Welcome to How To Cook That I'm Ann Reardon and to all of my new patrons an
overwhelming thank you! I feel so encouraged you have no idea ...
and so inspired by you guys! Thank you so much for supporting the channel. I
honestly did not expect this level of support and I am so humbled and so
blessed and thank you thank you thank you. So this week I thought I'd attempt
something new that I've never done before that I don't even know if I can
do ... I really have no idea how to do this and I'm so far out of my comfort zone
but what I'm gonna try and do is try and make a 3D head out of chocolate and
modelling chocolate. When you see those realistic cakes usually the torso and
the shoulders are cake but the head is made out of modeling chocolate.
Apparently guys are easier to sculpt than girls ...
so I've decided to try and make Dwayne Johnson. I've got a front profile here
and a side profile and as you can see from the side a head is a lot wider than
it is from the front. So I thought what I'd do is use this vase like a mould to
make a solid base of chocolate which can run through the middle of the head. Front
on it's not too wide and then side on we'll obviously have to build up extra onto it.
So that's my plan but I don't know if this is gonna work but first of all I'm
gonna temper this chocolate. That's obviously not gonna be anywhere near
enough chocolate to fill the vase so I'm gonna cheat and add in some Cheerios so
that it takes up a bit more room and just mix that all through. If you're from
Australia it's gonna be a bit like a giant Chocolate Crackle in the middle.
Pour that into a vase and press it down so that it's nice and firm then we need
something to hold up the weight of the head while I work so I'm gonna put in
this long piece of metal that I use when I'm supporting most of my 3D cakes and
I'm just gonna put it in on an angle so that when it's screwed in upright the
cylinder is leaning forward. I have this hole around the pole here and there's no
way that is gonna hold up so I'm gonna pour in some compound chocolate
particularly down that hole and then just move it around to make sure it's
all the way down. The reason I'm using compound chocolate for this bit and not
real chocolate is it has a higher melting point so that's gonna mean it's
just gonna hold it more firmly particularly because it is summer here
in Australia and it is quite warm. Several hours later and that is set but ...
I cannot get the out of the vase! Despite looking like it's straight on
both sides it appears that the inside of this vase is actually slightly narrower
at the top than it is at the bottom so I'm really not off to a good start here.
Even warming up the vase to melt the outside chocolate to help get it out has
only got it up a little bit further. Now I've poured boiling water on it and I
have got it up to here but it's well and truly stuck so I'm boiling the kettle
again and hoping that it comes out. Okay it's out and it's now so melted that
it's gonna need to go back in the fridge for a little while.
I bought some modelling chocolate for this project and it is absolutely solid.
It's really hard so I'm gonna give it 10 second bursts in the microwave just to
try and soften it. 30 seconds later and it's a bit softer so we can start to
give it a kneed and get it a good workable consistency. That's starting to
look really nice. This is still a little bit soft but I'm gonna go ahead and use
it anyway. Put this end through the hole and put another nut on the other side.
All right so I've got the chocolate in place now what I need to do is put this
behind it so I can see where we need to build up with the modeling chocolate and
I'm just gonna start adding the modeling chocolate and building it out to the
right width just like I can see using the silhouette that I've got
there. Faces of real people are so hard to get right ... whenever I draw a face I
can make it look like a person but making it look like an actual person
like you can recognize who it is that's a completely different story and that's
2D and this is 3D so I think I'm very much out of my depth here. I think that looks
about the right shape from the front so now I need to turn it side on and
remember we need to add a lot more here than we did on the other angle.
