Find an animal image that you like or take a picture of a figurine or toy.  Anything you can take a picture from the side and from the front will do.  In this case I found an elephant sculpture that I love.  Import this image into XCS. Since my starter image is only from the side I needed to find another image that could do some ears in a similar style but if you have the object you can take a picture from that angle, too.

Use the vector edit tool to trace the separate parts.  I made separate parts for the body, 4 legs, and ears.  

I want a little definition on the ears so I also traced the ear lines.  Set most parts to cut and the ear lines to score.
 

We want the body to be thicker than the legs.  This will be cut from 1/4" ply and the body should be 3/4" so I made copies (3 total) that I will glue together.  Only 1 is needed of each of the others.

Arrange the parts to fit closely together to minimize wasted material.  Resize to fit what you would like the final size to be.  I was aiming for around 5-6" for the finished elephant.

Now we'll cut it out of 1/4" birch ply.  

I used the default settings.  Thicker plywoods have a higher burn chance so keep a very close eye on it as it cuts.

This part is optional.  You can also assemble as a bare figure which I did.  The edge sanded and stained version seen here is one I previously cut with a saw to show what it might look like.  The laser will be significantly faster to create.

I like to keep the wood grain look so I like to color stain it.  I bought a can of stain from the hardware store that is tintable but instead of using regular tinting I had them use paint tint.  This gives a thicker stain that is a little closer to paint but will still show the grain through it

Stain all of the parts and let them dry

Glue the 3 body parts together.  

I have some tiny clamps I use to hold the parts together while drying to make sure they don't shift while the glue sets.

After that sets up glue the ears on.

He is adorable!