How to make a polymer clay Mickey Mouse

by Shuang Liu May 24, 2019

View the Product Used in this Project

Recently me and my family visited the Disneyland. Ever since that trip, my daughter has become obsessed with Mickey Mouse. She got a magic ability to spot Mickey everywhere! Any pattern with three circles on it will be considered a Mickey Mouse in her eyes.

After countless Mickey searching games, I decide to make her a polymer clay Mickey brooch so my little Mickey fan can be with her hero all the time!

So today I am going to show you guys how to make a polymer clay Mickey Mouse. More importantly, I want to share with you a few tricks on how to accurately replicate a character using polymer clay.

I also prepared a 30 minutes’ video showing you the whole project from start to finish. You can access the video for only $4.99 here.

I picked my favorite 30 seconds here for you to enjoy!

Polymer Clay Needed

Flesh ( Fimo Soft Light Flesh + a dab of Fimo Soft Tangerine)
Fimo Soft Black
Pink (0.4g Fimo Soft Cherry Red + 1.6g Fimo Soft White)
Fimo Soft White

Tools Needed

Pointy rubber tool
Flat rubber tool
Needle tool
Small stylus tool
Craft knife

Step 1. Creating the basic structure

At first glance, Mickey may seem to be a very simple figure to make. But his expression is actually very difficult to capture. Very small discrepancies can make your Mickey look odd. As you can see, in this project, I used a lot of paper template to guide me along the way. If you are not a sculpting expert, I strongly suggest you to do the same thing.

Mickey template can be downloaded in here. Before starting the project, print the template using 1:1 ratio and cover both sides with Scotch tape (picture 1).

Roll a piece of white polymer clay into 1mm thickness and put our template on top. Then trace the outline using a craft knife (picture 2). This will be the base for our Mickey Mouse. Bake the piece in the oven at 110C / 230F for 30 minutes.

While it’s baking, cut out more pieces as shown in picture 4 and 5 using flesh and black polymer clay. Layer them on top of the baked base as shown in picture 6. Now you have an accurate Mickey structure to work with.

Don’t add the ears and nose at this point. Because the black polymer clay can easily stain the flesh color.

Step 2. Sculpting Mickey Mouse

After completing the basic structure, we can start smoothing the polymer clay. Taking a pointy rubber tool (you can find its picture above), starting from the nose, squash the clay together to create a cone shape.

Taking a needle tool, carefully outline the mouth and cheeks. Then create the mouth and eye sockets by pushing back the polymer clay using a stylus tool. During the process, smooth the clay whenever needed.

Insert two tiny pieces of white polymer clay into the eye sockets and create two dents on them as shown in picture 4. At this point, you can bake the piece in the oven for 20-30 minutes (110C/230F). Baking can prevent black clay from smudging the face later.

After baking, fill in the rest of the Mickey’s face with black polymer clay. Smooth the clay using the rubber tool along the way. Finally, add eyes, nose, ears and tongue to our Mickey Mouse.

Send it back to the oven for 30 minutes at 110C/230F. Now the Mickey Mouse is completed! Since I am going to make it into a brooch, I glued a bar pin at the back. You can also make it into a pendant by inserting a head pin at the top before baking.

If you like today’s tutorial, please share it with your friends by pining the complete picture guide below. Thank you.

how to make polymer clay Mickey mouse