How to make a Soccer figurine Cake Topper?

As you probably know by now, I get to made quite a few cakes at the beginning of the year! This time is my boy's turn. He wants yet another soccer cake! I am running out of ideas as he has asked the same3 years in a row. I made him a soccer ball with a boy on year 1 and the logo of the Chicago fire juniors on year 2. Now I am making him a soccer field with a polymer clay boy. That way he can keep the figurine for his bedroom.

Here is how I made the figurine.

Materials:

• Polymer clay: Skin color, Black or Brown for the hair and the uniform color
• Wax paper
• Metal tray
• Clay tools

Similar to all figurines (see gymnasts here) I started with the body. I took the skin color clay and kneaded  3 pieces which will eventually turn into arms, legs and head.

To make the legs, take one of the pieces and roll it until you get twice the length of what you want the legs to be making sure the roll is a little fatter in the middle.

Fold the roll in half, each side will become one leg. Now you need to mold each leg. Bend the ends to make feet and roll out the knees.

Now to add the socks, make a flat sheet of white with the pasta machine and cut 2 small rectangles, wrap them around the bottom of the legs to become the socks. Smooth the edges.

 To make the shoes, make 2 balls of the same size in black (that will ensure both shoes are the same size). Then mold them into a egg shape and from there as a shoe. Use your tools to mark the soles and laces, etc.

You are going to do the same initial technique with the other piece of clay for the arms. Make sure that you measure the length of the arms against the legs and that the arms are slightly shorter and thinner. If your socks have stripes, roll the doing into a thin strip and attach to the socks.

Now roll the head. Just take some clay and make a small ball - Again, make sure that you put your pieces together as it was a doll already to make sure your dimensions are OK.

Once you have the right dimensions, cut the arms and legs in the middle so you end up with 2 arms and 2 legs. Take your uniform color, in my case red and make a rectangle the size of the torso. Make the bottom into a v shape so you can attach the legs to it. Remember to keep checking your dimensions by placing all the pieces next to each other. Attach the arms to the shoulders.

Take the head and stick it on a toothpick. With the modeling tools, make some small holes for the eyes, roll a little ball of clay for a nose and open a little smile. Take some clay and make a little cylinder for the neck. Attach the head to the body and at this point choose the position of your figurine and mold it to it.My one is sitting down.

Now you have your structure and just need to add the details of your uniform. It will be different depending of what you need to do. For shorts and sleeves cut small rectangles of the color you need and wrap around the arms and legs - remember to smooths all edges. Cut pieces of different colors and stripes and numbers etc.

Once I had the basic body. It was time to do the ball. Roll a piece of white into a ball. Get a thin piece of black out the pasta machine and cut a few pentagons out of it. Stick one pentagon on the ball and with a tool, mark pentagon indentations for the white squares and place the other black ones as you go. It helps to have a real soccer ball next to you so you can see the patterns.

Now you do the hair and eyes. To do hair, get your black or brown clay and either roll it very thing by hand or pass it through a clay extractor to make strands. Carefully put the strands one by one on the head modeling the hairdo you want.

To do the eyes, I roll 2 small pieces of white put inside the wholes, you can then also put an even smaller piece of brown on top of the white and a white on top too. Flatten carefully with a tool.  Add whatever other details you need like logos and you are done!!!

 I have not put this boy on my etsy shop yet, but if you are interested and want me to make you one for your boy or girl, please e-mail me and I will be happy to make one for you!