I’m making an Alien Dog cake for Peo’s birthday – at her request after Mike McCarey gave me his sample dog stand after the Austin cake show in February – so I decided it’d be easier to cover the body with scales rather than trying to get a solid piece of fondant wrapped around the three-dimensional stand.
Peo chose pink, purple, and blue as colours, and after trying to cut out inset ovals, I decided a gradient would be better. Thus, I used what’s called the Skinner Blend method in polymer clay circles to make this tray of scales to sit and dry:
Later in the evening I held a Google+ On-Air Hangout where I made another set to show you step-by-step how to work a Skinner Blend (I used fondant, but this methodology works very well with modeling chocolate as well):
As with all of my G+ Hangout cake videos so far, it’s unedited, so skip ahead as desired. The production quality isn’t high but if we wait for me to set up a proper studio, no video is ever going to get made!
As promised in the video, here are some links on how to make and use Skinner Blends:
Desiree Desired Creations’ How to do basic Skinner blends
What To Do With Skinner Blends by Valerie Hollis
Carolyn’s Clay Creatoins’ Funky Fish Cane
Also as mentioned in the video, if there are other techniques you’d like to see me demonstrate on video, if you have any questions, or if you’d like to participate directly in a future Hangout, simply leave a comment to let me know. Note that to participate directly, you will require a G+ account (it’s free).
This post came up while I was digging around through various sculpting terms, and the link I read just before it discussed a modified Skinner Blend that she's calling a Tear Drop (since you're making tear drops instead of cutting out triangles to match together).
Link to the Tear Drop: http://www.beadsandbeading.com/blog/tear-drop-met…
I'm not sure if it'd help, but I thought I'd mention it. Interesting stuff, I'll have to try it out some time. I've not ventured into cutters yet with the clay, and haven't needed gradients yet, but trying to collect ideas for later.
Ooo that is potentially useful since with fondant, anything that minimizes having to dry out the fondant more is good. I'll have to give it a go next time I need a blend. Thanks Maau!
Glad I could help, hope it ends up being useful!
Hello, actually I Googled on super foods, but somehow got here. I had never heard of skinner blends before, but your post sounds so interesting that I followed some of your links. Seems like a great hobby!
Great to find a skinner blend video with fondant rather than fimo, as I wasn't sure if it would work as well. I need to blend navy blue through to pale blue to replicate a web page …oh the odd things people want on their birthday cakes! 🙂
Many thanks for making this – like the casual chatty style too.
M
Alien dog cake! Awesome, that is NOT something you see every day!