Ugh! My Surfing Baby Looks Like A Troll!
Decorating By KarenOR Updated 12 Apr 2007 , 2:02am by flowers40
I'm totally frustrated. I made my mixture probably 70% gumpaste and 30% fondant so that I would NOT get "sag", well, apparently that was not enough. My baby was looking cute, then his butt exploded to the back (which is an easy explanation for a baby 
) and he just sank. His belly button is practically beneath his legs. I got his head on and it kept changing shape, so I kept reshaping it gently and of course as the outside dries is cracks. It's a good thing that babies are kind of round, but this is TOO much. AND I am noticing from the pictures, he totally has gorilla arms!
I made a bunch of different surfboards, so I put him on this dry one just so you could see how he is "supposed" to be sitting.
So what the heck?? Should I go all gumpaste? Can you use a hairdryer on cool?
He's still cute; and people will think he's cute!
He's still cute; and people will think he's cute!
I think he looks cute, also. Don't surfers crouch down a little bit when paddling anyways?
It's so CUTE! you should be so proud of yourself, it's so realistic. i love it, can'y wait to the finished cake!
I was imagining this grotesque looking thing... but he is adorable... besides haven't you ever heard that some things can be so ugly that they are cute! lol... but this is just plain cute! His arms are maybe a little long but he reminds me so much of the pillsbury dough boy... I just want to tickle his tummy! 
Okay, let's try this again...
Firstly, I appreciate the comments, I really do.
But, *I* don't like the fact that he's all squatty and that he crushed his feet flat under him. I'm thinking of doing the next one in pieces and letting them dry a little before putting them together, though, that might backfire. I was looking for some suggestions.
I'm a perfectionist, what can I say?! Well, moreso when I have something in my head , I NEED for it to come out that way. LOL!
Thanks mgdqueen!
I was thinking of that and I actually have other legs and shorts done which I have been rotating sides every few minutes and they seem to be holding up well. Somehow, at least one baby is going to be standing up surfing yikes.
So, if I do them in pieces, what will I need to attach the pieces? i assume the water I'm using now, is NOT going to work. Do I need a sugar glue or royal or something?
Thanks!
I think he is just too cute!
I'm a perfectionist. Like all Perfectionists, I think we just need a little encouragement from others when we think our work is up to our standards!
Who ever you made this for will love it because they do not have the paitences or the time to do it themselves... At least that is what I tell myself when I get discouraged!
Okay, so I did the next one in about double the time, waiting in between for the pieces to dry a little. I also mixed more gumpaste into the blob. I think it looks better. I was afraid with the drying overnight thing because I really need to mold the pieces together and I couldn't do that if they were all dry. This way, I fit them on and then too them apart to dry a bit. The arms are still a little long, but I like the face better and I even added a tooth.
It cracked quite a bit, but I think it will be fine. Better than the first one.
I don't have patience to wait overnight, either. LOL!
Oh and now I have to make some wider surfboards for these wide babies 
Maybe these are more like boogie boards!
Because it's impossible to do good modeling with just fondant. It does exactly what mine did. It sags. The gumpaste helps it to dry much faster and thus doesn't have as much time to sag.
Yeah, it's not as dried out looking at it seems in the picture. It does have a few cracks, but I thought I would paint them into a design on the shorts when it's all dry.
So, it was babies all day yesterday. As the shapes got better the cracking got worse. Argh. I was so frustrated. Also, I think they are going to be completely out of scale and way too big for the cake. The wave I made it the height of a two liter bottle on it's side and the standing up surfing baby without his head, is already taller than that. I guess it doesn't really matter, right? I need to make bigger surfboards, too now because of my giganto-babies.
I seriously don't know how you guys do this for money. LOL! I would go crazy. I'm way too much of a perfectionist when it comes to my art stuff. Luckily, for me, no one is paying me to do this . I'm just doing it because I want to do it for a few occasions a year.
Cowabunga, dude! Those babies rock! Super, super cute.
I think they are all cute, even the 1st one. I had the same problems with my babies when I did a baby shower cake, and it called for 5 little babies, to go around the cake. Everytime I would but them together, before they dried a little, they would get flat and wider than they started out as. The weight from the head would always smash them down. I had much better luck when I did them in pieces. The next thing I would do after they dried, and I completely assembled them, would be to paint them with some liquid vanilla creamer. This gave them a shine you wouldn't believe. And it sometime settled in some of the cracks and acted as sort of a filler. The only thing with this was, that you needed additional drying time after painting with the creamer, and you really couldn't handle the piece, because it would leave a smudge.
Also, I think I picked up another tip from someplace on this site. Use spaghetti to assemble and hold pieces together, like to put the head, arms and legs together with the rest of the body. This way, if someone bits into one, they are not running the risk of getting stuck by a toothpick. And then you can truely say, they are completely edible, even though you probably would not advise anyone to eat them.
FYI - I forgot to tell you, if you use the vanilla creamer to give a little shine to your babies, use Fat Free. It gives the best shine, because the sugar content is so high in the Fat Free variety of creamer. I honestly don't know if the regular really gives any shine. I sometimes will mix a little corn syrup in with the creamer, but it makes it too sticky after a while, which makes it hard to paint with. If you heat corn syrup and use it to paint with, it gives a lot of shine, but you have to work really fast. Because it gets so sticky so quick you can barely use it after a couple of minutes.
I have never tried to make gumpaster babie OR people-I am so proud of the job you did..and I love the "outtie" belly buttons!
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