I've never actually used modeling chocolate for something like this before
and I must say it's a lot easier to work with than fondant is if you're wanting
thick large amounts because it seems to hold its shape really well ... that is if
you don't over warm it in the microwave. I've just got another packet here and
I've put it in for a little bit too long and I'm gonna have to put this whole
thing in the fridge just to cool that bit down because it's drooping. Okay
that is now cooled and I can add more to it. I'm just trying to make it the shape
that matches the silhouette outline. I'm leaving off the nose for now and
obviously this isn't going to look correct but at least it's going to give
me a starting point to then try and sculpt his face from. I'm gonna need a
mid point down the center of his face so I can try and make it symmetrical and
then I can add more modeling chocolate and try and shape it to more of his face
shape ... I'm just looking at a picture and trying to figure out where I need to add
bits and where I need to kind of take them away and as I add bits I'm just
using a ball tool to try and smooth down the edges of the joins a little bit so
we don't have quite so much roughness there and then using the palms of my
hand to smooth it a little bit more. If I fold the face in half then I can mark on
where these lines are on his forehead. These seem to be really pronounced in
some photos and not visible at all in other photos of him, so I'm not sure if
that's from Botox or if it's the different photos are in different
lighting or if they're just different facial expressions ... I think only Dwayne
Johnson could tell you that. Okay now for his nose ... i think it'll be much easier to
make this flat so i can use the outline as a bit of a guide and then once I've
got it roughly the right shape then I can just add that into place on the face.
And again just using the ball tool to smooth the joins so it looks like it's
not a separate piece. Now moving on to his ears and just like the nose I'm
going to make these flat, mould them to shape, just trying to get the shape of
that right how it is on his actual ear and then add it into place on the side
of his head. His neck is definitely not that skinny, I think that is something we
know about The Rock! His neck is huge so let's just bulk that out. So this is what
it looks like so far with no eyes ... I'm not quite sure how to smooth out all the
little bumps in the modeling chocolate because I haven't worked with it before
for this sort of thing but I'll try and sort that out in a minute. I'm just gonna
scoop out a bit of room for his eyeball and then I can add them into place. Then
obviously we need to build up around the under eye and for the eyelids. I think
this actually would have been easier if I'd put the eyeball bit in the freezer to
firm it up first so it doesn't get misshapen and when you're adding the
extra on. Build up the eyes a little bit more under the eyes there. I really want
to say again a huge, huge thank you to all my patrons. I still can't believe it.
For those of you who don't know a couple of weeks ago I put up a video explaining
the current situation on YouTube and I started a Patreon to help this channel
continue and I honestly thought there might only be a few people who could
lend a hand but I have been blown away by your kind messages and your support.
It really is amazing and I can't thank you enough ... if you want to join those
people then I'll put a link to my Patreon just below so that you can join
in with that as well and ... I'm just amazed, I don't know what else
to say but thank you. I really really thank you I'm really really honoured that
you would do that for me. Now at this stage I think that this is looking like
a person ... I think that you can definitely tell it's supposed to be a human head
but I'm not sure that it looks like Dwayne Johnson. But so far I've spent
about 10 hours on this so I'm gonna try smoothing it out using a bit of water
and see how it looks. I found that for any areas are a bit dented in that
weren't supposed to be if you just add a little bit more modeling chocolate on
while you're smoothing it with water it seems to smooth out really well. Then
it's got that little vein that sticks out on one side of his head. Now I don't
even know what the best way to colour this is ... as I said I haven't actually
worked with modeling chocolate to make anything like this before. First I tried
just dusting it with powder but it didn't seem to actually work very well,
the food coloring powder just got stuck to anything that was still moist and
didn't really do much anywhere else. So then I sprayed the head with vegetable
cooking oil and then used the powder again and that gave a much better result.
