It changed as my kiddo decided he wanted to incorporate axolotls into the design. This is his precious drawing he made for me that showed what he wanted.
I made a few aesthetic decisions, but everything is pretty close! It’s vanilla cake and strawberry cake with basic American buttercream. The top layer is iced with grey, but the bottom layer is iced white and painted with black edible paint to limit how much food dye it would take to make that much black vanilla icing.
Everything is edible, save a handful of toothpicks. The decorations are either fondant with edible pen and powdered food coloring, white chocolate, or isomalt sugar fire.
This was a picture I found online and just borrowed since it closely resembled what he had requested with an axolotl face and two here are some progress pics.
My kiddo originally requested an axolotl as a robot made out of fondant for the topper, but after I made this axolotl, his little brother suggested I make a figurine of the birthday boy making a sort of Freddie mercury pose on the axolotl. It was so silly (as everything my six year old does), that we went with it. It’s so ridiculous. I love it.
Super cool! I love seeing his picture and the progress shots, as well as the finished cake. Any 8-year-old’s dream! He and the partygoers will love it!
HAHA! Well, Delia does this thing where she rolls around on her back - that fish-floppy thing dogs do - and she makes these huffing-snorts while she does it. We call it “schmazling.” They other morning she was really going for it and I just called her “Schmazalotl”!
Oh, I have definitely been low-key plotting how to do that in a way that I would get the result I wanted and that she would not hate wearing, at least for a little bit.
we are celebrating tomorrow with cousins and it’s too tall to fit in the fridge. 
Your fantastic craft is one of this week’s Featured Projects! Congratulations! 