3D Finalist
Liberty Soul
by Jacki Fanto · submitted Nov 29, 2015 · 2015 contest
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Description
This is my first ever Threadcakes entry and my first ever competition. The thought of entering competitions gives me cold sweats, but I thought that if you never try you will never know and what better way to try than with what I think is one of the best contests around - Threadcakes. The experience was nerve wracking and also liberating.
I had a number of different Threadless designs that I had pinned. I always kept coming back to Liberty Soul. Her eyes were so captivating and the mono tone colour palette is just so striking. I knew she would challenge me artistically, so off I went to start my piece.
As the cake would be eaten predominantly by my family - I chose my kids favourite flavour - vanilla and chocolate cake. I usually marble the two together, but this time I decided to make it into layers of cake. Plus these cakes are similar to pound cakes in texture and they are relatively light and easy to carve.
The structure for my cake was very simple indeed. One board and a central dowel. Miss Soul also had a separate board around her jawline for added stability. She was then assembled completely with cake. Layered and stacked with white chocolate ganache. I then carved a simple head and neck shape and smoothed my ganache. Her facial features were all built directly onto the cake with modelling chocolate. This is the perfect medium for creating and contouring features like these. At this point I realized that I needed to give her a longer neckline. I lifted her head from the nack upwards where the support board was and added in some of the left over cake and carved a little more and re-ganached. Once I was happy with the new shape and the moulding of her face, I covered her completely in white fondant. As she would be painted and dusted to create the face in shades of grey and black, the background needed to be white.
I used a mix of dusts for the shading on her cheekbones, neckline, nose and eye area. I then used watercolours of black tones for her lips, eyes, lashes and eyebrows. Next I did her hair and that was simply made with dark grey fondant. I wanted to use dark grey instead of black as I wanted to show light and dark tones of black in her hair to give depth. The fringe and plait were embossed with many lines to give the impression of individual strands of hair. The hair was then painted in some spots with black airbrush paint and in other areas with light silver dust. I used the silver dust instead of white, as the silver picks up light easier and makes it seem shinier. Her headband was painted with silver, white and dark grey dusts. Silver and white in the middle for the highlight and dark greys on the ends to show depth. Her large hoop earrings were made by threading black fondant onto a curved 18” gauge floral wire. I left one end bare of fondant so that it could be “pierced” through her ear.
The feathers, oh the feathers, 31 in total. All handcut from gum paste and threaded onto floral wire. Each was cut and scored with fine lines and then painted with black airbrush colour to show the feathered lines. The feathers at the front of the headpiece had darker patches for them to stand out and the feathers that fanned out at the back of her head were larger. The other 2 feathers were assembled together to be left hanging past her neckline.
All Miss Soul needed after that was her red slash “veil”. I created this piece with gelatin. This was the perfect medium to use for this component as it was transparent enough to still be able to see her eyes. I used titanium gelatin leaves soaked in a little water until melted through. I added red food colour and then quickly poured over a baking sheet until it was very thin. I let it dry out overnight and the next morning it was ready to use. I cut out the strips that I needed for her face. The next quandary was how to attach it. The easiest way for the main strip was for a tiny slit to be made in the bridge of her nose and the gelatin slash sat easily into that. The two smaller cheek pieces were attached to her cheek with a little piping gel.
She was complete.
I had fun taking some pics with her then and finally my boys got what they were waiting for – to slice and dice and enjoy the cake! Win win all round really.
Miss Soul was created over 4 days and all up I would say it took around 10 or 12 hours to complete. I never thought I would enter a competition at all. Petrifies me. However if there was a competition to try it out on, Threadcakes was it. I had contemplating entering Threadcakes for the last 3 years and never got the nerve or had the time. Thank you so much for the opportunity and the whole process was invigorating and a huge learning curve and I am just thrilled that I actually got the nerve to enter.
I had a number of different Threadless designs that I had pinned. I always kept coming back to Liberty Soul. Her eyes were so captivating and the mono tone colour palette is just so striking. I knew she would challenge me artistically, so off I went to start my piece.
As the cake would be eaten predominantly by my family - I chose my kids favourite flavour - vanilla and chocolate cake. I usually marble the two together, but this time I decided to make it into layers of cake. Plus these cakes are similar to pound cakes in texture and they are relatively light and easy to carve.
The structure for my cake was very simple indeed. One board and a central dowel. Miss Soul also had a separate board around her jawline for added stability. She was then assembled completely with cake. Layered and stacked with white chocolate ganache. I then carved a simple head and neck shape and smoothed my ganache. Her facial features were all built directly onto the cake with modelling chocolate. This is the perfect medium for creating and contouring features like these. At this point I realized that I needed to give her a longer neckline. I lifted her head from the nack upwards where the support board was and added in some of the left over cake and carved a little more and re-ganached. Once I was happy with the new shape and the moulding of her face, I covered her completely in white fondant. As she would be painted and dusted to create the face in shades of grey and black, the background needed to be white.
I used a mix of dusts for the shading on her cheekbones, neckline, nose and eye area. I then used watercolours of black tones for her lips, eyes, lashes and eyebrows. Next I did her hair and that was simply made with dark grey fondant. I wanted to use dark grey instead of black as I wanted to show light and dark tones of black in her hair to give depth. The fringe and plait were embossed with many lines to give the impression of individual strands of hair. The hair was then painted in some spots with black airbrush paint and in other areas with light silver dust. I used the silver dust instead of white, as the silver picks up light easier and makes it seem shinier. Her headband was painted with silver, white and dark grey dusts. Silver and white in the middle for the highlight and dark greys on the ends to show depth. Her large hoop earrings were made by threading black fondant onto a curved 18” gauge floral wire. I left one end bare of fondant so that it could be “pierced” through her ear.
The feathers, oh the feathers, 31 in total. All handcut from gum paste and threaded onto floral wire. Each was cut and scored with fine lines and then painted with black airbrush colour to show the feathered lines. The feathers at the front of the headpiece had darker patches for them to stand out and the feathers that fanned out at the back of her head were larger. The other 2 feathers were assembled together to be left hanging past her neckline.
All Miss Soul needed after that was her red slash “veil”. I created this piece with gelatin. This was the perfect medium to use for this component as it was transparent enough to still be able to see her eyes. I used titanium gelatin leaves soaked in a little water until melted through. I added red food colour and then quickly poured over a baking sheet until it was very thin. I let it dry out overnight and the next morning it was ready to use. I cut out the strips that I needed for her face. The next quandary was how to attach it. The easiest way for the main strip was for a tiny slit to be made in the bridge of her nose and the gelatin slash sat easily into that. The two smaller cheek pieces were attached to her cheek with a little piping gel.
She was complete.
I had fun taking some pics with her then and finally my boys got what they were waiting for – to slice and dice and enjoy the cake! Win win all round really.
Miss Soul was created over 4 days and all up I would say it took around 10 or 12 hours to complete. I never thought I would enter a competition at all. Petrifies me. However if there was a competition to try it out on, Threadcakes was it. I had contemplating entering Threadcakes for the last 3 years and never got the nerve or had the time. Thank you so much for the opportunity and the whole process was invigorating and a huge learning curve and I am just thrilled that I actually got the nerve to enter.