This was the first cake I made using my new airbrush machine. I learned a valuable lesson....airbrush doesn't stick to shortening. I used shortening on my impression mat and the seams. I should have brushed the whole thing down with powdered sugar before airbrushing. Still, he came out pretty awesome. He was almost 3 feet long. I made this for a little boy's 10th birthday. I added a picture of what it looked like cut, that is always neat to see. For ddaigle(my fellow cajun!): I used three 10 by 15 layers for the head and first part of the body and three 9 x 13 layers for the last half. I used the leftover carvings to finished out the tail and for the legs.