one, you'll have spares.

To bake the eyeballs, I use a baking stand made out of scrap clay. The first one I made was essentially just a flattened lump of clay pierced with several toothpicks. The toothpicks are what support the eyes while they bake.

What you'll need:

White polymer clay
Scrap polymer clay
Polymer clay measuring template (optional; you can also use a ruler or caliper instead)
Toothpicks
Black acrylic paint
Small paintbrush
Baking dish (never reuse dish for food!)

What you do:

Form little balls out of the white clay. They can be any size you like, but for cartoony sculptures that will take an entire 2 oz package of clay or more, I recommend going with around 1/4". For tiny sculptures, I go even smaller. Use a measuring tool if you need to.

Take some scrap clay (any clay you don't have plans for), roll it into a ball, then press it down on your work surface. Don't flatten it too much, because it's going to be a base for your toothpicks.

Carefully press each eyeball onto the end of a toothpick, just enough so that it stays in place. Push the other end of each toothpick into the lump of scrap clay.

Once all the toothpicks with eyeballs are set in the scrap clay base, put them all in a baking dish and bake at 275 degrees (265 degrees if you're using Fimo) for 15 to 20 minutes. Allow a few minutes for the clay to cool.

With a small paintbrush, carefully dab a small dot of black acrylic paint on each eyeball. Don't remove the eyeballs from the toothpicks; it's all too easy to drop the eyeballs or smear the paint if you're holding them between your fingers. However, it's a good idea to hold the toothpick yourself while you paint.

After the paint completely dries (usually 30 minutes to an hour), the eyeballs are ready for use. Go ahead and store what you don't plan to use immediately in a plastic bag or container.

Tips:

If you make different sized eyeballs, store them separately. It'll make life easier.

I use two additional tools when I make eyeballs: A pasta machine and a leather hole-punch. I run the white clay through the pasta machine to flatten it out to equal thickness, then I use the hole-punch on it like a cookie cutter. I pry out the little circle of clay from the hole-punch with a toothpick, then roll the clay into a ball. The advantage of this method is that I can be confident that every eyeball I make will be about the same size.