I'm doing a giraffe cake, and just wanted to see if this idea sounded like it would work....
I am getting a piece of plywood, and screwing in
a tall thick wooden dowel. Then I will slide a half ball pan down the dowel for the body. Then a 10" (approx.) PVC pipe over the dowel and into the cake. The part sticking out will then be covered in RKT, brushed w/melted chocolate, and covered in fondant. I will make a head seperately out of RKT, cover it, then shove it onto the wooden dowel (because it will be an inch or so taller than PVC pipe, therefore sticking out, and also secure w/melted chocolate. Seams will be covered with some sort of decorative element, bow, etc. Does this sound like a good order? Or like it will even work?

So you are making the body like laying down, with the feet out to the sides?

I would probably use a 1" dowel for the neck...screwed to a wooden base. Then for the head I would actually attach (screw) a small oval platform to the top of the 1" dowel, and then use cake for the head on the platform, and maybe a little RKT to round out the underneath, attached with royal icing. Cover the neck with icing or RKT (however thick you want it...if the cake is smaller you could just use some icing around the dowel and refrigerate to firm, then cover in fondant).

I think if you shove a head onto a dowel or PVC you will have a chance of the head being too heavy and cracking. You really should have some sort of platform to support the head, in which case you can actually use mostly cake for it.

Yeah, it's laying down, feet out. The head is basically an oval (looks like a stuffed animal vs. Realistic giraffe) so if I put a platform, and build up with cake, I'm scared the RKT will be too heavy to stick underneath to make it more rounded instead of square....I've never worked with RKT, so maybe I am just putting too much stock in the images in my mind of RKT falling off in gloopy clumps....