Judy's Reborn Nursery

I have created the following tutorial in order that others can see how I create my monkeys. I am starting with a mini monkey - a chimpanzee.

I start with a ball of tinfoil, which I roll up on the end of a screw, my aim is to make a shape that resembles the skull of the monkey. 

I try to get the shape as near to the finished shape of the monkeys skull by pressing in down onto the  worksurface into a tight ball, refining the shape as I go.

If I can get the shape correct at this time I am more likely to produce an accurate sculpt. Once I am happy with the shape of the head I start adding the eye sockets by pressing the tinfoil in and scraping the foil out. I create the nose and mouth area by adding more foil to the front. The brows I made my compressing the top of the head.

As I have finished compressing the head down I remove the screw and replace it with a roll of tinfoil. I am using Living Doll polymer clay by Sculpey, I roll 2 balls of clay to make the eyeballs, and bake them in the oven.

While the eyes are cooling I start adding clay to the skull. I try and keep it all the same thickness, smoothing it out with my thumbs. I add the eyeballs and clay eyelids.

These are the tools I use to sculpt with, the needle and the peices from my manicure set are my favourite tools. I always work from images of my subject to try and work as accurately as possible. I add and take away clay until the face looking back looks like my subject.

Once I am happy with my sculpt I cover it with a roasting bag before I start rooting, in order that the hair does not stick to the face. Using a 42g barbless rooting needle I root the hair, through the roasting bag, pressing it down after with a berry maker.

Once the whole head is rooted, I carefully lift the roasting bag off the head - hopefully leaving the hair in place.

The head can now be baked at 130 degrees for 15 minutes. The head is painted with genesis heat set paints, building up layers until the colour is right.

The arms and legs have a wire armature to help support the clay. I make a sock body just to support the head and give me an approximate body size while I work on the arms and legs. For the armature I use galvanised steel wire which I bend into shape with pliers. I cover this in masking tape before I add clay to it. Again I am working from reference pictures.

When I am happy with the hand shape I add the thumb. The finger nails I create with the end of my manicure tool, by pushing it into the end of the clay and dragging it away.

When I am happy with the size and shape of the arm I add mohair to it, either by rooting into the clay, as I did for the head or by pressing it into the clay - this just depends on the size of the arm I am working on. I follow the same procedure for the remaining arms and legs.

The legs on chimpanzees are shorter than the arms

I have named this monkey Charlie