Firstly, we all got told the brief — make a figurine of yourself — and we had to design a figure on paper before hand. I drew mine with plaits, my parka coat and converse as this is what I'm generally portrayed by. After we were roughly happy with our design and notes, we started handling the clay, and I found this part difficult; kneading it in order to remove air bubbles to stop it exploding in the oven. We used red clay as it holds together better, but it was tough to handle and move around and mound to the shape you wanted.
Once the clay was kneaded well enough, we started to smack it down against the table to flatten it out; we then moulted it into a square in order to cut it with cheese wire later. The tutor showed us a diagram for our figure, showing us how to use your thumb to measure it out properly (the average figure is 7 and 1/2 heads tall.)
Once I'd cut some clay off, I used a rolling pin to flatten it out then used an etching tool to sketch out my figure. 
Once happy with it, I pulled it out from the clay and lay it flat. After realising that moulding it as one part was too hard, I split it up in order to mould each part and use solution to stick them back together later.
When I was happy with the basic shape, I made a base (hollowed out to prevent exploding) then sat the figure on top, using a scraping tool to smooth it out. I then started adding my fringe and plaits.
When the plaits kept falling off, I ended up using seperate pieces of clay and twisting them together which worked a lot better. I added extra clay around my neck and wrists then smoothed them out to make the coat, then etched the coats design in to the shoulders.
I decided to leave the face, as I wasn't confident making feautures and didn't want to ruin it as I am happy overall happy with my figure, although I believe some parts are too lumpy.
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