It needs to look like the real thing, just got the order! Any help, advice, sites would be appreciated. Thanks guys!!

It could be done quite easily:
Take this position http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/1500000/Kung-Fu-Panda-kung-fu-panda-1543318-1280-1024.jpg
Here you have whole picture (from plush toy)
http://eshop.stargate.cz/e-shop/images/uploads/Panda_3set.jpg
If you want panda standing, make false lower half and "engineer" a stand - big plate under the cake, fix 1 dowel through each leg from downside, cake plate on top of this. The lower plate needs to be big and heavy enough that the cake doesn't keel over. From about waist it has enough stability on itself. stack round cakes for body and head to get rough shape, freeze, carve.

All the other poses I have seen are nightmare - standing on one leg and so on.

Majka_ze, Thanks so much for your help. The picture you provided is perfect! I don't think I'll attempt the legs.

If you can do Po sitting down, maybe you can use this tutorial for a chubby monkey cake as a starting point:
http://www.cakedalaska.com/Caked_Alaska/Monkey_see.html

HTH,
Deanna

Deanna, Wow, what a great idea. I have to decide how I should go about this cake, your tutorial is fantastic. Is the head made from the Wilton ball? You are very talented indeed! Thanks for your help.

Thanks, Bonniecakes. Yes, the head is the Wilton sports ball pan, but it was too big so I carved it down smaller. Let me know if I can help further.

Deanna

Now you've really got me thinking Deanna! Any ideas on carving his facial features - like baking two ball cakes in case I screw it up! It might be a little beyond my skill level, and would you use the grass tip for the hair or do you think that would be too long and messy. I really hate to use the star tip for the entire cake.

If you're nervous about making the head from cake, and if you have enough servings in the body alone, consider making the head from RKT. I've done heads in styro before, but then it couldn't be eaten. It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I recall Po as being fairly smooth-haired... If it were me, I'd smooth on the buttercream the way I normally do it when I sculpt, by piping it on with a basketweave tip and then using my tapered angled spatula to smooth it roughly (how about that for an oxymoron?) and then a Viva for the final smoothing. It's my opinion - so take it for what it's worth - that using a star tip would ruin the effect of it being Po, and if I were to use any sort of fill piping to do the fur, it would be the grass tip, although I'd have the smooth buttercream as my first choice.

This isn't likely to be a terribly difficult cake. There are only a few colors, the shapes are rounded for the most part and the body is heavily weighted to the center and butt, making the limbs and head less of a challenge than they might have been. Doing this cake sitting down will make it pretty easy as well.

You could consider making this a fondant cake, more like Cairissy's monkey on my tutorial site. The monkey is modeling chocolate, which I prefer working with when I can, but here again, the simple shapes of Po's body and pants kind of beg to be done in fondant. Fondant or buttercream, it's all good.

HTH,
Deanna

Hey there,
I hope its not to late. I have done Kung fu panda cake.
Here is link so u can see http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1319647 The picture for some reason look strange, but in real It really looked like the Kung Fu Panda. I was lazy to paint him black so I made him wear kimono. The head I made with RKT which I covered lightly with MMF, on it I modeled the face with MMF and again covered with fondant for smooth finish. After I just painted the blacks ... etc. For sure making it sitting down is much more easy. For body I used 8 inch pan and 8 inch bowl.

Lidunka, you are the best! Thanks so much, you are not to late! What is RKT? and how did you use a bowl, is the back of the head flat like the top of the cake baked in a bowl? And how many 8" layers did you use? Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Oh thank you but I am so far not the best, I wish I would be as good as some of the amazing bakers here.
RKT is rice krispy treats...you know how to make this one right? For the head I used RKT which i stuffed in foil lined and oil coated wilton ball pan. Let it dry and cover as I said in post before.
For the body I used 1 pan 8 inch wide and 3 inches tall (i used sponge cake recipe) + medium size bowl which u can buy like in Walmart for 4 dollars. Its metal one and they have different sizes I used the one which fittet the best on the 8 inch pan....do you know what I mean right. I stacked them on top of each other which made the body (it looked like a hill) after for the arms i used another 8 inch pan and cut in on half in the middle so i had two moons which i carved so they fitted on the body like arms... do you still get me? sorry my english sux and explain something ...wheeeew.... so I carved the arms, and u will have some of the bread leftover, that i used to make the legs sticking out of the body so it looked like he is sitting..... Rest i just did with MMF (marshmallow fondant).... any more questions... I hope I covered all

Ok just something to add...
He is not flat from the back, he is round like head or back is....like somebody showed the monkey here.
Btw in the RKT head made from the willton ball pan is long skewer so it dont roll down. U know what I mean right?
So I used two 8 inch regular round pans, plus one 8 inch bowl, plus RKT head.

You can have the Panda sitting down, this way you dont need to worry to much about the structural integrity. This is how we did ours...