Eyes Polymer clay eyes question

I’ve seen a couple sets of eyes made out of this stuff Liquid Sculpey® | Sculpey.com

there’s a color called “clear”, and it’s perfectly transparent (how they get polymer clay to do that I have no clue). Never tried it myself but I’ve seen some eye artists use it and it seems to work quite well

There’s also acrylic eye bases you can get off Etsy and some doll companies super cheap that you could buy

also, you could totally make the sclera part out of clay and then use uv resin for the iris dome, just make sure you add some sort of glaze to it so it looks “wet”. UV resin can be expensive but you’d only need a very tiny bottle if you only want a few pairs of eyes and since you don’t have to mix it bubbles aren’t really an issue

 

Maybe you can start off with uv gel polish for the clear part of the eye. It’s cheap and you can even get a uv lamp for them too which is cheap as well. And see if you like it and want to continue making them.

 

I used to make placeholder eyes using sculpey, paint, and gloss. I would just roll the sculpey into a size to fit the eye, bake it, paint on the iris, and then gloss the whole thing with liquitex gloss varnish. There were no domes or textured irises this way, but it worked really well on odd eye sized dolls and photographed nicely.

 

Here is the method I prefer when making polymer clay eyes. It involves no painting and no resin and is as close to fool proof that I have managed. They don't turn out very deep and this method works best for low to mid dome height. They will not get much of the "follow me" effect either, witch is good for photos, but a little bit more static in person.

1. First shape the sclera out of either white, or a mix of white and translucent clay. I like to make plenty extra, since the ammount of clay used is pretty small and if I do mess something up, chanses are I have others that turned out better.
2. Roll a ball and "stamp" and indentation for the iris using anything you have on hand that is the right size (a small dowel, the back end of a drill bit or something similar). Just place the tool centered on the ball and push straight down. Avoid any sort of tilting of the tool as that will deform the indentation, rather -gently rotate and pull straight up to get the tool out. If you have problem with the tool sticking, a thin dusting with talcum powder can work as a release agent.
3. Make the pupils out of black clay. I just roll a very thin snake and cut it into tiny pieces and roll each of them gently to round them off. Make many of these and don't worry about making them perfectly equal in size, it's much easier to match them up later than to try to make perfect balls this tiny.
4. Then bake the sclera and the pupils. Set the temperature based on the most sensitive clay used (if ou mixed translucent into the sclera, this is probably it) and the time based on the tiny pupils, the pieces only need to be baked enough to hold their shape for now.
Set these aside to cool while prepareing the iris colour.

5. I like making the iris like you would make a mlillefiori cane. This makes it possible to make a very detailed small scale eye.
6. Reduce it down to the size of the stamp tool.
7. Cut disks from the iris cane, thick enough to fill the hole in the sclera, but not so thick that it sticks up.
8. Place the disk in the hole and gently push it down. For big eyes this can be done with your fingers, for smaller you may need a tool. You don't need to work it much, you just want to make sure it sits firmly against the bottom of the hole with no air trapped under and no gap at the sides.
8b. (optional) You can chose to texture the iris to give the eye a bit more depth, but keep the texture shallow and don't do this until you've decided on method for finishing, as described below. (Personally I prefer to give detail through the colouring of the eye instead, it's just easier to get it to look good with these materials, in my experience.)
9. Pick a matching pair of pupils and place them in the center of the iris. Push it in about half way.
10. Bake the whole thing until it is properly cured.

I like to use Diamond Glaze or similar. It's a "3D-gloss" meaning it has a clear filler that allows it to dry withough shrinking down like a regular gloss would. This does a very good job of giving a wet looking glass-like surface and will easilly fill in any fingerprints and even out the transition between the pupil and the iris. You can build up a high dome with it, but you need to do so in stages and if you take it too far it will eventually become a bit milky. The surface tend to be very durable and quite hard.
You absolutely can use liquid clay to add a gloss layer to the eye, but it never turns out completely clear, it will tend to have a slighly greyish or milky tint when baked. It can be used, just make sure to do a very thin layer, don't try to build up a high dome iris with it. It doesn't turn out as glass-like as the gloss does and it dents a bit easier.
If you compare them side to side, the glaze does usually look better.

Over all, if you allready are comfortable working wth polymer clay, this is a pretty low effort and low commitment way of making eyes.

 

I think you’ll be fine with bubbles. Maybe go slow with a toothpick. And maybe do layers( put a little gel in and than cure, and than repeat till it’s filled.
I’m not sure but I’ve think I’ve seen people take a lighter to UV resin. I know they do it for epoxy resin

 

No problem, I'm happy to help.