SuperMonkeyBallMakingCostume

You can find out more about my Super Monkey Ball costume at Super Monkey Ball costume.



All costumes start from simple beginnings. This is the head bag. It's where my head will go when inside the monkey head. I made a cylinder and stuffed it with cotton. Eventually I'll take the cotton out when this is attached to the rest of the head.




I intially wanted to make a face that matched up with the monkey's face from Super Monkey Ball. But, This is the diagram for that face.




The face is cut out here, but when I laid it on the monkey head I just didn't like how it looked. I eventually just tossed it and added my own mouth and eye features to the head. I claim artistic license.




This is the first head sphere and the ears. However, I eventually decided I wanted it bigger, so later on you'll see a much bigger head sphere.

To make this sphere I actually had to use some complex math to figure out how to slice the orance slice shapes. See my How to Sew a Sphere page for details.




I like this ear best. I could never get the stuffing to sit just right in the other ear, so the other ear isn't as good.




This is the newmuch largerhead. Here I am testing to see if the head comes down to the correct spots on my arms.




I initially intended to make the arms much lower on the body. Notice where the arm holes are right now. I eventually moved them higher because it just looked freaky having a neck that was the same height as the head.




I'm trying on the head. Ok, this looks somewhat phallic, but thankfully the final costume is much better.




Originally I was shooting for having a stuffed face. But, it just wasn't possible to stuff it well enough while still having space for my own head in there. I just said "screw it" and added an internal sphere frame.




It clearly looks much better with the fram.e




I put the shirt and arms on the costume. Notice that the shoulders are still about 6 inches below my shoulders. The top of those shoulders is where the head stops.




With the head on, it really does create the illusion that my shoulders start where the costume shoulders are. Just from looking at the full costume it looks like a 5'4" person is wearing it. I'm rather happy about that.




There are the first set of hands before they were sewn together and stuffed.




Most of the costume is there now. This doesn't look too bad, but the hands just don't look good.




I lopped off the hands and designed some new ones.





You can continue the Super Monkey Ball adventure at building the monkey ball.