I really need help with this....Why can I sculpt a gumpaste flower but not be able to pipe on eyes & a mouth for character pans and 3D figures???? I'm not exaggerating either. My eyes always look bugged out and my mouths look like a smile that a beginner does. So many people on here are so talented at piping these faces...are there any tips or techniques that could help me? I'm embarassed to take a cake order that would require me to pipe this on because I know it won't look right...Help please...

Tammi

Tammi,
Hope someone can shed some light...but, here's another option...

Look at jaklotz1's Little Mermaid cake...the face is fondant molded in the pan, and the eyes and mouth are painted I think...if I remember correctly.

jaklotz1's Minnie Mouse is cute too...just flat pieces of fondant.

Your cakes are lovely...hope you get this figured out. I'd like to see some of your character cakes.

Thank you Dawn - I did look at the Little Mermaid cake you mentioned and I think the face is perfect!! If I can't get the hang of this I think I will do them all like that...Thanks so much for responding - it was a huge help!!

Tammi, I had the same problem, and I stumbled on a solution quite by accident. First, you want to "pop" the design of the cake. Second, do the hard parts first so you can scrape 'em off and start over if you need to.

The character pans are great, but I often lose the design to the texture of the cake - the detail is hard to see once the cake is out of the pan. Before beginning a character cake, I put a super thin layer of white icing all over the entire cake. The icing sinks in where there are indentations from the pan, making the design much easier to see. The icing doesn't have to be smooth and it doesn't matter if it picks up some crumbs - just smear it on and stretch it as far as you can - I use maybe 1 or 2 tablespoons of icing on a full cake, just enough to "pop" the design elements. This makes it MUCH easier to see the outlines of eyes and lips - no more guesswork!!

Use a #3 tip to fill the eyes, start with the white then do the blue or black or whatever the cake calls for. Let it set for a few minutes (crusting buttercream works best) and smooth using a high density foam roller, or parchment, or your finger dipped in cornstarch. If you do the eyes first, you can smooth them and be sure they "fit" right, before you move on to the rest of the cake. Worse case, if you get them on there and they look scary, you can always scrape them off and start over. If you wait until you've frosted the rest of the cake, you're pretty well stuck with the eyes, but if you do them first, you can scrape them off if you need to without damaging the decoration around them. If you do have to scrape them and start over, don't sweat it if the icing smears, because you're eventually going to cover that area with other icing, and no one will be the wiser.

For what it's worth, your cakes are beautiful! I can't imagine that you are intimidated by anything.....great work!