3D Finalist
Dragon Priestess
by Shani Christenson · submitted Nov 30, 2016 · 2016 contest
1 / 42
Description
Hello cake lovers! Last year I kind of went overboard on the description portion of the entry so this year I'm going to dial it back a few notches. So here goes...
So this year the timing was perfect for this to be my husbands birthday cake. Sweet! Killing two birds with one stone. Win, win! So in choosing a design I was looking for something I knew he would like. When I found "Dragon Priestess" I knew it was the one. I was in denial for a minute because wrapping my head around this design as a cake was taking a bit of effort. But he is a huge fan of the fantasy artist Boris Vallejo whose work is very similar to this design (scantily clad warrior women with mythical beasts) and he a a huge dragon lover, so there ya go. I just couldn't talk myself out of it. I knew it would be a doozy but I still had to go for it. So I decided to do the Priestess and the dragon sculpted out of modeling chocolate because they would just be too small to carve out of cake. The cake would be he statue. The first thing I did was make wire armatures for the two figures. You have to have some sort of support inside so the chocolate can hold the shape and pose. Sculpted the priestess first. I ended up doing the point headdress and shoulder piece out of gum paste because I was afraid it would be too fragile or just up and melt if it was chocolate. The beast has a base of rice cereal treats to bulk it up the is covered in modeling chocolate. The statue is carved out of my husbands favorite dark chocolate espresso cake with a chocolate mousse Swiss buttercream filling and frosting. At one point in the carving process I got really nervous because it was looking suspiciously like Homer Simpson with his big round eyes and big lips, hahah! The cake was covered in a 50/50 mix of fondant and modeling chocolate. I find it easier to sculpt and blend with the modeling chocolate involved. It got several layers of color airbrushed on and voila! I really loved how the statue came out just by itself. Super cool and a little creepy. Getting the figures to sit on top of the cake at the proper position was tricky and I had to tweak them a bit which resulted in several breaks that had to be repaired. I airbrushed a piece of foamier for the background. In the end it worked out very nicely though. My husband was super stoked and we enjoyed another epic birthday cake thanks to Threadcakes. Because my family probably wouldn't get such crazy cool birthday cakes otherwise. Thanks Threadcakes!
So this year the timing was perfect for this to be my husbands birthday cake. Sweet! Killing two birds with one stone. Win, win! So in choosing a design I was looking for something I knew he would like. When I found "Dragon Priestess" I knew it was the one. I was in denial for a minute because wrapping my head around this design as a cake was taking a bit of effort. But he is a huge fan of the fantasy artist Boris Vallejo whose work is very similar to this design (scantily clad warrior women with mythical beasts) and he a a huge dragon lover, so there ya go. I just couldn't talk myself out of it. I knew it would be a doozy but I still had to go for it. So I decided to do the Priestess and the dragon sculpted out of modeling chocolate because they would just be too small to carve out of cake. The cake would be he statue. The first thing I did was make wire armatures for the two figures. You have to have some sort of support inside so the chocolate can hold the shape and pose. Sculpted the priestess first. I ended up doing the point headdress and shoulder piece out of gum paste because I was afraid it would be too fragile or just up and melt if it was chocolate. The beast has a base of rice cereal treats to bulk it up the is covered in modeling chocolate. The statue is carved out of my husbands favorite dark chocolate espresso cake with a chocolate mousse Swiss buttercream filling and frosting. At one point in the carving process I got really nervous because it was looking suspiciously like Homer Simpson with his big round eyes and big lips, hahah! The cake was covered in a 50/50 mix of fondant and modeling chocolate. I find it easier to sculpt and blend with the modeling chocolate involved. It got several layers of color airbrushed on and voila! I really loved how the statue came out just by itself. Super cool and a little creepy. Getting the figures to sit on top of the cake at the proper position was tricky and I had to tweak them a bit which resulted in several breaks that had to be repaired. I airbrushed a piece of foamier for the background. In the end it worked out very nicely though. My husband was super stoked and we enjoyed another epic birthday cake thanks to Threadcakes. Because my family probably wouldn't get such crazy cool birthday cakes otherwise. Thanks Threadcakes!
