My 6 Yo nephew is the darling of our pool's lifeguards (and is a big ace of cakes fan). He will be 7 in September but we are celebrating early to include his lifeguard buddies most of whom will be off to college mid August.
I am curremtly not working and depending on how you look at it ...good or bad since Ace of cakes is not taking orders until October- and he minimum price is a bit out of reach this year so I am left to my own devices.
The cake is done_ I have also built a life guard chair and diving board and created the pool (blue colored piping gel). and lane lines.
I am not an artist and sculpting the life guards and my nephew is getting the best of me. Because I am newbie I bought pre made colored fondant , but it is very pliable and I was hoping for something more like modeling clay_ any ideas-- I see people use half fondant and half paste- Can I use premade???do you use wire or other base forms to work around when you model "people figures" ? any and all help is appreciated. Cake due by Thursday afternoon.

please see my torso head and leg of lifeguard #1--

Yes you can use premade. I would definitely use half gumpaste and half fondant because it needs to dry quickly. All gumpaste might dry to fast for you if you are not familiar with the medium and fondant by itself may not dry by then. I would suggest you go thru some videos on-line (youtube has some great ones) that show you how to model with gumpaste. I don't know if there are ones there for people but there are definitely ones there for animals and it will help give you an idea on how to do it. I would think if you make it life like it will be harder to do than if you do it more cartoonish (sorry can't think of a better word. If the figures are going to be sitting down what I would do is insert a toothpick or a piece of uncooked spaghetti into the torso and attach the head on there. You could do the same with the arms and legs if you wish as well.

Aine2 has some great videos that will help you with your modeling.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=aine2&view=videos


The other thing I can recommend is if you go to a bookstore/craftstore and or library look see if they have some polymer clay books that show you how to sculpt figures.

Here are a couple of examples:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0891347216/?tag=cakecentral-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0891349278/?tag=cakecentral-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0823015033/?tag=cakecentral-20

I don't personally have these books but I do plan on getting a couple of them.


The other thing I could suggest is maybe get a doll/action figure and have that beside you while you are sculpting to get an idea of the size/shape of all the pieces.

HTH!

Oh, and welcome to CC.

Here are a list of CC acronyms that might come in handy as well:

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-2926.html

I am heading to store to get gumpaste--
The idea of having a doll figure as reference is also great as well as the dry spaghetti as abchor/connector.

I am not offended or dimayed by "cartoonish" LOL I am going for as close a resemblance to a human as possible and not lifelike features.

I truly appreciate your taing the time respond.

Just checking in to see how your making out with your figures.

I purchased a mold of a boy ( front and back) - colored the fondant/gum paste mix and went to work. My 6YO nephew (going on 40) dryly states " I guess you are wondering how you are gonna get them out of there". As they dry- the mold is rigid and I forsee an issue. So- whilst I wait, I made a torso , head and arms ( connected by dry spagetti - TY!) and decided the birthday boy will be in pool. I als crafted some heads and arms to have guard in pool. It may be as good as it gets fr this attempt. I have immensely more respect and admiration for the pros and what I see on this site.

Did you put some shortening on the mold first? Just enough to have a really light coating. I would take them out pretty much right after molding them. Use a toothpick to gently help you pry it out if needed or bang it gently. If you find that it sticks to the mold with the shortening use a really light dusting of cornstarch.