So I had this Brilliant idea for a father's day cake. I am going to make an 8inch round cake covered in white fondant. Then the brilliant part

is it will have a hand painted personal photo on the top. So the customer can email me an image and I can paint it on the top of the cake. SO

any special moment or favorite picture of them and their dad will be right on top. I'm only doing black and white so I can get more done. So

its ok if its a color photo Im just not doing color on the cakes, because that is too many custom colors.

Now the question is how much to charge? My husband works at a hospital and the nurses there order my cakes. However I'm not sure what to charge and think I might be low.

By the way I'm gonna make a dummy cake to send to the break room with a famous picture of father and son..ie. Kennedy and son. That way they get the idea since Im not there and it will say happy fathers day.

I'm a painter by nature so this is within my skill level.

I'm on bended knee...pppleease.....

Even a range would be good. Do I need to post a pic first so you get what I'm talking about?

I haven't done the cake yet, but I can if that is what is holding things up. Just wanted to kinda see if this idea was worth the time as I'm trying to make cakes and make money.

AHow many hours does it take you on average to paint a typical photo?

YaY thanks jason...Well um I haven't done one on cake...but seeing as how I will have the picture transfered and just have to paint it...from regular painting experience...I'd say 10min tops..also depends on how long it takes for the gel paint to dry or what its like to work with...

That 10min is based on the consistency of acrylic paint.
 

I'd love to see a picture of what you are talking about..... 10mins to me makes you sound like you have blue lycra and a cape!
 

AWhat size cake? How many layers? Filling?

AAre you just asking the additional charge for the hand painted photo? Depending in skill & detail levels $15-50

hee hee I do...how did you know? I have been painting for about 10years so I'm pretty good at it. The hardest part for me is coming up with an idea and scale but since both of those will be taken care of it will be a lot easier. Cakes on the other hand I'm new at...only been doing it for a year or so but with the help of cake central I'm earning my skivvies and cape.
 

I was going to let them choose flavor of cake..just buttercream filling chocolate or reg

8inch round two layers of buttercream

I need to know charge for the cake as well?

Here is a photo I painted so you can base on skill??

ASo $65.00 sound about right?

AHave you ever painted on buttercream using gel colors? Its gonna be way different than painting on a canvas using acrylic paints.

AWell I'm painting on fondant not buttercream with gel colors. Not sure if that's what you meant? But no I've not painted anything other than a flower once I think in cake class. The instructional video on craftsy made painting with gels look easy and very similar ;)

AI don't know I really think you should do a practice cake before you commit to doing this just to make sure you can do it.

AAs stated above, I am doing a practice cake to send to my husbands work if it doesn't turn out I won't send it and nobody knows. It's just an example cake to draw orders. I think I'll get a dummy cake ready and then post.

AThat sounds good. I'm not trying to discourage you I'm a painter too and I know its hard to paint on different surfaces.

AI've painted on fondant cakes and painted on canvas with acrylic. I think your biggest challenge will be transferring you photos to the fonadant. The gels and acrylic do work similarly but it's actually more like painting with watercolors. Your idea is great just think it will take you more time than you anticipate. The fondant will have to crust before you begin or else you will leave dents in it. Good luck be sure to post pictures!

AAnother alternative would be using a Photoshop filter to simulate a hand-painted image from an existing photograph, then just printing out the modified image with edible inks.

Ok so I'm not going to even post a picture because it was awful. What's bad is I should have known using food colors for so long.

Problem 1. To get shades of grey with black is impossible..which at this point I should have known never to venture.. Thus making said people purple or green depending on brand of black food dye. Not so attractive.

Problem 2. The design did not transfer like the crafty link showed. I tried twice second with super sharp pencil, thinking first was too dull. Maybe it was because it was an off brand pencil?

Problem 3. The medium when adding the Ameri-gel colors seems to be like tree bark when painting instead of watercolor??? Any ideas...tried adding extract and it helped slightly.

As far as time that wasn't the issue it was all of the above. I went ahead and played around with my colors to get the hang of it for flowers but because of problems 2&3 can't see doing it at the moment.

Any answers to these would be greatly appreciated.

At the moment I think I'm going to go with edible images just thought the hand painted would give it

more of a personal feel and of course more custom.
 

A suggestion for the color is that maybe you could offer a sepia look by using brown food coloring. You should be able to thin it down and shade your "painting" without getting the off colors that come from black food coloring.
 

ASome ideas for you..... If you do go with sepia toned photos...use americolor's ivory. I've found it gives more of a brown color. The brown tends to give a reddish tint. Treat your gel colors like watercolors go from light to dark shades (unlike with acrylic dark to light) use vodka to thin with not water. I've used extracts and prefer vodka. Thin the color and apply light thin coats that will help with "the tree bark". I rarely use gel color that hasn't been thinned way down. On your transfer-did you let fondant sit and crust before transferring design? I've found that designs will transfer better if the fondant is "hard". Did you use a #2 pencil? Depending on my design....i make sure that when I trace design on the side that touches the cake press hard. That way when I flip the paper and apply the design to my cake using a really sharp pencil there's enough grafite on the other side to transfer the design.

Hope this helps...and made sense:smile:

Thanks guys for the help!

Sepia idea is great.

I didn't use a typical #2 pencil it was just a pencil I picked up from somewhere green sparkle design. So I thought that might have been why. I let the fondant

crust for a day and it was pretty hard also it was pretty thin.

I did press hard with the pencil but it was no luck and had sharpener nearby. So the pencil being dull wasn't the issue, but type probably was.

So 3 more ?

1. Have you transfered on Marshmallow fondant with no issues?

2. Why can't you transfer onto wet fondant? Just curious...was actually thinking maybe the wet fondant would immediately take the design and wouldn't have to trace at all?

3. On the instructional video she used some of the paints without adding the vodka because she wanted the more intense color. However, when I did that, it looked like bark. So up close hers probably looked like bark too? I can hardly believe that since she was a professional chef. She did mention brush strokes. Maybe her brush strokes blended when she put vodka mix color over it?

Thanks in Advance for all the help you guys have given.
 

Not sure you can use these for what you want, but just in case...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pw1D0uXEVw&list=PL9BD533303CCAA816&index=6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqbDTaauGO0&list=PL9BD533303CCAA816&index=5

AOne big reason for not transferring on soft fondant is that it will leave dents/lines in your fondant. You can paint with straight color but with a "light touch" too much and it will build up and crack Did you trace design with pencil,then flip parchment so lead/graphite is touching cake?

Any other questions feel free to message me

Thanks both of you the videos look like they might help...so far I like the idea of using chocolate to paint with.

I did trace with the graphite side touching the cake and retracing so maybe it was just the cheap pencil.