Clay Doozer-rama

Who doesn't love the Doozers, so serious about making doozer sticks out of ground up radishes, they just love to see the Fraggles enjoying their creations!
This project took a couple of weeks to do, simply because I limited myself to making one Doozer per sitting, rather than eg making all the bodies, then all the hats etc. I felt like they had more personality that way, but you could totally do a production line and make these in a day. The doozer sticks and the base were both delegated to my partner and I doubt he would have been able to do all the acrylic rod cutting in one go without getting a very sore finger.

I hope you enjoy Doozerville, my Doozer diorama!

Green, yellow, orange and beige clay
Optional clay colours - purple if you would like some purple hard hats, small amounts of brown and silver if you want to make tiny screwdrivers or hammers

Clear nail varnish to make the hard hats shiny
Acrylic rods
Whatever you choose to use for the base - we used some slate from a garden centre which we sealed and added felt to the bottom of

First, decide what shape/size your radish stick structure will be as well as how many Doozers you want and what position they will be in. For ideas - I had two carrying a length of radish stick, the foreman with his loud speaker and one dangling from the radish stick crane

Take a piece of green clay and roll it into a pear shape. Then gently pinch the bottom of the pear into two little legs. Add another smaller ball to the top for the head. I forgot to photograph this stage but do a tiny pinch at their bum to make their little tails.

Check everything is smooth from all your pinching and then put this in the oven according to your clay's instructions.

Clean your work surface and your hands, we're moving to yellow clay!

Roll two small bean shapes with your yellow and then put them on a surface and push to flatten the bottoms.
Taking your freshly baked doozer, ensure that the yellow boots are close enough together to receive his legs and then push the doozer legs into the boots near the back. Check that you are generally happy with the shape of the boots and the way the doozer is standing. It might help to put him back in the oven at this point, although you don't need to do the full time suggested by the manufacturer.

Roll out a piece of yellow clay so that it is 3 or 4mm thick and drape this over your little dude's head.

Now comes the tricky bit - using fancy clay tools, or just anything with an edge, visualise where the brim of your hat is and press the hat firmly against the head with the tool at the brim level, while pulling up the excess clay to form the brim. You want to make sure that the brim comes out at a right angle, otherwise it might look like a floppy hat. Using scissors cut the brim so that is the right size and even all the way around. Keep pressing the brim up to avoid the floppy hat.

In my second picture I've sorted out the brim but I need to add more height to the hat (rectified in picture three). The hat wants to have relatively straight sides going to a point rather than be rounded.

Once you are happy with the shape of the hat, roll out a really thin bit of yellow and cut out the design in my fifth picture to go on the front of the hat. The dotted lines are just indentations and are probably easiest to do once the clay has been added to the front of the hat.

Finally, roll a thin length and using a tool or your nail, blend it into the front and back of the hat. It is useful to look at an image of doozer hats to get the shape of this handle correct, manipulate it into the shape you want and then run straight to the oven before it drops or decides to change shape. Again, you don't need to bake it for the full length of time, maybe just half?

This is where you need to know how your doozer will be standing, and what he will be doing with his hands. In my example, my Doozer is climbing on the radish stick construction. So I've rolled out two thin sausages, which I have (roughly at this stage) merged with his body. I also cut his arm ends off (ow!) to make a good surface for the gloves to stick to and now I am checking that they are the right length and position for him to be standing on one stick and holding the stick above it.

(You obviously don't need to perform that check if your Doozer is just going to be standing about or holding something.)

Once you are happy with him, back to the oven again, so that when you add the gloves his arms don't get mooshed.

While you are waiting for your little pal, take two small balls of yellow, flatten them slightly and make cuts for his fingers and thumb (see picture 2). Gently round the edges of the fingers and shorten the thumb a little. Keep manipulating your clay until it looks glovelike. This will take a little while to get right.

If your Doozer is holding something or has his/her hands by their side it is easier and you can just indent the clay to show the individual fingers.

Finally - you guessed it - back in the oven!

Take your beige roll it out very thin and then use whatever you have to hand to flatten it. Lay this over your doozer to make his utility belt.

Again, very finely roll some more out and cut out tiny pockets for the utility belt.

Add some thin orange trim around the gloves and boots - this helps hide any messy joins as well.

Apparently I am classifying a doozer nose as an accessory. Mix a tiny amount of green and yellow and then push it up underneath the hat.

Now he needs to have his final bake - do follow the manufacturer's instructions this time and do the full time.

Once he has cooled you can paint his hard hat with clear nail varnish to make it look shiny and plastic.

Choose a decent sized piece of slate (we got ours at the garden centre in the fish tank accessories section) and protect it with clear varnish.

If you like you can add glue to the bottom and attach a piece of felt, trimming off excess felt.

Decide what your construction will look like and work out the measurements.

We used 2mm acrylic rods, but if you have access to real radish sticks that would be even better.

Start cutting the rods to length. We scored them with a knife and then snapped them which seemed to give a clean break. You need to be exact with the measurements if you want your structure to be stable. Using sandpaper or a nail file, smooth the ends (and sand harder to shorten any slightly too long pieces.)

Using plastic glue, we found it easiest to glue the platforms together first and then glue the upright sticks around them.

Then just glue your structure to the base, position and glue your doozers and sit back and and marvel at Doozers doozing in outer space.