We have been puzzling over this for a few weeks.

Background:

We went last month to a rock yard, which is a 1hour trip each way, but a fun place for stone and garden accessories. (they even have cool mineral specimens inside and precious stuff).

I wanted some mica rocks for my rock garden, which look nice during the drab winter when the sun shines on them giving some visual interest.

At the entrance to the pool/fountain accessory area were some damaged goods. This statue was there catching my eye. We asked about it and inside the fenced fountain area in back were several others 1/2 off. The owner said this statue was part of a lawn ornament art exhibit in Calif. and his friend gave him some to sell, when the exhibit was over. He thought, as I thought that this was some character from a children's book. I am thinking it might be a scifi-character or a video game one?

So I looked thru Google images for several days... whew! that was an experience! but could not find it.

So I am asking if anyone here recognizes it? I am hoping someone here has an answer.

I bought a non-damaged one for my son's home. He has this spot in the front that is empty and I've been waiting to find something for him to put there (his neighborhood is big on doodads and decorating). Only he didn't want some silly thing. He has 3 cats and this one sort of looks like one of his in the face area besides and matches the house perfectly! He was out of town, so I snuck it over there while putting in some springs bulbs for him.

Doesn't ring a bell in my rusty brain...

It's very cool, though!!

Sorry mrsD. I haven't seen it before.

My daughter had a look, but it wasn't familiar to her either.

Thanks for the input. This character was a pawn, in an elaborate lawn chess set according to the store owner. He was selling about 6 of them, from that set, but didn't know where the idea came from.

I was looking at the picture again yesterday, and wonder if it could be a newer character from Brian Jacques series, Redwall?

I think the head covering is similar to Abbess dress... in convents/ abbys.

So I went to Amazon, and Brian Jacques has a huge new list of books. We stopped reading him about 8 yrs ago. So I did a Google image search again... found the clothing but not the character. Most of his animals (who he anthropomorphasizes) are wild animals, foxes, stoats, mice, rats, shrews, badgers, etc.
But the older/earlier books did not have domestic animals in them, like cats and dogs.

The Redwall series from Britain is very clever, young adult, older child, but I really got into them when my son was that age.
They can appeal to any age if you like animals and have imagination etc.

This statue has an artist's signature, unreadable on the back, and was not mass produced like other typical garden statuary.
Even the cement is unique in texture I think.

Given all the anime stuff out there, including video games which we have no clue about now, I guess it will remain a mystery, unless someone here recognizes it?

You know, what I might do? Have our local library take a look. The children's librarian might have a clue. She is pretty versed on all the books there.

Garfield stuck in a accordion!