It's almost my boyfriends birthday and I want to surprise him with a birthday cake! I've been looking up on the net for ages on what to use to make figures on the cake and I decided to try marshmallow fondant.
I made my own MMF a few days ago and yesterday I tried to mould the fondant into a figure, but it just wouldn't stand up! It kept falling over and since I've never worked with fondant before, I was very slow with shaping it and it kept drying out there were cracks everywhere.. in the end I got very frustrated and decided just to leave it.

I did more research and found out that marzipan is more ideal for making figures and models for cake decoration so today I went out and bought a small pack of marzipan.

I'm afraid to start on it since I read on-line that marzipan also dries out very fast and it cracks a lot.. so I would like to know if there is any way to prevent it from cracking and drying out as you work with it because I'm actually running out of time to make the figure and I still have yet to make the actual cake!

The figure I am making is something quite detailed so I would like to know what is type I should use for this type of thing, should I continue with fondant or use marzipan? I found someone who made a detailed figure on a cake and I would like to be able to make something as detailed too!

Here are some pictures of that cake below:



The Result of the cake:


Also another question is how do I colour marzipan/fondant? I've read a few posts on here that you should use food gels or powder to colour it but I cannot find any here in the shops and I only have food colouring.. Would mixing voldka with water based food colouring work? Or will it make the marzipan/fondant all gooey and runny still??

Thank you for taking your time to read this! I'm sorry its so long but I really would like to be able to make one as detailed as the pictures I posted!!

where do you live?
liquid colours can be used, but it will make your paste much softer, you wont get strong dark colours. however, if your planning to paint, you could do that with the liquid colours, although they might be a bit watery. (you would not add alcohol to the fondant - you can use it to thin paste colours to paint with)

fondant alone is too soft for figures like this. you would need to mix in some gumpaste really. (or do the whole figure in gumpaste) (you can mix fondant and marzipan too, but i havent tried it)
id say marzipan is a good bet, its very good for figures. cant say ive noticed it drying out or cracking, its very easy to work with.

make sure you knead it properly. it can take a while!
always keep it covered and sealed. take out a small bit at a time to work on and make one part of the figure at a time.

you might need some internal support - a toothpick or skewer inside the body.
its probably worth letting the body dry (so its stronger and more supportive) before putting the head on.

figures take time - so at some point you might just want to simplify the design!
have a look for extra icing on google, loraine mckay does amazing figure tutorials which could help you, but there is a delay between buying and receiving.
xx

Thank you for the suggestion! I've looked her up and she does amazing work! I am looking into her tutorials now

I live in New Zealand, I did see some writing icings in the supermarket but not sure if it's actually gel or not
heres the link to the product: http://www.queen.com.au/products/show.php?categoryid=4
Its the 3rd one from the top, the Writing gels in 4 packs

Would it bet possible to darken the colours by painting a few extra coatings?

its not the gel food colour you need.
i take it you cant find petal dust either?
extra coats might work, but you would need to let them dry fully inbetween, not sure how long that takes, but its longer than paste colours and alcohol.
maybe have a look at the planet cake website, they have a forum i believe, and although its based in autralia, they might be able to offer more advise on what products you can get and where to find them.
xx