Here's a pic of what I'm talking about. How do I carve it to get that shape? Just freehand, or is there a way to do it to make sure it comes out even? What about covering it with fondant? I'd love any tips ya'll can give me!
TIA!!

oops pic didn't upload...trying this again...

well the pic doesn't want to load

Anyway, it's an hour glass shape or corset shaped, I'm not sure what it's supposed to be called. I don't mean a flat sheet cake cut into that shape, I'm talking about a tallish 8 inch round that is narrower in the center and wider on top and bottom. Does that make sense?

Instead of carving the cake you could use 2 pie plates to bake the cake into.

I would think two half ball cakes turned round sides together would also accomplish this shape...

I will be doing one of these soon, though I haven't yet, and have been trying to figure out the best way to do it. I'm thinking I might do two 6-inch rounds, one on top of the other, sandwiched between two 8-in rounds; torte/fill/chill as I usually do when I carve, and just go at it while cold and firm. I would love to know if somebody with some experience doing this went about it with cakes that were all the same size to begin with, but unless someone says something different, this is probably what I'll do. I'm fairly comfortable carving, but starting with different-sized cakes (with cakeboards and dowels for support) will hopefully cut down on the amount of carving I will acually have to do. HTH!

I carve the two halves separately into a tapered shape, then stack them together narrow end to narrow end.