I agree with you 100% Squirrelly Cakes. I personally enjoy seeing the character cakes come to life. They are so much cuter in person than in pictures. My customers rave about them and no one else around does them. I enjoy the other cakes too. MM fondant is new to me. I have never seen it around here and when people hear fondant, they think uck it tastes bad. I will have to show them otherwise. The cost of fondant other than mmFondant is more which drives the price up also. MM fondant is so reasonable. What I have done w/fondant I love and the results are awesome. As far as being harder than character cakes, I agree there is a different level of skills etc.
Its all fun and creative and I love it all! A challenge is always good and even better when it turns out the way you want it to or better. We can all learn and are constantly improving our skills. I enjoy all the great cakes I see in the gallery. It's amazing what you can do w/sugar.
Thanks SquirrellyCakes and auntiecake,
Your input is trully appreciated.
auntiecake, I just took a look at your cakes and had to tell you what fantastic work you do 
Thank you Stephanie214. Even though some are character cakes! I'm just kidding, you know how I feel. I made the snowman w/chenille technique for my bosses daughter last night. She absolutely loved it soooo... Thanks for the compliment, that means alot! You do great work also. I know cause I peeked! Thanks again!
auntiecake,
Can't wait to see it.
Thanks for taking a peek 
That is so funny 
Great post Squirrelly Cakes!
I'm so so far behind on all the forums here. The holiday madness hit hard and fast here. Having four kids and a scout troop or two can do that to a person! LOL.
I started out with character cakes too and still do them from time to time. I admire people who can do the stars on them and make them look good. With Carpo-tunnel and tendonitis, I have a hard time with that many stars. I started by using a fill in technique on the character cakes, and, on some of them, even take the insert, laminate it and use that as a template to make a FBT (which is my new addiction on cakes anyway). I think I own more than 50 character cake pans.
ANd if you are wondering what to do with character cake pans that you do not think you'll ever use again, ebay is a good choice. I get many of my outdated ones there. I can't sell mine b/c I have this affliction against getting rid of anything that I might have a use for later on.
I'll bet! I don't think i could've done all 12 myself. I did my first character cake in class with the stars (a car cake) and after that, I just filled them in with a round tip and smoothed out the frosting with a brush (I have a set of about 7 sizes that I only use on cakes) and then pat them down or press w/wax paper to make them totally smooth. My best friends husband screamed when we cut Harry Potter that I did with that technique.
WOW, this one just blew me away. I never realized that there was anyone saying bad things about character cakes. I have been doing mostly charachter cakes for 11 years now and have seen them bring great joy to many. My dad and I own over 300 of them(iIbuy mostly at garage sales anfd on ebay) and i still haven't tried them all. When I finally scan all my pictures on here they will be mostly charachter cakes. I am just now getting to where I want to try different techniques and ideas and that is what brought me here to CC. I think that we all are good in our own way and that we all can learn from each other. I know because i have already tried and failed as well as succeeded at things I have heard about here on CC. I too purchase my character pans seeing that they can be other things, or I discover that they can be other things as I go.
I go through this site saying "I wish I could do that." or saying, " Wow, ! didn't think about doing that with that pan."
So I guess what I am saying is that I truly hope no one is dogging character cakes, and that all of us are here to learn and share our knowledge with each other to either better our technique or just to accomplish something.
I think I am rmabling now , so I am going to go home and decorate something !!!
I like character cakes cuz customers LOOOOVE them and sometimes they are faster than smooting and thinking of an idea and decorating and borders and colours...
when i have a lot of orders i'm relieved when i get to the character cake..all the thinking is done for me, i just have to make it look right...it's NOT easier to decorate, but most of the thinking aspect is done for u
The only reason I have gotten away from character cakes is because as far as "copyrights" go, they are probably the most risky because you can get in trouble both with Wilton and with the copyrighted design. (I know there are other pans not copyrighted though...) I am trying to push my business more into the public's eye and since I do 3D copyrighted stuff and also am not technically licensed (although according to PA law I am doing everything correctly) I have to cut out at least one of my risks.
I think character cakes are super cute, and have done them for my kids... I just don't sell them anymore unless someone wants to bring me their pan and I'll make it for them.
