16th June 2008
Monday

Gum Paste Bugs Bunny Part 1

I have finished my elf and I am now looking for something else to do. What about the Looney Tunes cartoon characters?! That would be great! Bugs Bunny was going to be the first one.

First the body: I rolled out some grey gum paste for the torso and legs, and snipped the bottom half in two for the legs. It took some shaping and a few tries before I finally got the shape I wanted without the gum paste drying out. I didn't put much effort into the feet as Bugs Bunny's feet were covered by white "shoes".

Now trying to get the pose was a bit dfficult as trying to have him stand to dry made one of his legs buckle and letting him dry as he lay down may very well cause the soles of his feet to tilt at an angle. Somehow or other I managed although I still didn't get his feet in the pose I originally wanted.

Next came his arms. I did make some arms separately as shown below but I didn't use them.

I couldn't make them stick to the body and dry so I dried them hoping to get them to stick to the body without having to shape the pose which had already been done. Instead, I made both the arms all in one piece of dough and without hands. The connecting gum paste went around the back of the body.

Then came his "shoes". I made two shoes that looked kind of like house slippers, furry house slippers and marked two vertical lines for his paws. I sank his feet into them. Anderson liked the shoes and felt like the bunny was wearing slippers. Bunny slippers, he calls them.

Next on the list was his tail. I was having a hard time trying to envision a furry and 'bob'by kind of tail. I tried a few times and finally settled for one.

The head wasn't too bad, made it smaller at the top and bottom and marked out where the eyes would be. Poked a hole where the neck is and slipped it onto the spaghetti stick which was sticking out from the neck connected to the torso. The part I am really happy with is the cheeks, nose and teeth. I studied a few pictures of the bunny, especially some of his statues and analysed how his cheeks, nose, mouth and teeth were positioned in relation to each other. After I had placed the cheeks and mouth, I placed his nose and teeth. He looked so cute and cheerful. Ooops! I forgot about his whiskers and the cheeks had already hardened so oops again. His eyes came on next. Hmmm ... don't quite understand this but I tried to colour a piece of gum paste black but it ended up looking like dark green, but it looked like black in the dark :P

I would have to finish this bunny in the next post.

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