Miniature Egg and Soldiers Tutorial

If you enjoyed my miniature liquorice tutorial using polymer clay, hopefully you'll enjoy this one too. It's slightly more advanced, requiring more specialised supplies like chalk pastels and oil paint, but it's a fun, little project that yields realistic results for your doll house. As usual, these doll house miniature projects are not intended for young children!

1/12th Egg and Soldier Tutorial

Here is the tutorial I made a while ago showing how to make 1/12th scale egg and soldiers.

You will need: White polymer clay Transparent polymer clay Medium brown polymer clay Liquid polymer clay Chalk pastels in ochre tones Sharp blade Pin Soft bristled brush Ceramic tile to work on Yellow/orange oil paint Sandpaper Ceramic 12th scale egg cup and saucer Gloss varnish Matt varnish You may need superglue.

1.       Before you begin, you need to ensure your work area and hands are clean, because unbaked polymer clay is a fluff magnet. I like to work on a large, blank ceramic tile, as this can go straight in the oven when it is time to bake the clay, without having to move your work and risk unwanted fingerprints. It helps to use a white tile, as fluff shows up better on it.

2.       Let’s begin with the eggs. Condition some white clay by rolling it in your hands until it is easily malleable. Unconditioned clay can crumble, and make it harder to work with later on. Roll your white clay into a sausage about 0.5cm in diameter, and then cut into sections about 0.5cm long. Roll each section into an egg shape, by applying more pressure at one end than the other. Once you get the hang of it, it’s satisfyingly quick and easy! Don’t worry if there are little bits of fluff on your egg’s surface, the next step will cover up all but the largest imperfections.

3.       Using your blade, scrape a small amount of your chalk pastels to form dust. I use a mostly ochre and a little bit of reddish brown, but it really depends how light or dark you want your eggs to be. I wouldn’t recommend making it too light, or it will be difficult to see the contrast of the shell against egg white later on. Brush your egg gently with your soft bristled brush until you’re happy with its appearance. 

4.       Place your egg in the ceramic egg cup, as this will hold it in place and let you see how it’ll look in the end. With your blade (which you’ve carefully wiped clean of pastel dust of course), roughly cut off the top of your egg, so that the white is showing. It looks better if it is several small cuts rather than just one sweep, as egg shells never crack uniformly. Using your pin head, create a small dimple of a well in the eggwhite place, this is where your yolk will go.

5.       To make the egg yolk, pour a very small amount of liquid polymer clay on to your work tile. Next to it, mix up some yellow and orange oil paint until you get a yolk colour. This only needs to be literally a couple of drops’ worth. Mix this yolk coloured oil paint in with your liquid polymer clay, being careful not to add too much. If your liquid polymer clay covers a penny, you only need a ball bearing of paint to tint it.

6.       Using your pin, carefully add the yolk one drip at a time. You won’t need much! Put your egg to one side, it’s finished for now. 

7.       To make the toast, condition all your clay first, then mix 2/3 white polymer clay with 1/3 translucent polymer clay. Add the medium brown polymer clay a pinch at a time until you’re happy with the colour you’ve achieved. I always add the darkest colour only a little at a time, as you can’t take it out once it’s in and it nearly always changes the tone more than I imagined it would. The finished bread mix should look like untoasted bread.

8.       Using your fingers shape your bread mix into a long square sausage. It doesn’t matter how long it is, but the height and width should be approximately 1x1cm. The corners should remain rounded, so use your fingers, rather than a blade.


9.       Using your blade, scrape yet more of your chalk pastels to form dust, but this time it needs to be darker as this will give you your crust colour. I use dark brown and a little reddish brown. Apply with your soft bristled brush.

10.   Slice the bread using your clean blade into thin slices of no more than 1mm thick and lay all the slices flat. Don’t worry about the end slices, no-one likes the end slices!

11.   Lay all your slices flat. Now you need to add some texture and there are two ways of doing this. The easy way is to press sandpaper on the polymer clay. The long (but better) way is to use a pin to individually scratch out every single little piece of texture. I like to combine these techniques to get a good effect without losing my mind.

12.   Press a small piece of sandpaper on to each individual slice. Don’t press too hard or it will lose its shape, but you need to press hard enough that it leaves the texture behind.


13.   Then cut each slice into 4 strips to make soldiers. Using your pin, gently scratch and poke all the pale sides (not the crusts) of each soldier. Also use the pin on and sandpaper-textured parts which have been missed or look too uniform. This will take a while. 









14.   Create another pile of chalk pastel dust using your blade. This time it is to make your soldiers look toasted, so the colour depends on whether you like your soldiers hardly warmed or burnt to a crisp. I use ochre to dust the tops of the soldiers, then dark brown to highlight the edges and here and there. This dusting should really bring out the detail of the texture, so all that time spent prodding it with a pin will be worth it!

15.   Now bake all your eggs (still in the ceramic egg cups) and soldiers according to the polymer clay manufacturer’s instructions. Once done, allow to cool before handling, as the ceramic egg cups will hold on to their heat especially.

16.   To finish off the piece, add a dab of gloss varnish to the egg yolks so they really stand out. Use a thin coat of matt varnish for everything else. You shouldn’t be able to see it, but it helps to seal in all that chalk pastel dust and makes the piece more durable. Finally, you may need to glue the eggs into their egg cups, as polymer clay does not stick to shiny ceramic well. A small dab of superglue will do the job. I also used some of my leftover egg yolk mix to make orange juice as it’s the perfect colour for that. 



