I think this was one the most difficult set of cookies I have ever made. I stressed out about them a lot. This is the first time I've been asked to make a realistic image of a dog. It was as difficult as creating characters and logos. When my husband told me I had a request to make Snoopys, I was thinking it was the Peanuts character. I was surprised when I found out I would be trying to create a real dog in cookie form.
For the the Snoopy cookie, I used this picture given to me by the owner. I used Photoshop to resize the image and just use the face part for the cookie. I hand-cut the cookies. I took a food coloring marker and sketched in the eyes and nose. To create the fur-like texture, I used a paintbrush to add the royal icing (similar to the brush embroidery). I refereed to the photo to see the direction of the fur and painted the icing in the same direction. I stared with the pink of the ears and painted one section of fur. I allowed that to dry before moving on to the next section. I filled in most of the fur before filling in the nose and eyes. After all the icing had dried, I used some brown and black food coloring to paint in some shading to the fur.
For the dog house, I used this cookie cutter. I piped and flooded the house part. Once that section had dried, I piped and filled in the roof. I piped on the lines of the house next. I was able to find these bone sprinkles at Joann's because it's so close to Halloween. I drew the sign with a food coloring marker first, then piped over it with a light brown icing and filled it in. I used a small letter stamp set to stamp Snoopy's name on the sign with black food coloring. Then I took a brown food coloring marker to create wood grain on the sign.
For the plaque, I used this cookie cutter. I created my own bone and paw stencil. I cut it out with my Silhouette, and used black Wilton's Color Mist.
I hope Snoopy had a great doggie birthday!