How I Turned Myself Into a Clay Figure with ElevenLabs
One photo, one template and one click: a step-by-step look at the Soft Clay Figures flow
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I turned a plain photo of myself into a soft clay figurine in about a minute, using one ElevenLabs template and no prompt writing. Most people know ElevenLabs for AI voices, but its image tools now include ready-made templates, and one of them is called Soft Clay Figures. Its promise is simple: "Turn anything into an adorable soft clay figure."
Here is exactly how I did it, what the template is doing behind the scenes, and what I would change next time.
Step 1: Start with a clean full-body photo
The source photo matters more than anything else. The template asks for "a clear full-body photo of yourself, front-facing and well lit", and it means it.
My photo was me standing square to the camera on a plain white background: navy t-shirt, tan chinos, white trainers, hands in pockets. Before using it, I ran it through ElevenLabs' image tools with GPT Image 2 to crop and upscale it, so the whole figure was sharp and filled the frame.
A photo works well when it has:
- Your whole body in shot, head to shoes
- A plain, uncluttered background
- Even lighting with no harsh shadows
- Simple clothes in solid colours, which translate neatly into clay
Step 2: Open the Soft Clay Figures template
The template needs one input and one click. The whole process looks like this:
- Open the Soft Clay Figures template in ElevenLabs.
- Under Input Image, upload or drop in your photo. There is a "Use this example" option if you want to test it first with their ballerina sample.
- Check the credit estimate above the button. Mine showed roughly 610 credits.
- Press Generate.
The template has three tabs: Generations, Examples and Flow. The Flow tab is the interesting one, because it shows how the template is built. It is just two nodes joined by a line: an Input Image node feeding an Output Image node. The output node runs Google's Nano Banana 2 image model, set to Auto aspect ratio and 1K resolution.
There is also an Edit Flow button, with the invitation to "use this Flow as your starting point and make it your own". So the template is not a black box. You can open it up, change the prompt or model, and save your own version.
Step 3: The prompt doing the work
The clay look comes from a short, reusable prompt that references your uploaded photo. In the Flow view it begins:
Cute 3D render of a @Input Image, matte surface, kneaded clay icon style, simple stylized design, [doing an action natural or characteristic to the subject], [emotion or mood that reflects the subject's nature or...
Three things in it are worth copying for your own prompts:
- @Input Image points the model at whatever you upload, so the same prompt works for any subject.
- The style words are specific. "Matte surface" and "kneaded clay" give that soft, hand-pressed finish instead of glossy plastic.
- The square brackets are instructions to the model. It chooses a fitting action and mood for the subject itself, so you never have to describe your own pose.
The result
The figure is recognisably me, simplified into chunky clay shapes. It kept the pose, the outfit and the beard, and it stands on a clean white background with a soft shadow.
Original photo | Clay figure | |
|---|---|---|
Pose | Standing, hands in pockets | Same |
Hair and beard | Short hair, stubble | Tousled clay tufts, neat sculpted beard |
Expression | Neutral | Friendly smile |
T-shirt | Dark navy | Brighter mid-blue |
Trousers | Tan chinos | Tan, rounded and simplified |
Shoes | White trainers | Brown clay blobs |
Watches | One on each wrist | Gone |
The changes follow the prompt. "Simple stylised design" strips out small details like watches and laces, and the mood instruction is why my neutral face became a smile. The colour shifts are the model's own choices: it brightened the shirt and swapped my white trainers for brown.
Tips if you try it
A good input photo and one small prompt edit will fix most things you might not like.
- Prepare the photo first. Crop tight to the full body and upscale if it is soft. A cluttered or cropped photo gives the model less to work with.
- Lock in details you care about. If you want the exact shirt colour or your white trainers kept, use Edit Flow and add a line such as "keep clothing colours exactly as in the photo".
- Run it more than once. Each generation is slightly different, so pick your favourite from the Generations tab.
- Try other subjects. The template says "anything", so pets, products and team members are all fair game.
It makes a fun profile picture, and a matching set would work well for a team page. The whole thing took me one photo, one upload and one click.