--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can tell I'm a newbie didn't even put this in the right forum....

I want to make a dinosaur cake for my son's birthday and since it's for little kids would rather not use fondant since kids aren't that thrilled with it. I would also rather not cover it in stars but would like to do something that looks like scales. My DH has bought me nearly 80 tips but now I am overwhelmed looking at these and trying to figure out which one might give me the scaley look I am hoping for. I also thought about just icing it smooth then imprinting with a cookie cutter I have with a scalloped edge and then using some luster dust to give it that reptile shine. So any help would be most appreciated and any tips on using luster dust on buttercream would be wonderful. I have never used it before. I am using the stand-up bear pan to make the dinosaur by the way.
Thank you so Much in advance!!!

I think that your idea with the cookie cutter will give you the result you are looking for- plus it wouldn't take as long compaired to piping each scale. I would say that if you used a crusting butter cream (recipes on this site) then you can dust it after it crusts.

Good luck!

I agree w/Sara
Myonly concern would be the cutter is not the right size and you will find it disturbing the already marked parts when trying to do others.
Start at the tail end and work to the head for best results.
The only other suggestion would be to cut out tip sized (using the lg end of a tip) circles of fondant (like 100s of them depending onn the size of the dino hehe) and overlapping them on top of b'cream.