This will be my first time carving a cake. Any tips?

have the cake cold. you can stick it in the freezer for a bit ... not rock hard, but firm enough for you to work with it. use a nice serrated knife to make your cuts.

Secrets of Cake Carving:

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-59361.html

HTH

I always keep a model of whatever I'm carving nearby. Elmo, apple, orca....even if it's only 3 inches in size it still gives me a good perspective of what I want to do.

I hope you baked a dense cake! Light and fluffy are not your friends when carving. Also, I used a fish filetting knife to cut nicer curves for my lightning cake. It has a much thinner blade but is still long enough. HTH and good luck

remember you can stick some back on with buttercream so if you take off too much all is not lost!

i use "cake spackle" to build up on some areas sometimes instead of carving the whole thing