I am new to decorating and am curious to learn how does everyone make the characters on cakes look so real. I know wilton makes certain pans like Bob the Builder. But I am wondering how you do it when it looks like the decorator drew Clifford or Dora, or whoever, on the cake. Are there tools out there to duplicate these charaters or are people just good artists??

Thanks
Kelly

Some of the people ARE just good artist lol!! There are alot of different ways to get a picture on a cake, but knowing of the technique and doing it can be two VERY different things LOL, as I have found out the hard way! There are edible images and buttercream transfers, some pictures are done with royal icing or colorflow, then theres airbrushing, which I've never done and probably never will, I'm just not one of those artist lol. I'm sure there are probably even more ways that I've never heard of. But I've only been doing this for less then a year now, I just finished the wilton courses around this past Thanksgiving so I still have alot to learn. Although I love decorating cakes!!! So I'm not an expert yet lol. I think the articles section on this site has alot of info on different techniques that can be used to, and explains them in detail. Maybe browsing through that might help you. I hope I can get as good as some of the people on this site someday, these cakes here are really awesome!

kb1299
Did you learn the piping gel technique in your Wilton Class! That works great to transfer a pattern. You may have to fill in the details, but you can get the basic outline this way. Hope this helps! Linda