Decorating Santa on a sugar cookie

It was my fifth time making sugar cookies and my second time decorating Santa. Santa has got to be one of the worst designs to decorate. At least that is so for the Santa that is cut with a Wilton Santa Grippy cutter. He is carrying his sac and he is so oddly shaped, I had to research beforehand in order to have a decent go at decorating him.

Here is the cutter along side the template I traced and colored, which I had also posted in my earlier cookie-making post.
My second attempt was so much better, I thought I would share it in case others also bought this particular Santa cutter. I made sure to use thicker icing and the trick was to leave each color to dry before adding a new color. I also added extra white icing on some areas on top of the bottom layer white to give it more of an effect such as for the beard. Overall, I'm pleased with how it turned out. There is still room for improvement but it's sort of getting ridiculous when you spend way too much time perfecting a small cookie that will be eaten in less than a minute. Honestly! :)

You may be wondering why I even bought such a cookie cutter when I knew it would be hard to decorate. Well, I bought my cutters the weekend before Christmas and Santa was one of the few cutters that were left. I wonder why! Even though I was suspicious, I bought it anyway because I'm nuts :)

Here was the 1st attempt cookie. Recognizable but so awful!
Here is the result of the second attempt. Much improvement, yes?