Fictional recipe

Ingredients:

6 balls of clay, variously shaped (see steps for further instruction)
very hot fire
a magical breath
some water to cool things down
natural paint and various textured objects to create interesting features as desired.

 

Steps: 

1. Roll the six balls of clay until they are all even and perfectly round. Turn four of them into rounded oval, thrice as tall as they are broad. From one of the remaining round balls, pull 60% of clay out and combine it with the other one. You should have one small ball, one large ball, and four tall balls.

2. Put the small ball on top of the round ball, and two flat balls on the side of the large balls, jutting out. Put the remaining two tall balls towards the bottom, on the same plane as the original long balls.

3. Fire this toy into the hot fires of ceramics, for as long as it takes until the outsides toughen up, until the sun may no longer dry out the skin, and the water might not thin the body. Turn it into strong yet slightly pliable shape.

4. Once it's significantly cooled down, dunk it into water but be sure to not risk breaking! The water will reach all the nooks and crannies and hydrate the shape.

5. If desired, add various textures and colors to the shape throughout its body. You can color the hair, color the body, both or neither, or you can change the color and textures of many other parts of the body. 

6. Breathe into the shape with your magical breathe of life-changing and creating being, and you should be all set, detecting life within containers as if they were actually rnning.