I'm doing a 6 tier, (every tier different shape and height) for Sunday. Every tier needs to be metallic. Red, silver/chrome and black are the colors. I've only painted with luster dust for details, never done a whole cake all over with it. It will be iced in butter cream and I do have an airbrush if I will be needing it. Hmmmm, should I go ahead and ice all cakes white, then airbrush them with the color, then airbrush with matching dusts? Can I keep them white and only use colored dust? How do I dilute it for airbrushing and oh my gosh, how much will I need?
Thanks so much for your help on this.
Amy

I'm in the same boat with you. I have to make a tinkerbell cake, and the mom want's pixie dust/glitter on it. Good luck. I'm just curious.... what's the occasion for the cake?

I just started airbrushing so I'll give you what my experience has been (would suggest you experiment each color by just spreading out some BC on a plate until you get the right tones). Luster dusts work great in the airbrush (I use the Crystal Colors dusts). Mix a tiny bit of dust with alchohol - maybe 1/2 a tsp (I use Everclear but you can also use Vodka, etc...). You should use more alchohol than dust - make sure the dust is comletely dissolved else you could clog your airbrush. You don't want a paste - you want it 'runny.'

For your black/red, suggest you first airbrush those colors then use a luster dust - you won't need much luster - for an 8" cake I used less than 1/2 tsp. For the silver you will probably need mutliple coats using silver dust - not sure how much would be needed for an 8" cake. Lucks sells metalic airbrush colors, but since you need it on Sunday, that may not be an option.

HTH - if not, feel free to PM me. Wow - a 6-tier metallic cake - looking forward to seeing your pics!

Oops - I forgot to mention, I strained the luster dust solution through a fine sieve before putting in my airbrush (I hate trying to unclog that thing!).

Basically snowshoe gave you some good advice
For the black cake I suggest you add some black paste color and ice the cake w/a gray.
For the red cake basically the same......start w/a light red then airbrush over those.
Silver/crome coloring is NOT considered edible. It should be used only on removeaboe items. But you might have a close match using a light gray icing then use pearl luster dust.

Be super sure you run cleaning fluid then water thru your airbrush after using dusts! In fact, take the brush apart and make double sure the needle is super clean.