The next suggestion was an elephant, so first of all I searched for distinctive features. A trunk was the most obvious choice. Watsons Bay in the eastern suburbs is a nice, narrow peninsula for a trunk so I based the design around there.
The first design worked, but my goal was to aim for lifelike proportions and the elephant wasn't quite there yet. It also looked like there was a horn sticking out above its eye (and I hadn't yet realised the power of "join-the-dots"). The trunk was also too thick for my liking. Unfortunately the problem was the golf course in the head section, so it was back to the drawing board. These location switches are VERY common in the first design iterations.
I landed on The Botanic Gardens as the final location. Remember: on ovals and grassy areas you can run any shape you like, which meant I could easily make a trunk as well as much of the facial features! I actually ran with this diagram in my hand (there was one for the body too) for directions, as I hadn't yet discovered an app that could guide me. You can see all the notations in red, mainly of corners I could cut:
The pupil of the eye was fun, and highlights another thing you learn running these designs: you are going to look like an idiot sometimes. For a good 2-3 minutes I ran in ever decreasing, concentric circles in the same section of grass, and received strange looks aplenty. You'll cut across grass for no apparent reason. You'll jump fences even if the gate is only a few metres away. The best part? Who cares! It's your design, it's your direction, go for it no matter what other people think (within reason of course... don't go through private gardens, cemeteries or freeways just for a design, that's just common sense).
"You are going to look like an idiot sometimes"
Here's the final product: a mostly proportional elephant, complete with tusks! GPS is not ideal around tall buildings and will turn out really wobbly - you can clearly see the difference between the head in the open gardens and the body in the narrow city streets.
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