One of my favorite manga/anime is Bleach. In the story, Kon is a silly and perverted but fiercely loyal and kind mod soul [kaizô konpaku]. At first, he resides in Ichigo's body and makes lots of trouble while Ichigo is doing his shinigami duties. However, while Ichigo's soul is in his body, he puts pill-form Kon into a stuffed animal he found on the ground one day. Kon's sassy personality certainly fits the image of a lion, but perhaps not a stuffed one. He proceeds to get 'abused' [dressed up by one of Ichigo's sisters, sewn into a vision of Marie Antoinette by an ally] and taken for granted, which leads to the comedy relief for the series.

Of course, since I'm a knitter, it dawned on me one day while reading the manga, 'Word, I should knit Kon. That would be awesome!' That was over a year ago. Now, however, I have confidence enough in my skill that I could make up my own version of Kon that I would be satisfied with.

Here's the photo that I relied on for inspiration:

And here is my sort of ragged interpretation:

Kon originally didn't have that blue cross on the back of his head, but when he was resewen one time after getting torn up and dirty, Ishida [who is a Quincy, whose symbol is a blue cross] put it there because Kon was getting on his nerves. No one ever told Kon, so he's completely unwitting.

As far as the pleasure factor goes, I had a great time making his appendages and body, but his head pissed me off, all aspects of it. I didn't make it big enough, I couldn't figure out the best way to make his mane how I wanted it, I misplaced his eyes, his nose and mouth are weird. The only things I like about his head are the cross on the back and his ears. Overall, though, I'm quite pleased with my Kon. He's going to stay in the car with me, I think.

Stats:

Yarn - KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, colors daffodil, cloud, chocolate, and winter night, and Sugar n' Cream in black and white for his eyes, nose, mouth, and claws.

Needles - CPY 7 dpn's

One large white button

Polyfil stuffing