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Home › Recipes › Course Preview

Published on September 1, 2022 by Liz Marek · This post may contain affiliate links ·

Virgo Portrait Showpiece Tutorial

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Skill level: Intermediate

Liz Marek creates a fantasy-inspired portrait of the Virgo sign. Learn how to sculpt and detail the Virgo's face using edible materials like modeling chocolate and fondant, without having to use a chocolate skull mold. Liz breaks down how to create the facial features (please note: you will need to pour isomalt eyes using a mold if you want the eyes to be edible) including the nose, cheeks, eye lids, ears and lips.

Liz showcases how to make edible flowers from wafer paper and how to arrange them into a beautiful flower laurel for the portrait.

There's a lot to cover in this tutorial, so let's get our tools together and let's get started!

1:30:34 Minutes of Instruction

What You Will Learn

  • How to create a fantasy-inspired portrait from edible materials, no skull molds required
  • Learn how to sculpt the facial features including the nose, cheeks, lips, and ears
  • How to create realistic hair
  • Learn how to create the edible flower arrangements and wooden bark
  • How to paint makeup onto the Virgo's face with petal dust

Cake sculpted to look like a portrait

Tutorial Chapters

  1. Building The Structure 0:15
  2. Adding Bulk To The Head 4:55
  3. Adding Bulk To The Chin 6:46
  4. Measuring The Face 8:05
  5. Sculpting The Eye Socket And Face 8:57
  6. Sculpting The Chin 12:00
  7. Adding The Eyes 12:41
  8. Sculpting The Mouth 15:05
  9. Sculpting The Nose And Detailing 20:25
  10. Defining The Jaw & Skull 27:47
  11. Adding & Shaping The Ears 31:49
  12. Building Up The Body & Neck 37:05
  13. Coloring & Rolling The Fondant 43:23
  14. Adding The Fondant 44:37
  15. Detailing The Fondant 45:21
  16. Covering The Neck In Fondant 53:15
  17. Adding The Tree Texture 54:45
  18. Detailing The Eyes And Face 59:48
  19. Contouring The Face 1:05:05
  20. Adding The Eyelashes And Details 1:07:09
  21. Adding The Hair 1:10:05
  22. Making The Leaves And Flowers 1:17:20
  23. Making The Flower Crown 1:22:19
  24. Adding The Flower Crown 1:28:10

Downloads

Materials List

Leaf Template

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About Liz Marek

Liz Marek is a professional cake artist and recipe developer who has been teaching baking and cake decorating since 2008. She founded Artisan Cake Company in Portland, Oregon in 2009 and now runs Sugar Geek Show, where she publishes kitchen-tested recipes, food science explanations, and step-by-step tutorials.

Liz is best known for sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes. She won Netflix's Is It Cake? Holiday 2 in 2025 with a hyperrealistic Santa cake, and has competed on and won Food Network cake competitions. Cake Masters Magazine named her one of the top 10 cake artists in 2017. She is the author of Artisan Cake Company's Visual Guide to Cake Decorating and a graduate of the Oregon Culinary Institute.

Her focus is on explaining not just how a recipe works but why it works, so bakers can troubleshoot instead of guess. Every recipe on this site is tested before it's published.

Liz teaches full-length cake tutorials, including sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes, at Sugar Geek University.

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Hi, I'm Liz! I'm a cake artist and recipe developer, and I won Netflix's Is It Cake? Holiday 2 with a hyperrealistic Santa. I write foolproof recipes that explain why things work, not just how.

I also teach full-length cake tutorials, including sculpted cakes, at Sugar Geek University.

More about me →

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