Commission #3: Baby Girl’s 1st Birthday (Part II)
This weekend I began work on the characters for the Jack’s Big Music Show birthday cake. Because they are made from gum paste, they are the one part of the cake I can get a head start on. The first thing I did was color the gum paste with gel food colors to match the colors I would need for the various parts of the characters. I then shaped the gumpaste into the various parts that comprise the characters (head, ears, eyes, nose, body, arms, legs). I attached the ears, eyes and noses to the heads using egg white to help adhear the ears and nose. I allowed the contructed heads, the bodies, the arms and the legs all to dry over night.

I also made their instruments in the same fashion:

After the parts were dry, I used powdered food coloring to ad detail to the instruments, particularly the drum set. I painted the symbols using gold metalic powder mixed with a drop of vodka.
Then I put the characters together using toothpicks to attach the heads to the bodies and floral wire to attach the arms. I also used toothpicks to attach the guitar and the accordian to the characters and egg white to attach their hands to the instruments.
After I make the cake and cover it in fondant, I will attach the legs to the characters using floral wire and the drumset and characters to the cake using toothpicks. The yellow character will also get hair made from cotton candy.
Everything’s looking good so far…