faces made with polymer clay millefioreI’m in polymer clay mode this May, making lots of new beads and pins and faces–both in cabochon form and canes. I’ve made face canes before, but only using Fimo and Premo brands of polymer clay.

Here’s a picture of some of the ones I’ve made throughout the years.

I dress them up using bits a pieces of polymer for hair, hats, dresses–even wings.

I’ve already used up a lot of the faces canes made in years past, so I made a new one using Kato Polyclay.

I liked how it conditioned, and reducing it was not hard on my hands, although it was almost two pounds of clay all together. I like how it turned out too–and thats the important part.

face cane made with kato polyclay

This face cane is made with the beige/flesh color unmixed with anything else. It darkens somewhat after baking, and this shows when used on a black background–so I back the cane slice with a small circle of white.You can see the darkening effect in the girl with the pink flowers in her hair. Easy enough to solve this problem, though!

I had some extra time, energy, and clay all in the same week, and I like diversity in my faces…so I built another one! This one is also made with kato polyclay, and for the flesh tone I mixed white and gold in slightly less than equal proportions (using less gold).

Since the first girl hand pink cheeks and lips, I chose red for this one. It also comes in at around two pounds of clay. The white clay makes for a far more matte skin and the gold gives a bit of shimmer into the mix.

I make parts like the lips, cheeks, and eye, and then combine with a nose and more flesh. Here you see the eye before I cut and insert black strips to form eyelashes. I forgot to take a pic after I did put them in as I got enthused with seeing how it was all coming together. The finished eye cane is cut into two sections to make two eyes, as is the cheek cane.

Here are some test bakes to see how well it holds the color. It did not darken, and works well with the hair and detail canes. She’s got a slightly more whimsical, face, with a bit more age and experience showing. Maybe a little more European?The “veil” is created on one pin by using a stamp and black in prior to baking the clay. A mold is used to give dimension to the nose on another slice from the cane.

Now I’m going to go play dress up with both of my new face canes!