Miniature liquorice tutorial

A while ago I mentioned how I used to love making doll house miniature food. I made a few tutorials once upon a time. Here is the simplest one, great if you're new to playing with polymer clay. This is doll house food related, but you could always scale up to make food jewellery. Just be aware that these mini liquorice look so tasty and cute when finished that they are definitely not intended for children!

Liquorice Allsorts Tutorial

You will need:

Black polymer clay
White polymer clay
Yellow polymer clay
Pink polymer clay (you'll probably need to mix white and pink to achieve the correct shade)
Mid brown polymer clay
Orange polymer clay

Rolling pin (I use an old pen!)

Sharp blade

Ceramic tile to work on
Oven

1.Before you begin, you need to ensure your work area and hands are clean, because unbaked polymer clay is a fluff magnet. I like to work on a large, blank ceramic tile, as this can go straight in the oven when it is time to bake the clay, without having to move your work and risk unwanted fingerprints. It helps to use a white tile, as fluff shows up better on it.


2. The clay needs to be conditioned to avoid it cracking later on. Do this by rolling it in the palms of your hands to put some heat into it so it becomes more malleable. My top tip for this tutorial is always start with the lightest colour first. If you start with the black clay, you will get black all over everything and turn everything grey. When you do handle colours which stain, such as black, dark pink and brown, be sure to wash your hands before handling lighter colours again.


3. Let's start with the round yellow and pink liquorice allsorts. For this you need to make a very simple cane. Start by rolling out a sausage of black polymer clay about 7mm in diameter. It only needs to be one or two inches long (this will be enough for squillions of miniature sweets). Then roll out a strip of the outer colour (pink or yellow). It needs to be at least as thick as your sausage was, and as wide as your sausage is long.

You always need much more of the outer colour (pink or yellow) than you'd think. Cut one end of your outer colour so it is even, and begin wrapping your black sausage. Once the two sides fully wrap the sausage, cut the other end of the outer colour so it is flat and lies flush. This way, it should be evenly thick all the way round, and you won't have any overlap.

 4. Slowly roll your completed liquorice cane thinner and thinner until it is the desired size I like my liquorice candy to be about 2mm in diameter. You need to roll as evenly as possible so the cane doesn't warp. I use just my two index fingertips, working from the middle outward and pressing only lightly. Don't roll too hard, as the cane can very quickly become unworkably thin. Don't worry about the ends being too thick or looking terrible, the ends of canes are always scrap. Keep the polymer clay though, it may come in useful for something else.

5. Your cane may become really long, so cut it in half every so often so it is easy to work with and fits on your ceramic tile. You'll also get a sneaky preview of the inside of your cane.  

Once it is the desired diameter, it is ready to bake according to the polymer clay manufacturer's instructions.  

6. For the smaller and longer black and white liquorice allsorts, follow the same method but alter the ratio for the inner and outer colours. The inner white sausage needs to be thicker, and the outer black wrap-around needs to be thinner.

But still be careful not to overlap the black, or it will warp the shape.

Roll out to approximately 1mm in diameter, and now it's ready to bake.

 

7. Now for the square liquorice all-sorts. For this we will use a layering and reducing technique. Begin by rolling flat your white polymer clay to approx 4-5mm in thickness. Width doesn't matter but you don't want it much bigger than a couple of centimetres (one inch) or it becomes difficult to work with). Do the same for whichever colour you are using (brown, orange, yellow, or pink), and finally the black polymer clay. It doesn't matter what size you choose, but make sure all the different coloured pieces are approximately the same as this makes for less waste.

8. Layer your colours according to whichever kind of liquorice you are making. I can never remember what order it should, so I like to reference a photo  (or even better buy some real liquorice!). 

9. Now slowly and evenly roll out your layered polymer clay, turning over every so often. If your clay seems to get stuck to your work surface, slide your blade underneath it. Don't pull it or it will warp - or worse break! The outer layers will try to thin out faster than the inner layers, so it's important to do it slowly and gently. Keep going until your layers are about 1.5-3mm thick in total depending on how many layers you have. Don't go too thin or you won't be able to make out the layers on the finished sweet.

10. Using your sharp blade, cut lines vertically and horizontally about 3mm apart. At this point, do not try to separate them all out. It will take you years!

11. For the twisted black liquorice, roll out a piece of black polymer clay as thinly as you dare without breaking it. It doesn't have to be a very long piece, in fact I would cut it in half if it gets to more than 10cm (4 inches).

Take two of these thin strands and pinch them together at one end.

Then roll the loose ends to form a twist. You have to be very gentle so you don't squash the clay and lose the pattern.

12. The liquorice allsorts are now ready to be baked according to the polymer clay manufacturer's instructions. I use Fimo Soft which goes in the oven at 125 Celcius for 25-30 minutes, but you should check yours.

Don't bake your rolling pin like I nearly did!

 13. Allow all your miniatures to cool thoroughly before handling. Now for the fun part, cutting up your canes and layers for the finished candy. Using your sharp blade over the ceramic tile, cut your round cane approximately every 1-2mm. The candies may ping out and you will be finding them forever more in every nook and cranny, so be careful when you do this. And don't have anyone sitting opposite you, it could land in their eye!

14. For the square liquorice all-sorts, simply slice your blade down the vertical and horizontal lines you already made. You could snap them out, but it makes for a cleaner edge to use your blade. Scrap any candies whose layers are not complete (the ones near the edge of the sandwich may have to be scrapped).

A final word of warning: please be careful when handling blades and hot items from the oven. Please do not leave your miniature liquorice unattended with young children, because they are very small and very yummy looking but are very, very inedible!