Whale Huggin

I cannot express how totally, utterly, butterly excited I am to participate in Threadcakes 2014. Since this is my very first entry I wanted a design that was clean, fun, and able to replicate faithfully. Whale Huggin by John Mitchell really grabbed me with it's use of color, lines and overall adorableness. The process carried over the course of two days, one to bake and create the cakes, fillings and icing, and a second to sculpt and assemble. During construction some proportions were skewed leading to two massive re-dos, so some elements like her head and body might differ in the final photo from the building phase, but the cake held together like a champ!

The nitty-gritty: Her entire body (torso, lower half and legs) are carved completely from lemon cake with raspberry filling, as is the base. She is secured on a single dowel rigged between several cake boards glued in place to keep the body upright. The cake is covered with lemon Swiss buttercream and vanilla fondant. The head, arms and whale are sculpted from vanilla fondant and secured with toothpicks. The leaves and hair are hand cut from 50/50 paste, textured with sculpting picks or texture boards, and draped over the finished piece. The whale, shadows and blush are hand-painted on the assembled cake. Flowers were cut using floral gumpaste cutters, and the whale's water spout (my favorite part!) is floral wire covered in 50/50 paste.

For a first entry I am very excited with how this turned out, and even more excited to make more entries in the future - you guys rule!