Gizmo : Bake A Christmas Wish

     Most of you have probably seen some of the Cake Collaborations going around these days, I have been lucky to have been involved in a few of them : Cakenweenie to celebrate Tim Burton's 50th birthday, Sugar Spooks for Halloween, Sugar Skull Bakers for the Day of the Dead, and now Bake a Christmas Wish for Christmas. Bake A Christmas Wish collaboration features almost 100 bakers from around the world re-creating their favorite characters and/or scenes from their favorite Christmas movies in edible mediums. With tutorials for sale and a great raffle , we hope top make money for the Make A Wish Foundation. The Bake A Christmas Wish website can be found here, and the corresponding Facebook page here.

     For my contribution I chose the movie Gremlins and Gizmo. The first step in any cake design (or art project for that matter) is reasearch and references, so to the batcave, err computer, I go!

I decided to do Gizmo at the keyboard, but wanted his cute ears sticking out, so combined the image from the movie with an action figure.

My next step was getting all the colors of modeling chocolate I needed , kneaded (now there's an awkward series of words). After kneading I put them all in an air-tight tupperware so I could grab as needed during the process.

      I also made a small batch of rice cereal treats to serve as my base. I wanted to stick fairly close to the size of my printout, so I started by smooshing some cereal treats into the general shape and size I needed.

 Then I applied my first layer of modeling chocolate with white - this first layer is just to fill in the various nooks and crannies and have a base for modeling, so you can use whatever colors you have left over from previous projects if you want.

 Wrapping the modeling chocolate around the head (I just use a tiny bit of water to stick pieces together). I indented for the eyes also.

 Smooth down a bit.

 This is a bottom view of the body with indentations made for the legs (and I couldn't resist giving him cute little Mogwai butt cheeks :)

 Deepening the eye sockets

 Adding the eyeballs. Although I always use modeling chocolate for modeling figures, I stick to fondant or gumpaste for the eyeballs because it is way easier to paint on.

 Adding more modeling chocolate to build up the features.

    When it's time to paint the eyeballs I try and find circle cutters to impress and indentation so I have a shape to follow, which helps keep a nice circle shape, especially if you have shaky hands like I do.                                    
                                      
 A little messier than I hoped for, and I kind of gave him a lazy eye, but I was tired at this point and to lazy to start the eyes over :(

                                      
Starting to add the other colors and facial features.

                                     
The body before texturing:

                                      
        And after:

Almost there:

Starting on the keyboard. I used Styrofoam as a base so it would be a nice, even slab.

Adding the arms. I indented the ends to fit his hands into :

Finished except for the painting.

Normally I use my airbrush for much of the shading, but this time I opted for painting with dusts and alcohol.

And voila! Hope you enjoyed this peek behind the scenes :)

M