You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 07.15

The Clay Hole University · Hand Building

Making Figurines and CharactersPrintable pottery guide

A character is proportion plus attachment. Proportion is a set of numbers you can check a head against, and attachment is one join done the same way every time, and this is both of them on paper beside you while you build.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 24 printable pages
  • 6 video picks
  • 8-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any home printer
  • The full lesson stays free online
The printable, at a glance

What is the Making Figurines and Characters printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Making Figurines and Characters” lesson. A character reads as a character because of proportion, not because of talent: a big head, a small body, and eyes lower on the face than anybody expects. The guide takes it in order, with a tick list at every step: deciding the head count and building the body hollow from two pinch pots, marking the five lines of the face before cutting any of it, attaching every part the same way with a tiny coil blended round the base, and standing it up to dry without losing the ears. On paper it adds a log of eight characters and what happened to each, the whole technique on one page, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Making Figurines and Characters” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 24printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 6hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 20glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

You cannot check a face against a screen

The thing that makes a face look wrong is almost always the same thing, and it is measurable. The eyes are too high. On a real head they sit halfway down, and everything above them is forehead and hair, which is far more than feels right until you scratch the line and look at it.

That is a page, not a video. You need the five lines of the face map in front of you with a needle tool in your other hand, so you can hold the guide against the head you just rolled and see whether you have done it again. Nobody does that with a phone propped against a bucket.

The other half of the job is a feel rather than a number, so the guide does not pretend otherwise. It sends you to sculptors who film the coil going round the base of an ear, and keeps the numbers, the tick lists and the six failures on paper where you can reach them with clay on both hands.

Look inside

Real pages, for a table, a bag and a drying shelf

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark. The full guide has none.

  • Page 5 of the “Making Figurines and Characters” printable guide: the five minute version, shown with the sample watermark
    The five minute versionThe whole technique in six moves up front, so you can start tonight and read the detail as you go.
  • Page 7 of the “Making Figurines and Characters” printable guide: mark the face before you cut it, shown with the sample watermark
    Mark the face before you cut itThe five lines that make a face look like a face, where they actually sit, and how to exaggerate them on purpose.
  • Page 12 of the “Making Figurines and Characters” printable guide: six ways it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Six ways it goes wrongEach one with what actually caused it, what to do next time, and what to do with the piece in front of you.
  • Page 10 of the “Making Figurines and Characters” printable guide: eight characters, and what happened to each, shown with the sample watermark
    Eight characters, and what happened to eachOne line per character: the head count, whether you marked the midline, and which part came off, if one did.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

The guide has to sit next to the head you just rolled

Proportion is checked by holding a measurement against a thing, and attachment is a tick list you run through with both hands full of clay. Neither survives being on a screen across the room.

  • The face map, as numbers

    Five lines on one page you can hold against a head. Eyes halfway down, the nose, the mouth, the ears, the gap between the eyes. Check it, then break it on purpose.

  • A tick list at every step

    Put the page down, do the thing, pick it back up. Four steps, four lists, and the attachment list is the same one for every ear, arm, leg and tail.

  • Six failures, with their real causes

    Almost every one of them was decided before it happened: the softness, the missing coil, the drying. Knowing which is which is what stops it being the same one every time.

  • Eight characters, logged

    The log asks whether you actually scratched the midline before cutting the face. After a few pieces you can tell which ones you did from the faces alone.

How the guide is built

Built for a table, a bag and a drying shelf

Every guide in the series is designed as a workbook first and a document second. For this one, that means:

  • A learning dashboard before page one

    What you will learn, what is on the table, the mistakes that get made first, and what a finished character looks like before it goes anywhere near a kiln.

  • The whole technique in six moves, up front

    Before any of the detail, so you can start tonight and read the rest across the visits that follow.

  • Four steps in full, with tick lists

    Proportion and the hollow body, the face map, attaching and simplifying hands, then standing it up and drying it, as things to work through rather than paragraphs to re-read.

  • The face map on its own reference page

    The five lines as numbers, next to the six moves and the six failures, on one page you can leave on the table and nothing else.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Sculptors with nothing to do with us, filmed doing the parts that are a feel rather than a number, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code that goes straight to it.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A glossary written the way we would explain it sitting across the table from you, from the head count to the attachment coil.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Making Figurines and Characters” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Your first character will have eyes too high and one ear that came off, and you will know exactly why both happened. Nobody should have to pay to find that out.

The University is free and stays free. The guides are the version rebuilt for paper with an unreasonable amount of care, and buying one keeps the free side going.

Thank you. Genuinely.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
Collect them

Build a little pottery library

Every guide carries a permanent number. This one is 07.15, in the hand building section, alongside pinching, coiling, slab work and sculpture. The number never changes and never gets reused, so a shelf of them stays in order.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

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Where this leads

What to make once the first character survives the kiln

These lessons pick up where this one leaves off. Each one is free to read now.

Good questions

Before you buy

Is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is complete. The printable adds a log of eight characters and what happened to each, the face map and the whole technique on one page, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.
Do I need any equipment?
A needle tool, a ball stylus, a small loop tool, a wooden modeling tool, some newspaper, a board and a bag. The most important thing on the list is not a tool at all: a tiny coil of soft clay, rolled fresh for every attachment.
Where do the eyes actually go?
Halfway down the head, on a light line you scratch round it before you cut anything. Beginners put them in the top third, every time, because that is where they feel right. Everything above the eyes is forehead and hair.
Why did my figure’s ear come off in the kiln?
It went on softer than the head, or it went on without a tiny coil blended round its base, or it was thin and dried faster than the body it was attached to. The guide covers all three, and they are the same three every time.
Do I need to be good at drawing or sculpting faces?
No. A character is a few simple volumes at a proportion that reads, and proportion is a set of numbers rather than a talent. The three head character is the most forgiving thing in the guide because there is not much detail to get wrong.
Solid or hollow?
Anything thicker than an inch is hollow. Two pinch pots joined rim to rim make the body, a hollowed ball makes a head, and thin parts like legs, tails and ears can stay solid. Every hollow gets one pinhole somewhere the base hides.
Is this too early for me?
If you can pinch a pot and join two pieces of clay, you are ready. Nothing here needs a wheel and nothing needs a certification. What it needs is two or three visits with the piece in a bag between them.
What about the hands?
Make the hand as a mitten first, attach it, and only then cut two or three fingers with a needle. Five thin fingers on a small hand is where beginners lose an evening, and sculptors have been hiding hands in sleeves and pockets for five hundred years.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes, nearly all of it. It needs a table and two hands. The one page about our own studio is marked as ours, and the studio numbers carry the date they were true.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is designed for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Can I print it in black and white?
Yes. Nothing depends on color, and we looked at the workbook pages in grayscale to be sure.
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
Yes. Every QR code in the guide is also a tappable link, so on a screen you just tap instead of scanning.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and people do. The one page technique card, which carries the face map, and the eight character log are the two most worth having on their own.
How do I get it after I buy?
Right after checkout you get a download link by email and on your order confirmation page. Each link works up to seven times.
What if the guide gets updated?
Every edition carries a version number. When we correct or improve a guide, everyone who bought it gets an email with the new edition at no charge.
Can I share it with my class or studio?
Please don’t. It is licensed for your own personal use. Anyone can read the full lesson free online, and the printable is here if they want their own copy.

Print it, and go and scratch a line round a head

Roll the head ball first and size everything else against it. Scratch a light line round it at the halfway point and put the eyes on that. Then attach every part the same way, with a tiny coil blended round the base, and cover the ears with a scrap of plastic while it dries.

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