So I was asked by customer to create this Studio Ghibli cake. I don’t know if I’d be able to fit everything on a 6” or not, but that’s about the size she’s looking for. How much would you charge for this? I know the characters are going to make the price go up. Just looking for opinions on what you would charge. Thank you!!

The cake seems like more of an afterthought.  That's going to be a lot of sculpting.  I am sorry I can't be more helpful on the price.  If I did that it would take me 10 years.  lol!

I am going to guess that Studio Ghibli is copyrighted... so you can always tell your customer you can't do it unless they get the release...

It also does look like a lot for just a 6"...

I am not that good at sculpting figures... in fact I suck at it... but I am going to hazard a guess at lease $250 to $300... that tree is going to take a lot of time for all those leaves... then there is the structural aspects of the hanging and floating characters... 

But I also don't do copyrighted cakes...

$500 -- there's over a dozen characters with half of those in gravity defying poses -- tons of detail -- whiskers, bows, umbrella, shoes, boots, broom, hair braid, cape, apron, clothing, painted faces -- plus the tree

with permission from copyright holder -- or just do it for family and no charge -- but anything with that much work -- $500

I would probably charge about $300, but I am very accustomed to making models and could do these quickly.  Likewise the tree structure.  The leaves appear to be plastic, to me.

sandra, sure you can do them quickly but that doesn't mean they are worth less -- that just means you make more --

the cake is $5 per so $60 -- so twelve detailed characters could be fifteen bucks a pop give or take is $180 then suspending half of them is ten bucks each for $60 -- that's $300 right there -- then you gotta price the tree -- at least $50 to $75 with the six characters hanging off it -- internal structure --

so an extra hundred because i know i should charge more than what i calculated -- $475 oh yes oh yes

I do not disagree, Kate.  It's just that it would not take me more than a couple of hours, at the most, to make all of the figures and the structure for the tree.  But, boy oh boy, just wait until I start one of those realistic models!  When I did the Eagle Scout cake, it took me about eight hours to do the two figures and that doesn't count anything else!

oh for sure-- but you charge more for your expertise not less 

but i didn't mean any pressure -- we are all different and at least several hundred dollars for a cake like this -- then for the real life people artwork it should be exponentially higher -- in my opinion --

of course no one wants any of us to give our hard work away 

it's more than fine for us all to have a different idea on this --