I have a daughter who is obsessed with unicorns. I didn’t really think much about unicorns before I had kids but in the last few years we’ve accumulated unicorn soft toys, ornaments, jewellery, games and bedding – they are taking over our house!
As my daughter loves them so much, I thought I’d make her a very own ‘made-by-mum’ unicorn miniature. Unfortunately, it didn’t go so well – read on to mind out more!
So, how do you make a unicorn out of polymer clay? There are lots of different techniques but to make most of them you’ll need:
- white or pearl clay polymer clay for the body and coloured clay for the hair (pinks and purples work well)
- black acrylic paint for the eyes and gold for the hooves
- glaze to give the unicorn a glossy finish
Then you just follow the steps below:
- Make the body out of the white or pearl polymer clay. Use a chunk of clay about the size of a large marble and knead it so it’s easier to work with. Once it’s nice and soft, roll it into an oval shape and flatten the ends so it looks like a mini cocktail sausage.
- Next, you need to make the legs using a sculpting tool. Choose which side of the unicorn will be the bottom and used your tool to create a cross in the middle and gently carve this deep enough to make four legs. When it’s done it should look a little but like a molar tooth!
- The next step is to create the head – take about half the size of clay for the head that you used for the body and roll this into an oval shape and attach to the body. It may take a couple of attempts to get the head to stick to the body.
- Now it’s time to make the ears. Pinch off two small pieces of clay and knead these into oval shapes. Flatten them and pinch the end of each piece to make a basic leaf shape. Use a ball tool to create the indents in the ears and attach them to the side of the head.
- Using small pieces of coloured clay, roll these out into short string shapes and curl them using your hands to make the hair for the mane and tail. To make it easier, and for a thicker mane and tail, you can roll each piece of polymer clay ‘string’ back on itself so it intertwines. Once you’re ready, attach the pieces of mane and tail to the unicorn using a small ball tool or needle tool.
- You can use the twisting technique above to make the horn too. Roll out a thin piece of polymer clay about 1 cm long, bend it in the middle, twist the two strands together, pinch the top and cut off the bottom to make a horn shape.
- Now it’s time to bake – pop your model in the over and bake at 130° for at least 20 minutes (this is a general guide – always check on the packet of clay you’re using for exact baking instructions!)
- Once it has baked and cooled, add black dots of acrylic paint for the eyes and use gold acrylic paint for the hooves.
- Finish with a coat of Sculpey Glaze.
For a full tutorial, I followed this fantastic video below, but I think my finished model fell well short of the perfect unicorn this modeller makes!
The above looks super easy, but it really wasn’t – as you can see below!
Expectation vs reality:
My daughter is so sweet that she genuinely loved the deformed unicorn I made so I guess it’s kind of mission accomplished?!
The one good thing I would takeaway from my attempt would be to recommend using Kato Polyclay Pearl polymer clay, it has such a lovely, almost sparkly sheen to it that it wouldn’t even need glazing.
My second attempt at making a polymer clay unicorn
I didn’t want to give up, so I decided to try another style of unicorn from another tutorial. Again, it didn’t go well! As I’d already used this technique to make a zebra, I thought I’d go for the sitting down pose for a unicorn as well.
I found this tutorial below of this really sweet looking unicorn charm and gave it a go myself:
Looks easy enough, right? I clearly need more practise as mine did not turn out like the one above, but it was fun to make and it’s certainly something I can try again! Next time I will definitely make the head more of an oval shape as mine was very round which made getting the eyes in the right place very difficult!
Expectation vs reality:
Polymer Clay Unicorn Tutorials
If you want more step-by-step guides to making a unicorn out of polymer clay, then I’ve scoured YouTube and found these super cute, and super fun, step-by-step unicorn tutorials.
Winged polymer clay unicorn
The crafter has definitely not gone for the ‘less is more’ approach in this awesome tutorial for a spotted winged unicorn. It looks really simple but the end result is just so adorable.
Polymer clay unicorn horn
If you want to make a cute piece of jewellery but don’t fancy attempting an entire unicorn, then this awesome tutorial demonstrates how to make a beautifully coloured unicorn horn charm.
A unicorn bunny
The vlogger and crafter aCupOfCakeTV has done a series called Kawaii Friday where, as the name suggests, they make a different super cute animal every Friday. They’ve done tonnes of unicorn and animal/object mashups including the unicorn bunny below, a pandicorn (unicorn panda) and a unicorn donut! You can see the full compilation of polymer clay unicorn delights in this video.
They’ve also done an actual unicorn too, in the same kawaii style.
A miniature narwal
The simplicity of the tutorial below is about my level so this is definitely one I’m going to try: