How to make Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes

Isla had her 2nd birthday party last weekend. I can't believe it's been 2 years already.

Since she's a big fan of Yo Gabba Gabba it was Lilo's idea to make her these cupcakes. They were a lot of work but lots of fun and I'm super proud of how they turned out.
Here is my inspiration while I was working - plus I found some other great cupcakes online that I also used as inspiration.
I first started by making the eyes and add ons the night before. I made them with melting chocolate put into parchment piping bags. The eyes are just white chocolate and a brown mini m&m in the centre.
Then I melted other colours to make flowers, ears, mouths and their other weird things on their faces :) I piped them on to wax paper and let dry. They come off easily. For the flowers I started by drawing on the back side of the wax paper to use as a pattern to trace but then I found it just as easy to free hand it.
Then I started icing the cupcakes. I wasn't sure how to do it at first to get a smooth look. I started by just using a knife but that wasn't looking great so I tried piping it. It worked so much better. I just piped the outline of the head shape and then filled some inside.
I smoothed it out with a wet knife. I had a wet paper towel to wipe the knife clean between cupcakes. Then I dipped the knife into a glass of water before smoothing. Worked great.
Here are all the different bases for the cupcakes. I only had one icing bag so I washed out the bag between each colour (a pain but I planned it well) I started with the pink, the extra icing I turned red. I also mixed the extra yellow and blue to make the green - I added a bit more yellow colouring to make the colour green I wanted.
Then I added all the chocolate pieces as well as used a small tip to add details.
I love how Plex turned out. I was most nervous about making him and now he's my favourite.
Brodee - you don't get the true goofiness of him without his body.
Foofa - I made the pink icing a little darker than I had planned - I was trying to get it lighter than the chocolate. It doesn't take much of the gel colouring to dye the icing. Oh well, she's still cute. I added a yellow m&m to the flower and painted eyelashes using the gel colouring with a thin new paintbrush.
Mono - who can't like Mono and his big eye. The red m&m for his spots turned out cute.
Toodee - her eyes are a little off but still a sweetie.

Also in case you're wondering - I didn't make 2 cakes. The Elmo cake was made by my friend Deb for her daughter - our girls birthdays are only a week apart so we did a joint party for them. She made her cake by renting the cake pan at Bulk Barn. They have the icing pattern on the pan as well. She did a great job. Lots of stained tongues after this party.