1. Making the Mothers Head
In this lesson Valentina shows us how to start the mother’s head bringing out all the key shapes and features with one piece of sugarpaste (approx 35g). First of all she adds a little CMC to it and then kneads it until it strengthens. Getting the head shape right at the beginning is key so try and make a slightly oval egg shape and get the eyes in the centre. From here Valentina uses a mixture of modelling tools such as the dresden tool, veining tool, cell stick, small ball tool and her hands to bring it all to life. You will be amazed at how much detail can be formed with the smallest of movements.
For the full tutorial see Mother and daughter playtime. All the templates are available at the bottom of the Tools Section.
2. Making the eyes
You can see already how amazing this model is going to end up looking after just one lesson and now we are onto the eyes. Always remember to hold the head loosely as you work on it and try and be as delicate and subtle as possible with your modelling tools. Watch how little Valentina does in terms of movement with them but gets amazing results.
3. Making the mother's ears
Valentina shows us how to position the ears on the head by measuring out by eye and with the tools you have to hand and marking the head lightly to keep yourself right. Once you have your position simply roll out very small tear drop shapes of sugarpaste and attaches them. To attach them to the head she cleverly pushes them in with a leaf veining tool. This adds a very realistic ear canal and attaches them even more securely. For fine detail she uses her silicone brush and draws a question mark shape on the edge of the ear. To finish she adds more detail by adding in a tiny sausage of white sugarpaste into the mouth which she then closes up more as though revealing the teeth inside.
4. Making the mother's legs
In this lesson, Valentina shows us how to make incredibly realistic female legs. She starts off by rolling out two cone shapes of sugarpaste from two 40g balls of sugarpaste with some CMC added to them. The templates to help guide you for this lesson are available for download in the tools section. She uses 22 gauge wire through the centre of either leg all the way down to the ankle to help shape and hold the position of the legs.
5. Making teh mother's body
Valentina start off with a 80g ball of sugarpaste mixed with CMC and rolls it into a sausage. Again you can use your template to guide you to how long you should roll it out, In this lesson you will only need your hands and a leaf veining tool and a cell stuck. You will be amazed by the results you can get using just your fingers.
6. Making the Mother’s Dress
Let’s put some clothes on the mother shall we? Valentina starts by rolling out a very thin piece of black sugarpaste which she rubs to bring out a nice shiny look. she then cuts it into a rectangular shape and simply wets the body with some water and wraps it around.
7. Making the mother's shoes
Valentina uses flower paste the same colour as the cake for this lesson and shows us how to make tiny cute shoes that the little girl will be wearing. You may want to avoid coffee before this stage as you will need a steady hand. The cutters that she uses are included in this set.
8. Making the dressing gown
To get the lovely shiny material look Valentina uses some silver lustre dust with high percentage alcohol and brushes it on with a wide soft paintbrush and then uses a dry paintbrush to paint over it again to add a nice texture.She then cuts out a rectangular shape which she has pre-measured and wraps it around the body.
9. Making the arms
Valentina starts off with 20g of flesh coloured sugarpaste which she then divides into two to give her the correct amount of sugarpaste per arm. It’s always worth weighing as you go to make sure as it will make your life a lot easier. As well you do have the templates to refer to which again will help. Don’t place the arms on just yet however as we are still to put the sleeves on.
10. Making the sleeves
In this lesson Valentina uses the same technique she used for wrapping the mother’s body. She uses the piece of sugarpaste she prepared earlier painted in the silver lustre and simply cuts it so size and wraps it around the arms. Once it is on she then carefully puts the arms on the body using pliers.
11. Painting the eyes
You may want to have cotton buds and high percentage alcohol to hand at this stage so you can clean any mistakes you might make. To start off Valentina cuts out tiny circles of green sugarpaste with a piping nozzle which she uses for the iris’ of the eyes. She then mixes a small amount of green and black paint (Lustre mixed with vodka) and then paints very fine detail over the green sugarpaste while attached to the head. You are aiming to paint very faint lines that go from the centre of the eye out. It may help to study your own eye for a moment and copy what you see. Don’t get too carried away of course. We don’t need to paint blood vessels or anything like that. For the pupils she adds a tiny dot of black paint with the a very small ball tool which is a lot easier than using a tiny dot of sugarpaste.
12. Finishing the eyes
Valentina shows us how to finish off the eyes by adding eyeliner and eyebrows with some black paint and very thin sausages of black and brown sugarpaste. Of course the girls eyes are made slightly differently from the mother’s as she is a little young for eye make up! She then adds a little bit of rose dust to their cheeks to bring them to life with light strokes starting from the edge of the mouth toward out.
13. Attaching the head
First of all we need to finish the eyes by adding little specs of white to bring a little life to them. You could try and paint them but you may find you have more control by attaching tiny balls of white sugarpaste which is what Valentina does. When attaching the heads make sure they are not too soft before doing so as they might change shape as you put them on.
14. Making the hair
Valentina uses 20g of Yellow sugarpaste and 20g of Brown sugarpaste and mixes them together to create a nice brunette tone. She starts off by creating a flat piece of medium thick sugarpaste which she shape around the head and then simply adds smaller pieces to it to create a stick up fringe and so on. She then uses her leaf veining tool to mark it and put lines throughout the hair. A very simple and quick technique to create realistic hair.