My First Sculpted Dog!

Good Morning everybody!
I just wanted to share with you my first sculpted dog cake :). It was ordered by a repeat client who chaired the fabulous "Fur Ball" Gala for SPCA Cincinnati. I started working with her a few years ago as her wedding cake vendor, and have made many, many cakes for her!

Instead of making a grown up dog, I thought that it was a good idea to make a puppy along with its adoption certificate!...after all, that is such an important component of what SPCA does!
I named my puppy "Gigi", because that is one of the MANY nicknames that I have for my daughter Valeria,
My puppy was covered in Ivory Fondant, airbrushed and them accentuated with dry dusts. Her name tag was made out of gumpaste, for rigidity. Eyes nose and her little tongue were a combination of fondant and gumpaste, also known as  50/50.

Most of the texture of the dog was made with an impression mat that I made from scratch. Not only I did not want to spend on a commercial mat, but also, found that the ones our there had a scale that was not appropriate for the look I wanted for the puppy. Making this mat was so simple, and SO affordable!

Gigi is sitting on a cake  pillow that was baked on a pillow cake pan....that saved me some valuable time, since I didn't have to sculpt the cake; it also saved cake that didn't have to go to waste!
It was the first time I used this mold, and I highly recommend it...baking on it, was a piece of cake!

After most of the texture was completed, I accentuated some features with a dresden tool, and some additional pieces of textured fondant that gave Gigi some dimensionality!

Covering the cake pillow gave me some grief...not because it was difficult, but because I was running out of time!
What I did was roll a large and thin piece of fondant, texture it with a taffeta rolling pin, and place it on top of the iced pillow, and then enrobe the cake.

It was difficult to tuck the fondant on the part of the cake that touched the board!...maybe, I should have done the opposite. Place the cake over the large piece of fondant and then wrap the cake up!. I think that the problem was that my original piece of fondant wasn't large enough :)

After the fondant was in place, I proceeded to sculpt it with a combination of tools and rolling pins, to give it that ruched look! I use all natural butter buttercream, and ALWAYS my cakes are enrobed after being refrigerated. What I had to do, as to wait a bit until my buttercream softened...that way I was able to sculpt the waves on the "fabric"!

Anyway, this was an adventure and I was so happy with the results!
I hope that you challenge yourself too, and create something that you never thought you could do!

You can see more pictures of this cake visiting:
Sugar Realm, Designer Cakes Cincinnati - Sculpted Dog Cakes SPCA Cincinnati
All my best,
I