I hate it to admit it, but i am one of those people. One of those people who can't look normally at an product because i know how it is made. Yeah, everytime i am at a birthday party, wedding or any other celebration with cakes, i take the cake apart. Visually that is of course. I observe the cake from topper to bottom layer and then make (some time an unfair) judgement about the cake (when it is not my cake). I don't know why, but i can't look normaly at an cake anymore. I think it is the same as eating it (when you can) when you make the cake, and work with it, you do not have the urge to eat it anymore. Yeah and i am even worse, i tend to give people my "mostly unwanted' advice about the cake. That goes something like this" yeah well the cake is okay (yeah that is what is say when i don't like a cake), but the nextime ask for this, or this and this ...Sorry i can't help it!
I really do not like it when people settle for something less then that is out there. I mean most people end up with cakes that looks like a photo the saw on the internet...there is nothing wrong with it, when they know the other possiblities. I use photos of other cakes as inspiration, not to copy. Go to an local cake artist and ask what the possibilies are, do some internet research and write down the things you like or don't like. Most cake artist do not mind helping you when you ask kindly.
When it comes to my own cakes, i try to go as detailed as possible. I love to challenge myself, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the worst, but my artist eye, vision is always there.
This was one of those cakes, where details made the difference. i know that not everybody likes a 3d cake, or that every cake artist has the time to make it, but even if this was a normal cake, details are so important, detailes makes your cake, really your cake, like an signature.