I am working on a small birthday cake based on the Christmas Vacation movie. I want to make a teeny squirrel to put in the Christmas tree, but I have no idea how to make something so small out of fondant. It's going to be on a 6" cake, so it has to be tiny.

I also need to make a dog to put on the same cake, so it will have to be proportional to that.

How do you make a figure small and still detailed enough?

I would probably make it out of modeling chocolate and I don't think it has to be too miniscule just because it's on a 6 inch cake - it could still be 1 1/2 inches or so. I use my smallest round icing tips to make circles that I flatten for the whites of eyes and a detail brush to paint in dots for pupils and such.

I like modeling chocolate for figures because you can blend together seams and make textures in it easily - for fur you could even take a toothpick and rough the surface up a bit.

Good luck and have fun with it!

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1633306.html

These are some tiny figures that I made a while back. I used Michele Fosters fondant. Normally I add tylose powder but I was out. HTH

I'd suggest watching some of Aine's tutorials. They have good general information about making animals and people out of fondant or gumpaste.

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=586180&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

You can check out some clay sites as they have animals made out of clay which you can do out of fondant.