Willie the Wildcat

Ok... only sports fans and/or Kansas residents will really appreciate this one. But here is my first attempt at doing a school/university/team mascot.

This one in particular is Willie the Wildcat - mascot of our Kansas State (K-State) Wildcats. For those unfamiliar, we have two major universities here, K-State and KU (Kansas University). Since there isn't much more to do around here, people are wildly fanatic about either one or the other. Going so far as to paint their vehicles in team colors, and getting in bar brawls over the subject

I personally couldn't care less, I was raised KU, but I'm really not a sports person lol so to each their own. My sister went to K-State, so maybe she'll like this

Anyway, I had a request from a co-worker for this... he is super excited about me getting it done. I've only tried so hard to finish it because he is so appreciative of my work and well I really wanted to do it dammit

It was horrifically difficult for some reason. First I couldn't get the face right, kept trying to carve each tooth and it wasn't working, so the teeth will be painted on. Once I finally got the head done, I started the body, and he wanted it to be more like a cat than the person with a mask on. It was all going great until I tried to get it to stand. Did NOT want to cooperate. I thought I had it, went to bake him, and he fell over on his face mid-bake. Of course when I take him out, he's all uber warm and melty, I'm trying to fix the smashed parts before it hardens on me or something. That would just figure.

We thought we were being smart and baked him inside of a mug then, kinda leaned backwards. Yeah... his feet cooked so that he falls over backwards now instead of forwards. SO... I made a little platform after the fact and he has been glued to it while trying to fit him to the platform though, he took a nosedive into the floor, breaking his little flag. Had to completely dismantle that and make a new one.

Here he is though, FINALLY finished and my co-worker loves it, so that made it totally worth it.

I went with a mixture of new and old - here is one of the references for the new [link]
And here is the reference for the old [link]