FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD

Frankie was a project with many firsts for me, including the techniques I used to sculpt his face and working with gelatin. My awesome boss allowed me to use her bakery for this project so I was super lucky to have a great space to create! The baking process took about an hour in the oven. I used white cake mix for the cake, but made the filling from scratch. For the filling, I made a vanilla buttercream. Super plain, I know! But I wanted to share him with some friends who I know for a fact don't stray from just plain "vanilla". Uhh.. Why are we friends?? Anyhow, the sculpting took a total of 6 hours. I wanted to get him just right! It took a while as I played with the amount of modeling chocolate for his brow, nose, mouth and chin. After I was satisfied I applied several thin layers of buttercream until he was seamless enough for the fondant. The fondant I used is Fonderific brand. I made the fondant a light grey with slight green undertones so that I could add depth later while keeping him in grayscale. After I applied the fondant, I went to work with my handy dandy tool and gave him plenty of texture like wrinkles and scars and also enhanced his nose and mouth. I then added his eyes piece by peice then added more texture to enhance his under eye bags and droopy eyelids. The ears were sculpted from fondant then added. Next came the bolts and staples. But first I made gelatin bubbles using balloons as the mold, and gelatin, water, and "cranberry" luster dust for color. I dipped the balloons, stuck them in styrofoam to dry overnight. The next morning I popped the balloons then CAREFULLY used tweezers to remove the balloon from the hardened gelatin. Success! The rest of the process took about 2 1/2 hours. The next part was my favorite because it really brought him to life. I used makeup brushes and black and grey powder to enhance his features. I painted his eyeballs with Ameri Gel color in brown, ivory, and black. Then used the black to paint his hair. I combined confectioners glaze and silver powder to paint his bolts and staples. Lastly, I dressed him up with a shirt made of black fondant, then I gave him his bubblegum bubble! Then I died from exhaustion. The end. :)