Awakened Animals As PCs

[Malachi Silverclaw]

How would I go about making an awakened leopard (or other creature) into a PC?

Would the bonus two HD from being awakened have to be 'animal' HD, or could they be two levels in a PC class?

Would it count as a higher or lower level PC than it's HD would indicate?

Anything I should know about allowed skills/feats? Would that depend on skills/feats gained prior to/after awakening? Would those two bonus HD be counted as before or after being awakened for the purpose of choosing appropriate skills/feats?

What about spell-casting and V, S and M/F components?

One of the baddies in the Paizo book of enemy parties was an awakened dire ape anti-paladin, but I'm finding it difficult to reverse engineer.

[asthyril]

i want to be an awakened dire clam sorcerer that can cast fly on myself.

[Caedwyr]

The easiest (but not published by Paizo) route would be to use the Noble Wild book to build your animal PC. It handles everything from races, classes, feats, spells, and items or an alternate method of acquiring additional character power.