Dragon and Unicorn Cake Topper Sculpting Process

Last month I completed a dragon and unicorn cake topper for my little sister's wedding.

I used Alduin from Skyrim as my inspiration for the dragon, since both of them are big Skyrim fans, and Skyrim was a big part of their wedding theme.

The unicorn, of course, was modeled after the character Amalthea from The Last Unicorn, one of our all-time favorite movies growing up.

I began as always with a wire and foil armature.

Once I had a good idea how they would both be posed in relation to one another, I began sculpting the unicorn.

The horn was clay rolled around a piece of wire. It actually turned out dangerously sharp, lol.

Hair was created with ropes of clay, shaped with needle tools and smoothed with baby oil.

Working on the hooves and fetlock hair.

You can see that the ears discolored in the oven, just from so many bakes.

I sculpted everything but her tail, thinking I would drape it over the dragon's tail. Now for the dragon....

His facial details went through a bit of an evolution, until I was happy with how it was looking.

I apologize for the photo quality beyond this point. My camera died and I had only my phone.

The horns were created with wire for extra stability.

I rolled out individual spikes, but needed a method for sculpting scales that was quicker, since I was on such a tight deadline.

So I rolled out ropes of clay and attached them.

I used a ball stylus to create the plate texture, and then cut individual scales using a craft knife.

I finished by brushing on baby oil. (No individual photos of the process, so hopefully that explains it well enough).

The process of making a spike.

Using the ball stylus to add a ridge texture.

Attaching

I continued rows of scales and spikes down the tail, then I moved on to the feet.

The wings were a whole other challenge.

I hand-rolled sheets of clay and cut, folded and draped them over the wing skeleton.

A pasta roller would have made things much easier, but I managed.

My plan was to add more spikes and scale texture to the wings, but I ran out of time. I was literally sculpting right up to the night before the wedding! SHEER. PANIC, lol!

I decided against sculpting the unicorn's tail so it would interlock with the dragon's, because it would have been too delicate. So I just laid it against her body.

On to paint!

The eyes were a major challenge for me. I have never painted cartoon style eyes before, and it took many tries before it looked right.

I brushed on some pearl highlights and a layer of acrylic glaze and she was finished.

The dragon's paint job was very simple. Just a black base with silver highlights.

Actually, the silver was a metallic pearl paint toned down with black.

The highlights really made the texture pop.

Red eyes and acrylic glaze to finish!

As you can see, they decided not to have an actual cake, so it ended up being a decoration for a dessert stand.

I was very proud of this project, even though I wasn't able to take the time I wanted with it.

As always, feel free to shoot me with anymore questions about this sculpture.

I would love to create more custom cake toppers in the future, so shoot me a message if you are interested. Just be sure to give me plenty of notice!

HAPPY SCULPTING!