when letting fondant pieces set up before assembling the figure, how do you keep the pieces from having a flat side from where they are laying? any tips would be greatly appreciated.

 Thanks

You can lay them on something soft, like a spongy piece of foam. I generally start sticking all my bits together before they have dried too much and that way they can still be manipulated a little if needed.

Thank you so much Daisyblue I will definitely try that. By the way my real name is Daisy, just thought it was funny that the response to my post came from someone with my name in their user name :) 

Depending on the shape you want them to be, you can use plastic spoons, crumbled foil and even empty paper towel tubes covered in plastic wrap, to help keep the shapes you want. 

I am going to attempt to do the horse from the animated movie Spirit for my great niece. She wants him to be standing so I am hoping I will be able to accomplish that for her. I am self taught and have along way to go to compare with a lot of the work I see here, but I enjoy doing it and the kids in the family like giving me a challenge in the designs they request lol 

This should go into the "What it's worth" file: When making marshmallows or some other candies, I've laid them on a soft bed of powdered sugar or cornstarch. It supports with out distortion. And when ever I need to remove traces of powdered sugar from my fondant cakes, I spritz lightly with vodka which evaporates quickly, leaving the surface clean and dry. So, I was wondering if the two techniques could be combined? 

Whenever I have needed to support a figure however, I have had no trouble using crumpled paper towel, or even quilt batting. I used to use cotton balls but stressed over the fiber they frequently left. With the synthetic quilt batting that's not a problem.

The final method I use is to simply form the figure over a wire armature. This little pony I made from Liz Marek's fondant recipe and made it all in one piece. It should be no more difficult to do a rearing horse, just insert the supporting leg wires into a block of styrofoam to give you stability as you work.

Good luck on your horse. There are a number of ways to go, as you see here from all the different comments.

Jan