Is molding figures out of modelling chocolate easier (or just as easy) than using fondant or gumpaste??
I want to make a Peter pan cake for my hubby's birthday next month and I want to put a bunch of the characters from the movie on the cake. I've always worked with fondant for my figures and while I like it and I'm pretty good at it (not great) I haven't been able to get a lot of detail into the faces. Fondant just dries out so fast. I am wanting to try and make the characters look as close as possible to the real thing as I can. I noticed that on that show "Amazing wedding cakes" that Christopher Garren uses modeling chocolate for his figures and they are just awesome.
Has anyone worked with modelling chocolate for this? Do you have any advice?? How do you color it? Can you use the same paste food coloring to color as you do for fondant?? Or do you have to get the oil based food color that is for chocolate??
Any advice you guys have for me would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!

I hope you get an answer. I would like some expert advice on modeling chocolate, too.

I have used modeling chocolate and LOVE it! You don't get the creases in your object that you get when you use fondant. When the chocolate starts to dry out, all you have to do is pick it up and knead it a little and the moisture comes back. Here is the recipe that I use:

1 Pound of chocolate wafers
1/2 cup of corn syrup

Microwave the chocolate wafers for one minute and stir. Microwave an additional 20 seconds and stir again until completely melted. You may need to do an 10 or 20 seconds. Put the corn syrup in the microwave for about 20 seconds and warm to the touch. Be careful not to get it too hot. Pour the corn syrup into your chocolate. Begin stirring immediately. As soon as the chocolate begins to seize and there are no more corn syrup streaks in it, stop stirring. Pour the mixture into some plastic wrap and wrap it up. Let it sit overnight. It will be hard like a brick. You will have to cut it into small pieces and knead it to loosen it up. Once you do that, it is ready to use!

You can use regular gel colors to knead into the modeling chocolate to color it, but it will not work if you try to paint it on (it will bead up). Oil-based colors work better for that but I have noticed they are not perfect either......I usually try to knead color in now and not paint at all!

I absolutely love candy clay, and have had much better luck with it than I've had with fondant, but I need to stop and take a break WAY more often to avoid melting/tearing issues.

I know that the cake shop here in my town also has colored chocolate so you don't have to go through the trouble of coloring it if you don't want to. It colors pretty easily though if you do it yourself. For me, sometimes it is just easier to buy it already done. It keeps for so long, you can use it for other projects anyways.

the candy melts are pretty easy for getting colored MC, but if you add the candy colors while the clay is still melted (before kneading) that is pretty easy too (you cannot add the regular gel colors while still in melted form though).

forgive me if you knew this already .

sometimes the candy melts can get kind of greasy after aging (i age for 24 hours in the fridge). i often wipe some of it off before kneading, but you can also just knead the fat back in. depends on how soft you need the clay to be. semi-sweet is lower in fat than white choc and candy clay so you really don't get this happening with semi-sweet.