I have to thank one of my customers, Art, for inspiring me to do the Monkey King again.  When I was 5-6 years old, my father sculpted me a little Monkey King out of mud and clay while he was gardening.  He told me about the Pilgrimage to the West stories and the adventures of the Monkey King, the monk, Piggy and the Sea Devil and I remember going absolutely gaga with them.  Then I watched the first Shaw Bros. martial arts adventure when I was about 9-10 years old.  I still remember a lot of the books I read about Chinese mythology in elementary and the stories were great.  The Three-Eyed God, Na Cha, etc. were rich in Chinese tradition.

Sun Wu Kong is one of the most fun projects I've ever worked on.  Not since The Punisher have I been quite hooked on completing a figure this bad.  Every ounce of free time I get is dedicated to the Monkey King.  Other than the BBI G3.5 body, hands and boots (which is from the Action Trend "Hero" soldier), everything else is all custom made.

My wife gave me the weirdest look when she caught me ransacking her "to be donated" bin for the Salvation Army.  What I'd give for her thoughts when she saw me touching up on her purse, opening it, examining it carefully.  When the final version of the body armor was done and I showed it to her, she let out a sigh of relief, knowing what I had exactly done with her vintage chain-mail purse.  Sun Wu Kong's body armor is all metal.  Taking apart her purse, I had to hand sew each sheet of the chain mail onto the gunmetal gatorskin pleather base.  Not fun.

As you can probably see, the "real" metal color on his body armor doesn't quite match with his shoulder, wrist and leg guards, but that's primarily because . . . well, it's real metal.  All the other parts are made from styrene and painted.

My first time working with styrene wasn't too hard since it only required the cutting and sanding of basic shapes - i.e., the square or rectangle.  Painting and dry brushing styrene was not hard either, but the tedious sewing of each styrene piece onto the gatorskin pleather was mind numbing to say the least.  Plus, the little eyelets that held together each armor set will drive most people up the wall because the pleather tears right through really easy.  I added studs and various jewelry making pieces for a little more accent on his armor and guards.

His head is sculpted completely from scratch.  Although, I did use a DML head as a base for fitting onto the BBI G3.5 body.  I didn't use any pictures for reference during sculpting because I couldn't find any pictures that I really like.  Most photos I did find were either from movies (which mostly look like actors putting on hair and make up) or real monkeys that look too "monkeyish."  I could have taken the easy route out by just popping a "Planet of the Apes" head on him and make my life all that much easier.  But where's the fun in that?

Awhile back, I saw that Alyasha (another infamous customizer who I highly admire) made his own version of the Monkey King.  He used an existing "demon monkey" head where he cut the head off and worked it onto a 1/6th body.  The sculpt looked awesome since he had the little snarl and everything.  That is exactly how I have always pictured the Monkey King.  Alyasha's Monkey King made me appreciate his work all that much more because I know he has very similar interests as me.  This head was sculpted with that snarl in mind.  I wanted the Monkey King to have that "you're about to get beat down" look to him.  Not too bad huh?  His crown piece is also made from styrene - heated, melted, engraved, painted, dry brushed and feathers added for a more sinister look.

The insanely cool Monkey King staff is made by none other than the God of Weapons himself - Auret7.  When Terry initially previewed me the pics, I thought "what the hell?! The Monkey King's staff doesn't have conical ends, what is Terry smoking?!"  Boy was I wrong.  Pictures do not do this staff justice no matter how clear or concise you can take them.  It's one of those marvels of the universes. Hehe.  Made with real freakin' metal, the staff weighs probably almost two pounds - which is perfect because according to the novel, his staff weighs 1000 lbs. and no mortal man could lift it.  I had made my own staff from wood and apoxie before Terry's arrived, but his staff was so cool it'd simply put mine to shame.  Terry's staff made the Monkey King all that much more cool. Here's another shout out to Terry for making one of the coolest 1/6th weapons I have ever seen or owned to date.  Thanks again Terry!