Giggle and Hoot Birthday Cake - Part 3

Armed with the knowledge of improvement and watch out areas, I had one of the best time of my life at my dear dear friend, master cake decorator's workshop.  Ria taught me to crumb coat, shape, mould and all sort of other wonderful tricks to turn layers of chocolate cakes into "Hoot".  Here're a few shots of the work in progress:

Stacking one layer of cake on the other... yes count them there're like 9 layers!

Shaping:

Crumb Coating:

On goes first layer of fondant and shaping of eyes:

 Still look nothing like Hoot yet... patience!

Tadaa! Once the eyes are on and the beak is done... ha and the eyelashes just brings it to live!

Granted it's not completely done yet, but it's taken us 4hrs to get to this point.  I have learnt all the essential skills and understand there're bits of the decoration that needs to be made a day or two in advance (like his legs and wings) before they're stuck on.

not a bad effort... it's all up to me now.