Corduroy Bear Cake

My next commission is due at the end of next week, so I got in touch with the mother of the little boy who the cake is for. We discussed the previous sketches I sent her and she explained that she really liked the teddy bear playing the drum, but also liked the baby blocks cake I had done in the past. She also mentioned that her husband perhaps wanted something based on one of the little boy’s favorite characters: Corduroy bear. So I came up with the idea of creating a Corduroy bear in a similar position to the sketch she originally liked, playing with blocks rather than with a drum. She loved the idea and is very excited about the final product. I put together the below sketch for me to work from. I used Adobe Illustrator to create the sketch rather than sketching it by hand, so it’s not as lifelike as it will hopefully turn out in the end, but it’s proportional and scaled accurately, which will help me in constructing the cake.

More to come…

These are quick sketches of my ideas for the cake for the little boy’s first birthday, based on the direction from his aunt that the little boy likes music:

However, when I showed these to the aunt, I was informed that they had been doing some creative brainstorming of their own and had come up with the concept of a “Hungry Caterpillar” cake. So, we’re exploring that as an option as well:

I’ll let you know which option they choose… Next step: deciding on flavor of the cake!

My first commission is for a birthday party taking place in mid-April to celebrate the 1st birthday of an adorable little boy - the “cutest baby in NYC” according to his Aunt, who approached me to design the cake. The first questions I usually want to ask are the practical ones: how many people does it need to serve? do you have any flavor preferences or requirements? etc, but usually the first thing people want to tell you is their preferred subject matter. So, what I know so far: the little boy loves music. Once I know how big a cake we’re talking, I can get started on the sketches.

More to come…