Hi,
I'm starting to experiment with fondant and spent an hour this morning on the "2 minute puppy" shown in the sketches, templates and patterns gallery. I made the separate parts of the body (however misshapen!) and set them on the table to dry out a little as I began to assemble the body. I found that the parts lying on the table kind of stuck to the table a bit, and after I assembled the puppy and let him sit on the table for a little while, his parts kind of sagged and squished together so that he looked kind of squat and like his parts weren't really....well, parts.
Has anyone else had this experience? What am I doing wrong?
The MMF recipe I used was from a posting on the Wilton forum for a small batch: 1 c mm, 1 T water, 1 1/2- 1 3/4 c powdered sugar. I used just a little extra water (about 1 teaspoon) since my mm were a bit dried, and ended up microwaving it for about 45 seconds total, instead of the 20 s recommended in the recipe. I also ended up using just over the 1 3/4 c sugar, almost 2 c, which I chalked up to the extra water I added.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Generally fondant on its own is a little soft for modelling, and maybe also the addition of it being homemade made it softer than normal. Generally you should add some tylose powder or mix some gumpaste with your fondant to make it easier to work with and dry faster. I like to work on top of a small piece of styrofoam and insert a skewer (cut to size) as the central support for the figurine and also so that i can slide the bottom of the skewer into the cake when i place the figurine on top for support as well. If the figurines are small make sure you leave them to dry on a nonstick surface. Hope your next try is more successful.

Also my experience is that the fondant needs to "rest" for about 24 hours. Maybe that's the problem.

Did you happen to use Jet-Puffed MM's? I find that they are softer/stickier than others. (I'm a Wal-Mart Great Value junkie )

For figures, I usually mix 50/50 gumpaste-fondant or add some gumtex powder to my fondant.

I was using toothpicks to keep limbs supported on bodys, until I read a thread that mentioned using spaghetti instead. (Just thought I'd share).