Well SheilaF...earlier I was looking in the galleries at the Scooby-Doo cakes because I was asked to do one for a friends child and I was blown away by one I saw on there that was not covered with stars...so I saved it to my favorite cakes album. (I had forgotten the name of the person who made it...sorry) Then I got on here and when I read your reply...I just knew you were the same lady! Checked your photos and there was Scooby!
I just have to tell you I love how you decorated that cake and you have inspired me to try my hand at painting one instead of just using the stars.
Thank You For All Your Wonderful Cake Photos
Debbie
I do moisten the brush and then wipe off the excess after every few brush strokes. The size really depends on the area I'm working on. I might use a 1 inch wide brush for large areas of the same color. My most used brush is about 1/2 inch wide. And then I have all the way down to a hair line size that I use for smaller details to smooth out lines. I mainly use the smaller one with FBT's to even out though. I got a set of the high quality brushes (the kind you'd find in the oil painting isle, but not hair, they are easy to clean and don't hold the oils in the bristles). I actually put them through my dishwasher in the silverware tray and they don't fall appart b/c the handles are plastic as well. It's just a technique I developed because 1. I'm not fond of the star tip and 2. I can't do a large quantity of the star tips symetrically due to lack of strength in my wrists which makes me even more not fond of the star tip 
It usually takes me a week or more to do flowers when I make those up b/c I can only work on them for a few hours at a time.
You're very welcome. I'd love to see photos of what you create. I have three cakes I need to work on this month. Since I have four kids (two still in diapers) and a girl scout troop to run, that's a lot of cakes for me. I'm no professional by any means, but it sure can be fun when I have time to work on them.
OMG! I LOVE your Nemo! My son would freak if he saw that cake. I did Nemo, Marlin and Dory out of fondant and did a whole undersea theme cake for him for his 3rd birthday. He LOVES Nemo. We "get" to watch that movie almost daily (sometimes more than daily! LOL).
Wow, neat techique and perfect work kiddo!
I can relate to the stars and tendonitis too. Now I make my icing pretty thin and it is much easier on my hands. I also find that the Featherweight bags are much easier on my hands than the disposable bags which I use to use all the time.
Hugs Squirrelly
I have Rhumatoid Arthritis and have to take alot of breaks when doing my cakes plus I can't seem to work straight through on a cake. I could never open a cake decorating shop because of this 
The amount of orders I am getting works good for me.
I HATE STARS
Love the smooth technique! I am a child of the 70's and the star-tipped cakes were really popular them. I think the smooth technique is a fab way to update the character cake. Beautiful work ladies. 
I thought keyboarding was bad for your wrists until I practiced making stars. Ouch!
I don't get many requests for roses. I usually do apple blossom type flowers in multiple colors and sizes using royal icing. Then i only have to make them two to three times/year.
Thanks for all the compliments on my character cake technique. Necessity is the mother of invention huh? I also take the character cake and put it on top of another cake to create a totally new look (and create a larger cake so it'll serve the entire group).
Yes I almost always have to put my cakes on top of another cake to serve more. It esp saves money for the customer because if they wanted a 3D cake to serve 150 that would be one difficult sculpture! But if I put it on top of a large sheet cake or even a layered one, it will cost less and still have the 3D look to it.
Great post! This is so true! I do love character and my students do one when they take classes. Yes some are naturals and others struggle more, but they all have a great cake to be proud of. There are so many techniques that it is fun to experiment and we will probably never to completely skilled at all of them. It is so fun to see everyones creative ideas and share frustrations, questions, and successes along the way. Thanks for your wise input! auntiecake
Honestly, I don't do a lot of character cakes because I don't like doing all the stars and it's just not my thing. I love looking at others though and certainly don't look down upon them. They are a lot of work and you should be very proud!
Hi Gals...I guess I should jump in since Squirrelly made me blush.....Ha!Ha!
Most of my business is character cakes ...thus my name...he!he! but I also love to see the kids faces and the parents when I lift the lid off the cake box!! It brings great joy!! Squirrelly summed it up perfectly...Gotta love her!!! Thanks for the kind words!! I love everyone's work here!! Great job!!
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