Dabbing the paintbrush on seemed to get rid of any paint brush strokes so that
you didn't have any lines or streaks in the colour and it looked a lot more like
skin. Then I added some darker colour to the shaded areas and a bit of colour to
the lips ... that might be a bit much colour, I don't want it to look like he's got makeup on! I'm
gonna have to put some flesh tone over the top of that and then a bit of a
shadow for his beard and now for the eyes ... I'm going to add a shadow onto the
top bit of the eyeball ... how creepy does that look! Looks as if his eyes have rolled
back in his head! Not exactly what we're going for ... then I guess he needs the
coloured bit of his eye. I don't want to paint this on so I'm just gonna add some
fondant right there. His eyes are very dark so you can hardly see the pupil but
we are gonna need a little bit of white ... I'm just using a bit of fondant there to
give that highlight. Now I want you to look closely at this face and tell me
what is wrong with it. As I said it looks to me like it is a
person ... it looks like a man but it doesn't look like Dwayne Johnson and I'm
going to completely rework it and change it but I want you to tell me if you can
pick up what is wrong with it ... what needs changing? At the moment for
some reason it reminds me more of Damian Lewis maybe even a bit of Bruce Willis
but definitely not the rock so ... this is my opinion that is what I think needs
changing. I think it needs building up here, here and the side of his head on
this side is too skinny compared to that side of the head. I also think his neck
is too skinny amazingly cuz I made it pretty fat. I tried so hard but there is
so much wrong with this! His neck actually starts going wide from behind
his ears from further up than I had it. Now I'm not sure how this is going to
turn out in the end because when I get back to the colouring stage obviously
because I have already colored and now I'm adding more plain stuff it's gonna
be quite hard to blend that in but anyway I'm learning at the same time as
you so let's just learn from my mistakes. I think he needs a little bit more here
in the middle and the tip of his nose needs to be a bit bigger and the shape
of his nose was just looking completely wrong to me so I'm just gonna add a
little bit more ... change that shape a bit and now we need to fatten out that side
of his head to match the other side so it's a bit more symmetrical. I don't know
how I got that so weird but I did and then I think this sides of his lips are
too far forward ... the middle is fine but the sides need to come back and so do
those things down the side are they called jowls? I'm not sure what that's
called when someone smiles and it sticks out there but he's it too pronounced I
think that is what is making him look like Damian Lewis. So I'm gonna bring
that back, I really feel like I am completely wrecking this ... just cutting
pieces off it but I don't know how else to fix it ... "Don't cry, don't cry it's gonna be okay!"
His nose is too skinny where it joins the face and it needs building up along
there and under the eye as well ... obviously I definitely should have
left this the day before I coloured it because if you leave it for a day and
come back and kind of look at it with fresh eyes you can suddenly go oh that's
not right and that's not right and that needs fixing but when you've been
staring at it all day the first time you were doing it you're just like yeah yeah
that's as good as I can get it. I would suggest if you're wanting to sculpt a
face... do your best, then walk away and leave it for at least 12 hours then come
back and look at it again and make the changes before you color it. You have to
get it right before you colour it I've definitely stuffed it up doing this but
we're doing our best. Now if we look at his eyes you can see too much of his
eyelids the top section is more drooped down so add some extra along there that
looks more like it and now I'm going to try rubbing it with water to smooth
those new pieces of modeling chocolate on and as I thought this is accentuating
all the problems we're going to have with color, so all the joins all the
color is getting stuck there and making dark lines. So this is going to create
major problems but it's all good because when you do it you're not going to color
it halfway through. Now in order to cover all of those
problems I'm going to have to make the color much darker ... so this time I've
mixed the powdered food colouring with a little bit of cooking oil to make like
an edible paint. So I can just paint that on and I still think you're going to be
able to see those uneven tones through it but hopefully it's okay and we can
kind of make it work. Lesson learnt .... get the shape absolutely
right before you colour it. I'm really sorry Dwayne and I've made a bit
of a mess of your head I don't think anyone will be able to recognize who you
are, nevermind. Add a bit of shine to the eyes. My main concern with the eyes now is I
actually think they're set too far back into his head they need to come forward.
And I'm not even going to attempt to fix that I'm just gonna leave it how it is.
Let me know what you think, does it look more like Dwayne Johnson now or is it
worse than before? Have you ever tried to sculpt a 3D head out of modelling
chocolate if so let me know how went. This was actually a really hard
challenge and I just want to say thanks again to my platinum level patrons and a
special shout-out to Cryptozoologic being a diamond level supporter, crazy
mind-blown! And thanks to all the rest of my patrons too I really am so happy
that with your support I can continue making videos for you. Make it a great
week and I'll see you all soon.