Brobee Birthday Cake Tutorial

Last week we celebrated my baby's 2nd birthday with a Yo Gabba Gabba themed party. One of his favorite episodes is 'Birthday' where the character Brobee has a birthday party, and they have a Brobee cake. My son talked about that for almost two weeks, so I knew I wanted to try and create one for him.

*Before we get started, I just want to say that I am in no-way a professional cake decorator, or claim to be one. My methods might even be completely wrong, I just wanted to share how I was able to create this cake in hopes that someone else could benefit from the information.
I knew I would need somewhere to put the cake on where I could decorate it and then not need to move it to something else.
I measured out what I thought was a good size piece of cardboard, cut it out, and wrapped it in tinfoil.

I baked 2 cakes in a glass 9x13 glass dish, and after they had completely cooled, I placed one in the middle of my cardbord.
This is Brobee's main body.

Using the second 9x13 cake I cut out the remaining parts.
I started by cutting 2 squares for the legs.

I then cut 3 triangles for his 'horns', and I sut 2 long arms using the edges of the cake.

My husband pointed out that his legs were a little longer, so I cut up into the 'body' part of the cake to give his legs more length.
I then made the legs, horns, and arms the same level as the body by cutting across the top to make it flat.

I have never done a shape of any kind with a cake, so this was my first time frosting a cake that had been cut.
It was a little more difficult than I was planing...
I tried frosting a 'crumb layer' where you spread a thin amount to kind of 'seal' in the crumbs, but I kept pulling little chunks along.
I ended up spreading frosting very lightly, and dipping my knife in a tiny amount of water.
This helped keep the frosting and cake from sticking and dragging...if that makes sense.

I had to stop frosting the body because I wanted the frosting to harden a little so I could flatten it out a little, so I did the horns next and then started the eyes.

For the stripes, I made a darker shade of green and outlined them first so I knew where they would go.

I then filled in the stripes, and using a toothpick I quickly swiped the frosting a little to give it a 'furry' look.
This is right after I finished frosting everything.

I put the cake in the fridge over night, and the next day it was all ready for the party!!

It took about 2 1/2 hours to cut and frost the whole thing, which I didn't think was too bad, but the best part was smile on my little guy's face, it was PRICELESS!!