I've literally just spent two hours searching all of CC but I can't find quite what I'm looking for... but if I've missed something please direct me to it ^_^

Ok, so I may have bitten off a little bit more than I can chew, but what's caking without a few challenges? Long story short, I'm part of an collaborative art project that a friend of mine has set up in honour of this year being the 150th anniversary of the first time that Alice in Wonderland was ever told. We're re-illustrating the books using all sorts of different art forms - naturally I chose cake! And what better chapter to illustrate in cake than the Mad Tea Party??

My idea for the cake was a spiral cake with the tea party on the top and all sorts of related things on the 'path' down the spiral part of the cake. This cake involves a LOT of new things for me - I've never ever carved a spiral cake before, but most importantly I've not really done fondant figures before, other than a couple sitting flat on the ground with their hands in their laps!

I've already done the March Hare and a table/chairs; I really just have the Hatter and Alice left to do. I don't want them just to sit there being boring though! I want Alice to be walking up to the table (so: standing up) and the Hatter to be in some sort of dynamic pose. When I tried it the first time with him though his arm fell off... and then his legs fell off...

So: please please please, any generalt tips on figure making and particularly any tips on dynamic figures, poses, modelling etc. would be very appreciated!

(As a side note, my kitchen is usually pretty humid - no extractor fan, bane of my life! - so consequently the only way I've found so far to dry gumpaste even remotely well is to stick it in the oven on a looooooow temperature for a couple hours. But this does make the gumpaste get much much softer before it dries which has been contributing to my support issues and why my previous Hatter's arm fell off If anyone has any ways to help gumpaste dry in a humid environment please please let me know!)