My Robot conversion... Monkey to Man

I decided to enhance my current LARP character i would create a little friend to carry round.... with having very little electronics knowledge i decided to MODIFY and excising robotic friend... I found him in the form of Dave the Funky Shoulder Monkey 2010 Toy of the year in the UK

I do not have step by step pictures, but via the use of videos and such im sure you will get how i transformed Monkey to Man

If you like it rate it, and if you make it show me

Build cost:

Dave: £5
Boots: £2.50
Belt buckle: 75p
Thermoplastic: (MOSTLY) FREE (Yay thanks Allen Stroud!) 100g Cost me £3 ish
Materials: Free
Batteries: £2
Paint: £1 (i only needed to buy one pot of humbrol as i had the rest to hand)

Total build cost: £11.25

Step 1: A bit about Dave

Dave is a wonderful little remote controlled animatronic spider monkey produced by WOW toys... he sits on a little harness you wear on your shoulder.. he is controlled by a little remote with 5 buttons, pressing different button combinations in different ways will produce various different emotions and actions... have a look at the little chart you get with him in my pics...

I bought two on ebay for around £5-£10 each... their RRP is £25

Step 2: Time to Skin the monkey!

I have been told i have a somewhat sick sense of humor... apologies if i have caused offense ;) Basically in this step i skinned the little robot... i made a small incision on the back seam and pulled the little guy open to see his guts... there was a little plastic cable tie keeping his body onto the plastic shell... but a quick snip with some sharp scissors saw the whole thing come off like a banana skin :D

Step 3: Make a new body

Once Dave is skinned you are left with a sealed unit with two arms and a head/neck...

In order to not inhibit movment you are best taking Daves body apart and backwards engineering new clothes... That's what i did... I undid the original seams, placed them on the material i wanted to used... cut and sewed them to how the originals were and bish bash bosh a body came into form

Step 4: Apendeges first...

Once i had cut out and sewn all the individual parts, i made sure that the arm sections fit the robot, without impeding the movement range...

With not having alot of pictures, i have a breif video of Dave dressed, with me carrying out a movment test

Step 5: Its all down to the Details

Okay to make him a little more interesting, I made Dave a little satchel, a belt and i bought him a pair of ceramic dolls boots off ebay

Step 6: Head and Hands

I had asked a very good friend of mine to make me a set of hands and a head for Dave, but i mustn't have given the right measurements, because despite them arriving and looking fantastic they were just too big and heavy to be used.

So To get me through Daves first event, Allen made me a head out of poly morph/ thermoplastic... that stuff is brilliant, to those who have never used it thermoplastic is an incredible plastic with a very low melting point... it can be molded into any shape and then put in a bit of hot water and re-molded... The first pic is head and hands mark 1, in the following pics you can see how it evolved once i got home and bout some thermoplastic to play round with for myself

Step 7: Hair

Despite Dave looking REALLY awesome once painted... i decided to make him look less like Sloth from the Goonies, and more like a grotesque but refined 17th century little man, furthermore to be referred to as Mr Bimble


I unfortunately have no pics of this step, so you will have to do with my feeble description

I got some natural string, and unraveled the cord to get the long straight fibers, and then started the arduous process of gluing layer upon layer of hair one on top of another to form his barnet. once he had enough hair i gave him a trim and a little plait and let the glue dry

Step 8: Mr Bimble is complete...

So that's Mr Bimbles metamorphosis from Furry monkey to refined gentleman... If you have any questions let me know

hope you enjoyed this and you can see how long it took me to complete.

Cheerio for now

Biggsy, Mr Bimble and Dave

Comments

[psyclopz]

Nice use of Dave! I designed the mechanism and I love seeing people putting it to good use. What event did you use him for?

cheers,

Nick
www.gotrobots.com

[Biggsy]

Hi Nick, I LARP (Live Action Role Play) over in Derby, the system is run by the Lorien Trust.

He sat on my shoulder fro the dry parts of the weekend and amused most people and freaked out the rest.

[PeckLauros]

Nice!
Quasimodo?

[Biggsy]

No... not exactly.... no hump you see