paisley cake and topper

paisley cake and topper
Originally uploaded by Zoeowyn

In my search for a way to make my living from art, I occasionally mentally breeze thru the wedding industry.

This is an industry renowned for extreme spending in creation of “that perfect day.” My thinking is if they are going to drop some funds on decorations and jewelry to create a fairy tale perfect illusion, why not drop some on me?

Well I have tried to make some wedding specific jewelry. I didn’t even price it extremely outrageous for a wedding, just made it white and sparkly. No buyers.

Well then I have been thinking about cake toppers, more as an extension of the cake decorating Sarah and I have been doing.

Cake toppers are 2 things: sizable business and intimidating!
What kind of topper would I do?
The generic figure? well if someone is going to spend money on my work, why would I make it generic, that’s what Walmart’s wedding section is for.
The custom look alike figure? EEEK! make a figurine that might actually resemble someone without actually making it look deformed? This is intimidating, but then again if I were to do it, this is how I would do it.

Ok so, I think I’m going to try to make cake toppers. Great, how do I practice? Ahhhh, find a cake and make a person for the top of it. Who? the cousin already got married…

Who???

Ahh the cake for Diana!

We toyed with making architecture for her, but then realized we needed it to be more of her than of where she is traveling to. So henna patterns and paisleys! And my brain said put her dancing on top!

At first I didn’t think I was going to have time, second I didn’t think It would turn out.

This is my first representational figurine. I know the concepts of armatures and have read enough articles, as well as created figurines with bases to know how to start. I also understand the anatomy of a face, and again read articles and books and such on building faces (but have not built a face from scratch before that actually looked like a face—I use molds)

Well it turned out, and it turned out ok, and it took a reasonable amount of time. Of course I’m still not sure how I would be able to price it. I did some research and wedding cake toppers are not cheap. So then how much would non-wedding cake toppers be?

Obviously I need some practice.
But it’s a good start.