Banana Split

Alrighty, now my ex Gf loves monkeys and once she heard I was making dolls she immediately ordered a monkey, she's also a bit of a sword collector so I came up with my ninja monkey and there have since been two more versions of this with a third on the way (a ninja master named Fu Manchu and a Geisha monkey)

I started by sculpting his face directly to a paper mache covered ball. His body is a small length of broom handle and his legs are pieces of corrugated cardboard cut outs glued to one another to add thickness but if you're going for a more rugged primate you may want to cut them out of wood or sculpt them. I applied paper mache over it all. Once that was dry I brushed it with white school glue sprinkled it with saw dust, let dry then reapplied a thin layer of wet tissue paper (water and glue solution) for a nice textured effect. Why do I have saw dust...? Uh curiosity got the best of me and I murdered a pin cushion but I digress. His arms are lengths of dowel, nice and long, it is a monkey after all. His hands and feet are eight hand shaped pieces of red foam that I cut out using and Xacto blade, I used a thin gauge wire and glued it onto four of the cut outs and then glued on the remaining four cut outs, this was my attempt at making semi dexterous hands. His tail which doesn't really show up in this picture is made using the same method. His sword is wood that I cut and carved and made a peel hilt for out of foam. It isn't pictured here but I also made him a coconut grenade. My friend Jerry gave em the name Banana Split.