I'm planning on making a cake this weekend and frosting it with just buttercream, not fondant. I'm planning on trying to use more than one colour, but I'm worried because I've never done this before. I've read about painting buttercream, is that what I should do? What's the best way to do this? I've thought of a few possibilities:

- mixing different colours of buttercream and piping them on, then blending, swirling, etc.
- mixing different colours of buttercream and painting them on with a paintbrush (not sure that this would work)
- spreading white icing on the cake and then using different paintbrushes and dyes to paint colour onto the cake.

Would any of these work?

Umm...exactly what effect are you trying to achieve? Do you have a picture of the style you're trying to achieve that we could see?

I'm hoping to make this cake for a LOST season finale party this weekend:

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1417044

Oops! The attachment isn't visible, but the link should work.

I'm planning on making the cake on Saturday and then icing it Sunday afternoon in preparation for Sunday evening's party. I bought Wilton's black buttercream, but am planning on colouring the rest myself.

It looks like they have piped the black or used a stencil for the figures. The white also looks stenciled with a thinned buttercream. When I worked at an ice cream shop and we were painting cakes, one of the techniques was to color thawed pastry pride and brush that onto the buttercream or ice cream.

My suggestion would be to spread a layer of butter cream on the back of a cookie sheet and practice the techniques you want to try. When you find the one you like, use that on the cake.

Good Luck.