I have a concept in my head for a cake topper but don't know how to pull it off.  My candy making experience consists of melting chocolate into homemade molds to make grenades and bullets.

I want to have a pickup truck sitting atop a sheet cake.  My concern is taking a model truck and pressing it sideways into a mold.  I can foresee the side mirrors and undercarriage between the wheels as being a problem when releasing it from the mold.  I anticipate the truck smashing into pieces as I am wrangling it from the mold.  Then I though of making it in gummy form.  Again, haven't tried anything like this in the past.  Would this approach be more forgiving for a beginner?  If a side mirror was to tear off during unmolding, couldn't I just use more sugar stuff to "glue" it back on?

I also notice that poured sugar is translucent.  Not the effect I want for my finished cake topper. Especially if newbie "bubbles" were throughout the finished product.  And that leads to another question- how to achieve different colors when pouring.  How to get black bumpers, trim, etc., yet have the body of the truck another color?  Can poured sugar be painted, and if so, with what?  If I pour the whole thing in a red color, can I go back once cooled and paint parts in another color?

I have been researching here and elsewhere looking for answers, but can't find them.  Any advice, feedback, tips would be GREATLY appreciated.  Is there any other factors I need to be concerned about that I haven't even thought of?  I saw a candy recipe here that uses cream of tartar, don't remember where, but why use this ingredient? Any what is isomalt that I am reading about? I was thinking poured candy was just sugar and water.  Is my "newbieness" shining brightly to everyone yet?

yes like a laser beam ;)

i would suggest making different molds for different parts of the truck--

yes you can color over the red with black--edible markers work on sugar

i would also suggest you do some molded sugar first to get a feel for it--this project is too big to start with--and you're gonna need to make the molds too--yikes

you can make this out of just modeling the molten sugar too and combining different techniques but that's a vast learning curve --

you could also choose another medium like modeling chocolate, or nice crispy* fondant wrapped around some rice krispie treats--

*crispy fondant = fondant + tylose or, fondant + cornstarch

My original idea was to take a model kit of the truck and make individual molds of each of the pieces then "gluing"

 the pieces together. But, finding the correct model is proving to be impossible.  Everywhere I called either doesn't have a huge selection of model kits, or only carry RC versions.

I have worked extensively with fondant and wanted to branch out and try something new. Hence the poured sugar idea.

do the poured sugar for sure but find an easier, simpler way to start out is my idea for you--

i would suggest buying the model car you want and dismantling it to make the molds- -

look up lorann oils and look for their gourmet section and find the icicles--you can start there ;)

don't burn yourself!

http://lorannoils.com/node/72