making a Dash (character from The Incredibles movie) figurine? My son wants Dash running on the water for his birthday cake next month and am looking for all the help I can get. TIA!

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I can't help much other than to tell you what I do (be warned, I have an art background!) - I just print out many different pics of the character needed, and then I Go For It!

For basic figure modeling advice, I would say: use 50/50 fondant/gumpaste and give yourself plenty of time - like, a week or more. Start with the legs and let them dry rock hard. Make sure you've placed either spaghetti or toothpicks in them to give them something to anchor into the next layer. Skewers are good because they are long and will extend into the cake to anchor it there too. Although: I often twist it periodically as the figure dries, to keep the skewer from being in the figure permanently...otherwise when you take the character off your cake, you'll never be able to stand it on anything with toothpicks sticking out the bottom (does that make sense?) Spaghetti is good but can soften so isn't always going to help for anchoring into the cake.

Torso next. Attach with gum glue or sometimes a wet piece of gumpaste is better for stability. Make sure there is a hole in the neck area for a toothpick for the head. Dry. Add arms; be sure to hollow out an area a bit for where the hands are going to go. Dry. Add head. Dry. Then decorate with whatever - hair, face, add clothes if needed (Dash was wearing a bodysuit so his torso could prob. just be red) etc.

Not every figure will take this long or need so many steps - also it depends on how big he is. If he's rather small than this info is probably overkill; I made a gumpaste Naruto (anime character) who was over 6" tall so he was big, heavy and took 9 days to make. I just like this technique for standing figures so that the legs can dry and be good support.

I know that's not tons of help since most of it is more about the procedure than the modeling itself, but hopefully there will be something useful in there

p.s. you can make him now if you want! Just store him away from sunlight.

Ceshell has given you some excellent advice. When I did my Winnie the Pooh characters I winged it but did very similar to what ceshell said. I propped in front of me some winnie the pooh toys I had so I could get the proportions somewhat accurate. I didn't have all the characters so I looked up a couple of them in my kids books.

If you've never worked with gp figures I'd recommend checking out aine2's videos on youtube. This way you can get a visual on what ceshell was explaining to you.

Here's a link to all her free youtube video's (you can purchase additional tutorials on her website that are pretty inexpensive):

Thank you sooo much ceshell and xstitcher. That gives me a start. Now to make sure that's what he really wants and isn't going to change his mind between now and then.

LOL, that is funny. I reached a point 3 weeks out from my DD's birthday where I said: ok, you said you want this theme - this is it, last chance to change your mind. Besides, you sure don't want to be planning party invites and decorations four days before the party . I found that what really helped keep her from changing her mind was when I took her to the store to buy some themed stuff. At that point she was "committed"

I think I'll have to try that for him next time. Now my daughter on the other hand thinks it's her bday every week. Every time she sees me on CC (infact I usually have a line up behind/beside me) looking at pics she starts putting her orders in even though I tell her that her bday isn't until March. Anytime it's anybody's birthday she thinks it's hers too!

Those cupcakes and the cake are really good puffcake. Thanks for sharing.