Dollhouse Miniature Roast Beef

Watch the video here.

This week we are continuing on what we have learned the last couple of weeks. I use the Skinner Blend technique to show you how to make a cooked roast beef. I am using up some of the left over clay from the raw beef roast we made a couple of weeks ago. If you haven't watched that video you can see it here. And the related blog for it is here.

To re-cap the raw meat clay mixture is:

Fimo white (1 part)

Fimo translucent (1 part)

Fimo red (1 part)

Premo Sienna (almost 1 part, just enough to make the correct color, I prefer to use Fimo Terracotta)

I used this for the center of the cooked meat and for the cooked portion of the roast I added some dark brown (I used Fimo Chocolate) and just a pinch of black. It is really important to work either from the real thing or from a really good photo of some cooked meat to match the color to. I used a photo in one of my really nice cookbooks, it is next to impossible to get the color right if you don't have a reference.

For the fat on this roast I used the fat mix from the raw roast:

Fimo White (1 part)

Fimo Translucent (3 parts)

and added just a small pinch of Ochre Fimo. Start with way less of the Ochre than you think you will need, and go from there. It really takes a very small amount and if you add too much you really can't take it out again. Best to have to add more if needed. This is one of those colors that is really strong and can take over the other colors quickly.

To get the color variation in the roast we are using the Skinner Blending technique. If you haven't watched my video from last week you can see it here. I love this technique for blending colors and use it on a lot of projects. If you look at the photo of the finished roast you can see how this blending method gives us the gradual change of color that makes this roast look like it has been cooked.

After you form the log that will become your roast, if you have time it does work better to chill the clay in the freezer for about 15 or 20 minutes before you try to split it. I didn't want to take that much time the day I did mine and the weather here has been very warm for this time of year so my clay was much softer that I would have liked. The idea is to just start the cut with the blade and then to tear the log into 2 parts. You really want this to be natural looking and not look like you cut it with a blade.

When you are getting ready to lay the layer of fat on the top of your roast be sure that the edges of the fat layer area bit irregular. I usually use a small enough bit of clay that mine doesn't need to be trimmed but if you do need to trim yours tear it rather than cut it. You want the edge to look natural not have a straight cut. Also be sure that the fat layer I (both the one running through the roast and the layer on top) is as thin as possible. I use the thinnest setting on my pasta machine but with patience you can do this with a clay roller.

When you are slicing the slices for the cut end of the roast take you time and arrange them where you want them. With patience you can get them to look like they have been just sliced and are ready to serve. I usually also slice some slices of roast to have for making individual plates for the finished scene. You might need to watch those as you bake though, since there is a lot of red clay as well as the translucent parts these are both colors that tend to darken when over baked. You might want to pull the slices out of the oven before the main roast is done baking.

The trick with the Amber glass paint and sand is one that took me a while to come up with. I just had always felt that most of the cooked roasts that I had seen didn't look convincing but once I started adding this step I was very happy with them

By the way, these cooked beef roasts and the raw ones on foam trays I showed you a few weeks ago were among the very first mini items I ever sold. That was a long time ago on Ebay, for a while I couldn't make them fast enough to keep up with the sales.

The platter I used for this roast is one of the metal minis I showed you how to do many videos ago. If you want to look at the website I order from here is a link. I have bought from here for many years and have always been very happy.

If you haven't found us on Facebook you can follow this link, we talk about a lot of stuff over there and it is usually the quickest way to get in touch with me. I would love to see you join us on FB and feel free to post photos of the minis you are making on the wall there.