My Li'l Monkey

At the risk of ratting myself out as some kind of kit-basher I occasionally decide to mutate one toy into another.

I used to keep the normal version of this monkey doll in my car to wave at kids in other vehicles. At one point I had steel marbles in his eyes which gave him kind of a friendly terminator effect.

Then suddenly one day I decided to cut his face off and replace it with a a Super Sculpey version which just happened to be the right color so I only needed to add a little acrylic wash to it to pull out the detail. I used plastic teddy bear eyes behind the mask and actually wired the eyes to light up if I someday choose to add a battery pack to his forearm.

Standing upright on a doll stand he glares hatefully at me from the corner of my studio.

--Starchie

I Love to say Monkey

Sometimes an early character design is like a first draft of a story. There are some obvious choices made and much unrealized potential. I still like this little painting but it's the first draft of this character. His design and backstory has changed since I did this painting. Hopefully I'll get to share some more of him with you in the near future.

Acrylic 8X10

--Starchie

How 'bout a Monkey?

Character design from an unmade something or other.

Acrylic 6X9

--Starchie

Monkey Bucks

Here's a promo coupon I got to paint, probably for some early 90's LucasArts Adventurer edition. It's actually amazing how much of this kind of stuff I was trusted to do with little or no content notes from above, which made it tons o' fun.
I'll see if I can track down my activity pages with the art lesson and the Guybrush paper dolls.
Watercolor 4 X 9 1/2

--Starchie

The Duchess

I have about four or five of these stuffed German chimps who stare at me while I nap. They have a blank authenticity to their expression that you don't commonly see in a toy. The modern version is not nearly as sincere but the old ones are still fairly easy to come by. Like real apes they're often missing earlobes or fingers or the hair is worn off the knees. Better than new.

2X3 Acrylic

--Starchie