When a Bath sweet shop was looking for someone to design a lion for a public arts project in the city, it didn't have far to look.

For among the staff at the San Francisco Fudge factory is an animation artist whose work can be seen on TV channel E4.

Gareth Sayers, who completed an MA in animation at the University of Bristol, has used his talents on the store's sculpture King of Fudge.

Mr Sayers, 32, who has been working at the shop for around six years making fudge, is the first in-house artist to decorate one of the 100 models in the Lions of Bath project.

He said: "Everyone seems to like it a lot and lots of people are taking pictures of it.

"With animation I have done a lot of model-making and it comes quite naturally to me."

Mr Sayers was recently crowned runner-up in E4's E Stings competition, which saw entrants submitting short animations advertising the channel. His video, named the E4 machine, is currently being shown on the channel.

Maureen Lechmere, who owns the shop with her husband Mark, said they wanted to get involved with the Lions of Bath project to support the charities which it would be helping. She said they particularly supported Off the Record, which aims to improve the emotional, physical and mental well-being of young people aged up to 25.

She said: "Any charity that supports children is a good thing and any way we can give to charity we do. We do a lot here to support children's charities."

Mrs Lechmere said of her lion: "We were going to take it to a primary school to be decorated but then Gareth said he would do it and we trusted him completely.

"He is really brilliant and so many people have said how amazing it looks."

The lion, which like the other models will be on the streets of the city until October, is located on the roof of the shop in Abbey Green.

Meanwhile, residents are being given the chance to help paint another of the lions this weekend.

The sculpture, which has been named Lionheart, has been sponsored by estate agency firm Andrews, which will be inviting members of the public along to decorate the model with hearts.

The event will be held at Milsom Place near The Lions of Bath shop between 10am and 6pm on Saturday.

It is one of three lions sponsored by the firm and will end up at the SouthGate shopping centre.