ive been asked to do the cake below. the bottom cake will be 12 inch square. what sizes will the other 4 cakes need to be to look like its falling neatly?

You probably won't be able to have as many tiers. How many does it need to serve? That's where you start. How have you determined the base is definitely a 12" square?

If the bottom is 12", then the logical pan sizes, working your way up, would be 10/8/6/4. But a 4" square wont fit, or will barely fit on a 6" round. An 8" square will very likely have overhang on the 10" round.

thanks for you reply. i will need to have the bottom a 12 inch square because the lady wants the rest of the 4 to be dummy cakes. so i can either have a 14inch round cake or 12 inch square, but i thought 12inch square to look nicer. but in the picture some of the tiers look like they are the same sizes but different shapes.d

If you don't have the actual pans or dummies yet, draw out the sizes on pieces of paper and lay them out on top of each other (stack them) to see how they size up. An 8" square will NOT fit properly on top of an 8" round.

for me i think the bottom is 12 inch, the the round one on top is 11 inch then a 9 inch square then an 8 inch round then a 6 inch square. what do you think?

I'd measure that 9" square from corner to corner and makes sure it will fit on the 11" round.

A 10" square is 10" from side to side, but it's 14" from corner to corner .... which is why it won't fit on a 12" round.

Just check and be sure.

can you help me indydebi? i'l be very grateful for you. it will be the first time i do a wonky cake and i've got 400 cupcakes to do to!!!
i can do any size, as long as the bottom tier is 12 inch.

to MY eye (and generally i'm pretty good at judging even in photos) If the bottom square were a 12" I would guess that round on top was more like an 8" round, then I'd guess a 6" square, then a 5" round and finally a 4" square (if you look at the top square it's at such an angle that it appears to fit on that round, but I guarantee if it were set directly on top the corners would overhand a bit)

Pictures can be deceiving on sizes... if I had to guess on this I'd say the bottom was a 14". The decorations on the bottom are about 1.25" big and spaced 1" apart and there are 6 of them.

6 x 1.25" = 7.5"
1" in between each is about 6"
Giving you a total of 13.5"
So I'd say it's more like:

14-12-10-8-6

That top square looks like a 6" to me. Again, it's hard to judge from a picture. All I can go on is I have looked at pipe sizes for the last 15 years in a refinery, and after time your eye just becomes adjusted to the sizes.

Just make sure you use a super strong support system... a threaded pipe mounted to the board with screws or something. And make sure the board base is big enough (and heavy enough) to lower the center of gravity back down low enough so that it doesn't want to fall.

thank you so much for your help everyone!!!!!!!1111