After receiving lots of requests the past year on how I did my animals, here is a quick tutorial that I hope will help!

1. Make a ball a little larger than a golf ball with fondant. Try to mold it into a more oblong shape-this is going to be the shape of the body. The ones I make are usually about 2 and 1 inch wide. It's OK if they look "chubby".
2. Make a ball half that size for the head. Depending on what I am going to do, I will use a veining tool for the eyes and mouth a nose. If your animal is a girl, make eyelashes above the eye holes.
3. For the legs, roll out 2 sausages, about an inch long and a little thinner than your index finger. Do whatever width looks right-for elephants I make very chubby legs, and other animals will be thicker. Use your own judgment.
4, For the feet, I flatten one end of the sausage and thin it out into a circle, the size of the tip of my finger. I will also use the veining tool to make little marks in the feet for giraffes and elephants-for cats I make tiny little pink pads out of fondant.
5. Do the same thing for the arms, only shorter and thinner. Use your own judgment to keep things in proportion.
6. For animals that have hands(monkeys), I made the hands separately and then attach them to the ends of the arms. For animals with hooves or paws, I make them the same way I do the feet.
7. For face details, I will use pinpoint size balls of black fondant for eyes, and also different colors of fondant like pink for the noses. Sometimes I will use an edible marker for eyelashes and eyes and mouths.
8. Make the ears. This part is very easy, but for the elephant, cut out a very thin oval from fondant, then gather one end to "bunch" it up, to where you will join it to the head. For other animals, embellish with some pink fondant to make it look more like ears. For an elephant's nose, make it the same way as the legs, only much smaller. Use the veining tool to make nostrils in the trunk.
9. For a lions mane, I roll out orange gumpaste and cut out a small circle with a fondant cutter. I then cut the circle again, to make a crescent moon shape. Next, I take an exacto knife and make the moon jagged. I make three of these and then place it behind the ears of the lion.
10. For girl animals, I make tiny bows and flowers for their hair. People love that extra touch.

Thanks for the tutorial. This is fantastic!!!

Jen

Thanks for sharing.Good tutorial!

Thank you so much for taking your time to do this for all of us

Too Cool.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Wow!! that is a great tutorial, Thanks for sharing.

Thank you sooo much Summer

Always so helpful!!!!

How cute are they! Thanks!

You're very welcome. Please ignore the messy kitchen in the background! This was done for a friend a while back, and I just didn't feel like redoing the photos, LOL.

WOW!
This is awesome, Thanks!

Beautiful!!! Thanks!

Those are so cute! Thanks!

thank you so much summernoelle... these are great! =)

Thanks so much!

Thanks so much for sharing....they're adorable!

This is AWESOME!!! Thanks for sharing it, but I went to print it, and it wont show the pictures with it...Im a visual person, if I dont have something to compare it with, I feel like a dummy....

can you trying mailing it to me?
[email protected]

THANKS!!!!...unless you can find away for me to print, let me know.

Awesome! Thanks a bunch for the tutorial.

thanks for showing how you make them. my first attempt is going to be this month with a jungle theamed baby cake. i have only used fondat once, and never had to make anything 3d with it. i am looking foward to it though

can i just get the wilton's fondant from the store and use that? if so, so i need to add anything to it and how far in advance do you make them?

thanks!
~jennifer

This is so awesome I'm making these this weekend....yikes!! so how far inadvance can you make them?

Thanks for the info

That is awesome!! Thank you so much for sharing!!

bump! thought others would like to see this!

I wish she would have finished the animal - it would have been great to see how she did the face. Great animals - so very cute.

Awesome, so cute!

Thanks Summer!

Those are really cute and so well done! My son loves elephants, I may need to attempt one of those.

Thank you very much for doing this. I have been wondering though, when you do the figures is it just fondant or do you add gum tex or mix 50/50 gumpaste? What is the best method for making figures to go on cakes.
Thanks a bunch in advance.

Thank you so much for sharing this! Much needed tutorial!

Thanks so much for this tutorial! Much needed and appreciated.

thanks for the complete tutorial!!