I'm doing a Lightning McQueen cake this weekend, and though I do not have pan, I'm using a picture of it as a guide to cut my cake in the shape. I do not want to star tip the cake, so how do I get so many colors/designs on there and make it looks good. Can I ice with a tip and then smooth with parchment (like paper towel method)? If so, do I need to smooth it out a little before it crusts? or just pipe it on and leave it alone until it crusts?
Any tips/ideas would be greatly appreciated! TIA!
Have you tried a frozen buttercream transfer FBCT ?
The instructions are in the articles section.
http://www.cakecentral.com/article12-How-To-Create-a-Frozen-Buttercream-Transfer.html
Not yet and I don't think I want to do that on this cake for a couple of reasons. One is that I'm going to be pressed for time and two is that it's going to be a shaped cake and rather large so I don't think I want to attempt that with this one.
I just want to pipe all the colors right onto the cake, I guess my question is... can I do this with a tip and then smooth it? And if so,what is the best way?
I just uploaded a pic of a cake I did last weekend using this technique. See the caterpillar in the photo? I piped concentric circles using a large round tip, but instead of just laying the icing onto the cake, I pressed the tip into the icing a bit as I went. This sorta flattened out the roundness of the icing. Then before it had a chance to crust, I lightly rubbed out the edges using a finger dipped in cornstarch. The end result is not perfectly smooth, but is faster than a BC transfer. It also works well if you're using a lot of different colors (which it sounds like you are).
Another option would be do a color flow design. This will really only work if you're doing it on the top of a cake, as the "flow" tends to go with gravity and run down the sides of cakes. 
You could, however, do the color flow on parchment, and then transfer it to the cake once it's dry.
Good luck and please post a pic of the finished cake! I'm making Lightning McQueen for my son's birthday in March and am looking for some ideas 
You can also pipe the icing on and "paint" it smooth with an unused, dampened paint brush before your icing crusts.
Here's the finished cake. I ended up just piping on, smoothing as best I could with my spatula and then using my parchement paper trick when it crusted up a bit. He came out pretty darn good I think. 
I'm going to try to attach here, but I've never done this before.
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