Designing the perfect birthday or wedding cake takes a lot of time, skill and patience. These bakers and cake decorators are in my opinion are true artisans, but unlike other forms of art are only temporary. Over the years people have often asked me if I would go into that field, and the honest answer is... no! I couldn't bear them cutting into and eating what I have spent weeks making. So, hats off to those who can!!
What I want to share with you today is how to make a cake topper figure for a cake. The cake was made for my daughters 23rd birthday. As she's a motorbike race engineer, I thought I would create a Fimo Amy to sit on top of a tyre cake. By the way, the bikes were cheap toy ones, but I made all the baby goats - she loves them!!
Step 1.
The main part of the body is using what ever scrap clay you have left over. Make sure the clay is well conditioned and soft.
I find that a sitting down figure is easier to make as you don't make much internal support to worry about. Use a jam jar or mug for it to sit on, while you make it. It helps if the sides are completely straight. When joining the body parts together I usually reinforce the joints with a piece of cocktail stick, this makes it extra secure. The legs have been cut straight across, where as the arms have been cut on the diagonal, this helps with a smooth joint at the shoulder. Add some half ball shapes for the bust...size is up to you!!
Step 2.
You can now start to clothe your person. I have rolled some black clay through the pasta machine on quite a thin setting. I have covered the arms, keeping the seam to the inside of the arm where you won't see it. I have added two circles of skin tone clay so that will match up with the hands later. I have added a circle of skin tone on top of the body shape, then covered it with the black, again keeping the seam down one side of the body, the arm will probably cover it up.
Step 3
You can now add the arms onto the body. The legs have been covered in a skin coloured clay, this is because my daughter lover her ripped jeans and I wanted to show that through the rips!!
The black top at the moment goes all the way down to the base, this will need shortening, but not too much as it will be placed over the top of the jeans (see next pic)
Step 4
You may have to mix your own shade of denim blue as most polymer clay colours don't have the exact shade... have an experiment with small amounts first. Add the base of the jeans, adding as much detail as you want. I have added pockets and done the stitching with a cocktail stick.
Cover the legs in a flat sheet of the denim blue, then whilst on the leg, get a fine blade or scalpel and slash open the clay to reveal the flesh colour underneath. When you bend the legs at the knee, it opens up even more.
Step 5
Add the legs onto the body. the arms have been shaped and bent and had fold lines placed at the elbows...I used a cocktail stick for this. I have added her race team logo... #pinkracing
I have also added a hood onto the jumper, can't remember how I made that. I tend to look at real hoodies and copy the shape in the clay. Was a bit tricky if i remember rightly!!
Step 6
Amy is a massive #docmartensshoes fan
and so I had to make her a teeny tiny pair. I started off by making the boot shape, adding a beige coloured sole and adding the tread with a cocktail stick. I then marked where the laces were going to go and make a very thin snake of clay to make the laces. I used the cocktail stick to make holes then placed small pieces in place., so it looks as though the laces are coming out of the holes.
Step 7
I then made their signature yellow stitching around the edge of the boot and... voila!!
I attached them by placing a small piece of cocktail stick into the boot, so that they would be secure and not fall off, but also that the boot wouldn't distort when I pushed it onto the bottom of the leg.
Step 8
I made some hands and put small pieces of wire in them, and then added them onto the arms.
My daughter is also a fan of Kraken Rum #krakenrum so, this had to be added onto the cake too! I even printed out their tiny logo which i cut out and added onto the bottle once it was baked. This was stuck on with some glue.
Now to add even more detail, we needed some oil spills on the jeans, this was done by getting a small lump of black clay and simply rubbed it gently over the jeans.
Step 9
The head is simply a ball of skin coloured clay. I tend to make it a bit smaller than I need so that once the hair is on it's more in proportion.
I mixed the blonde colour for the hair and then rolled it into very thin tubes. You can get a clay extruder for this, which will push out uniform tubes that are all the same. I tend to start at the front right and work my way round, adding extra curled bits to add more texture.
The face is simply two holes with a cocktail stick and a curve for the mouth. The cheeks have colour by using some real blusher powder.
Step 10
Bake the figure on the glass jar or mug, making sure it is in the centre of the oven. As this is Fimo Soft clay I baked it at 100 degrees C for at least 30 mins. I did actually bake it for over an hour as I know that my oven temperature stays constant and doesn't spike.
So that's it... here's my little Amy all ready to go on her cake. There is no tutorial for the cake... hence to say my kitchen was a bomb site and took me longer to make than the figure, so all you cake makers out there, your jobs are safe...no competition from me!
Enjoy making your own figures... send me a piccy if you like :)