I will be making my niece’s birthday cake again this year. Her family just got back from Disneyworld and she is obsessed! So the cake will be Disney themed. She wants a handful of different characters featured on the two tiered cake, and I am not quite sure how to design a cake around so many of them! I am also newer to designing cakes so I’m not sure how comfortable I am creating full characters out of fondant. 

Her mom and I liked this cake:

We both liked the gradient buttercream background - and I liked the fact that the characters were made into silhouettes... much easier! And ideas on how to incorporate these characters into one cake and make it all mesh?

Stitch, Mickey, Minnie, Rapunzel, Belle, Lion King, Timon, Pumba, Goofy, Pluto, Dumbo, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell (A few characters can be left off)

Easiest/Best way is to decide the cake in half and create backgrounds for store bought characters. That silhouette design is HARD and very time consuming. 

That background color effect is going to need the use of an airbrush    I also thought purchased toys would be good   Of course many think * everything!* that goes on a cake needs to be edible but.....there are times like this that call for a toy :)    Oh &  make a sheet cake for more room to display them  

It is funny that anyone would object to a toy being used to decorate a child's cake.  After all, it is like a gift which they can enjoy long after the day has passed.