Making A Monkey Out Of Me

It’s usually Michelle in the photos because she’s infinitely more photogenic than I am.

You know the feeling most people get watching the sunset from a tropical isle? I get that same feeling when Michelle and I can spend a rainy day in the workshop painting apes.

As you probably guessed from the image above, this week on our YouTube channel, we made Ben Cooper-style Planet of the Apes masks. We don’t have a vacuuform machine, so we sculpted them out of papier mache and foam clay.

This dramatic and minimalist primer stage looked so good I almost declared the project finished at this point.

When the sculpting was done, we primed them for paint. Our goal was to build an ever-so-slightly more deluxe version of the old plastic apes masks Ben Cooper cranked out in the 1960s and ’70s.

We layered on acrylic paint in thin, watery layers trying to get a blend of overlapping skin tones.

Those frosted tips!

And to get a more natural, mottled texture, we sponged on some highlights.

Rise of the Workshop of the Apes

So how did it turn out? Here are some images we took as the project neared completion.

I actually look better with the ape mask on.

It’s a glamorous life down here in the basement workshop.

A busy ape is a happy ape.

If you want to follow along with our process from start to finish — and see the cool, retro window boxes we made for these masks, you can watch the video below.