I'm still pretty new to this but I'm awful at drawing cakes. How do you draw up your designs? Do you have a template of like a three/four however many tiers in it's specific shape you have that you can just print and decorate it to how you want the cake to look. I really just do three tier round cakes and let me tell you my sketches look like a 6 year old did them because I'm not very consistent when I do just the cake shape. Any suggestions..?

In the gallery there is a section for templates. There are several for different shapes and tier configuration. Here is a link. http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&aid=121

Nth!

I meant HTH! Just noticed that I've finally moved up to junior member! Woohoo!

WOW... I thought I was the only one who drew sketches that look like a 6 year old!!!
I can't draw a nice sketch to save my life, but..... even with my horrible sketchng skills, when I draw out a sketch before I start a sketch, my cakes turn out 100% better than they do if I don't have a sketch. not sure why, I just have a horrible drawing.. things like color, shapre, where I want my decorations, etc... sometimes I use colored pencils. I know there are some really good templates available here on cake central but I've never had my act together well enough to print them off in advance!!

Pencil and sketch pad, try it. You'll be surprised how well you can draw a cake. I draw like a 4 yr. old myslef, but some reason cakes are different. Now If I got to draw a figure on theh cake, like a person, whoa does it suck! But I've had people say your a pretty good artist after one of my sketches. It's hard not to bust out laughing, cause I can't draw a very good smile face, so I say try it. You may be surprised.