Polymer clay has long been regarded by the public at large as a great medium for a kid’s craft. That’s right, when you think of Fimo and Sculpey you may very well be thinking about summer camps and school projects…unless you’ve discovered what a growing number of artists are finding out about this amazing medium. Polymer clay can be made to look like anything from stone to wood to glass and even make some very convincing skin and clothes; with the right techniques, the possibilities are absolutely endless.
I am one of those people who was convinced that I had no artistic talent whatsoever…based on the fact that I can not draw or paint. I’ve used polymer clay for years to make beads for my various beading projects but never seriously considered it for anything else…until now. I guess sometimes all it takes is finally sitting down and sculpting something to find out you really can do it, and sometimes it takes some expert guidance on how to make the very best sculpture possible, and that’s where Katherine Dewey’s Creating Life-Like Figures in Polymer Clay: A Step-by-Step Guide comes in.
Katherine Dewey starts us off with step-by-step instructions of how to build the human form along with detailed instructions and illustrations on how to achieve the proper scale and proportion. Throughout the building of the basic figure Dewey has some very helpful tips for forming people of different ages, fitness levels and ethnic backgrounds and ways to achieve the most realistic poses for your creation.
Think you need to buy glass eyes and fake doll hair to make it realistic? Think again. A couple of the most valuable bits of information I gleaned from this book were how to make very realistic and expressive eyes using only clay and paint and there’s a wonderful technique for making hair out of sisal cord…including tips on dying it to get the perfect hair color.
Clothes…how do you achieve a perfect cloth look in clay? That’s in this book too…tips and tricks for producing perfectly textured clay “cloth” with trim and depth of color. Detailed instructions are included for various types of sleeves and the like that are useful for period clothes and the techniques of which can be used to make all manner of modern clothing as well.
About the only problem with this book is the price…it’s out of print now and still in high demand for all the great information it has so you can find it on Amazon Marketplace or the like for around $100. But wait! While it is worth that amount of money for all the awesome information it has, most of us artist types just don’t have that kind of money to spare – there’s good news! Just recently a book was released by Katherine Dewey entitled Creating Lifelike Figures in Polymer Clay: Tools and Techniques for Sculpting Realistic Figures that is the exact same thing except for a different cover and available for around $15, so unless you’re a collector it’s the way to go.
I’d been looking at this book on Amazon for a long time but was never able to afford it, then wouldn’t you know as soon as the newer one was released so I could get the same thing within my budget, my Granny called me up with a list of books she no longer uses since she has no time for clay anymore and this one was among them. I’d have to say that of my entire collection of clay books this is by far the most valuable and the most often referenced. The clear instructions, detailed illustrations and great color photos make this book exceedingly easy to follow so even supposedly artistically-challenged folks like myself can create gorgeous people that often sell for far more than even the out-of-print book costs.
Since receiving this book I’ve also acquired Katherine Dewey’s Creating Life-Like Animals in Polymer Clay and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is very little this woman can not do and whatever she can do she’s capable of teaching very well through books. If you’d like to learn to make realistic clay people – note, that’s if you want to not if you think you can – then this is a necessity for your collection.
