AHey guys, in making this cake for my nephews birthday next week, I need some help on how to carve it and how to do the mouth. Any tips would be very much appreciated!!! [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3197131/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

This is how I would do it, just saying... not how you have to but this is what I would do. First bake your cakes and stack as needed for depth. SHAPE the cake as the general outline, no fins included (you could do more onto the tail if you wished). Being sure to curve the bottom portion of the cake (cake board side) of the head is carved a bit off of the board. Wrap in a smoothed out coat of grey fondant. 

I would then shape out of gumpaste the finage needed for the cake, being sure to taper to the correct size of the fishes already cake formed body, so that the seams are seamless... ;) These can be painted the correct color using gel paste colors directly on the paste. If you do these a bit ahead of time and allow them to dry they can actually be quite stiff enough to be pushed into the cake a bit and support their own weight (be sure to add a bit extra so that it can be 'inserted' into the cake). 

STEP 3

Then at the mouth I would ADD grey fondant for the lips, (brushing in the lines of added fondant with a bit of water as to blend in the lines to keep it continuous) and using a veining tool or the likes push in the gap to make it dig in for the open mouth. 

STEP 4

I would then use a large ball tool to indent where the eye should be, ball up some fondant to fit the appropriate size. You can paint on or add black fondant to make the iris. 

STEP 5

Use some petal dust or nontoxic pastel chalks to color up the main body colors. I'd start with a couple shades of green, then a red/pink, then on to the yellow lastly. 

STEP 6

I'd dare say you only have one shot on the gills, so do it slowly and right the first time! If your nervous about a cut like this you can ever so lightly brush on a color of dust or chalk to use as a trace line for you. Then gently cut the gill at a 45 degree angle. IF you wanted the gills to protrude a bit further out, to look 'open' you could take a layer or two of parchment paper to prop it open slightly so as to let it 'dry this way. 

IF you want- give it a quick steam it'll give it a nice shine up to it. 

At least this is about how I would 'break' down this cake... hope it helps.

I don't really have much helpful advice except to say that for the lips of the fish, I have seen cakes with similar features (like a rolly polly pugs face) done by laying strips of fondant directly onto the crumb coated cake where you want the features to stand out (in this case the fish's lips) and then finished by covering with the final fondant to give a finish where the features are defined but the finish is seamless, that may be something that you could look into. Good luck :-) 

AWow Thankyou guys so much for your help!!

AI will post a picture when I am done if it turns out =)

yes do! I'll be doing something along these lines come July. 

AOk so here it is! The colours didn't turn out as good as I thought but I'm pretty happy with it. [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3203887/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

Looks like it turned out pretty good. The colors look a bit off like you said, but it looks like you started with white fondant (right?), next time die the fondant a grey first and then build up your paint from that. 

Otherwise, congrats, you set out to go fishin' and I'd say you got a whopper! ;)

AI did use grey fondant, maybe it wasn't dark enough grey. Thanks =)

Yeah, I'd say go darker next time. But still good. It's always hard to tell sometimes because it dries lighter in color than when you mix it. :) Still, good job. Thanks for showing us your pictures!