Worked on restoring a Monsters Inc. Sulley today with my son

[tripoli]

My oldest son David and I decided to tackle Sulley today. The damage on him was extensive. Been touching up the paint as well working on a whole new skeletal structure since the original was shattered. Finished up making a whole new piped pvc piece and popping it all together. Had to skin and take apart the the display foam structure and then rebuild it all back together. Still have to add back in the shoulder pins to get the arm snug up to the body and then velcro in the fur around the feet. But the majority of the hardest work was done today. Here's David next to Sullay after a very long day of measuring sawing and redoing the PVC pipe structure for it.

He is huge, Sulley measures close to 70 inches across and about 74 inches high and 40 inches wide front to back. One heck of a large build up.

Heres a shot of Mikey up in the den. Still need to clean up the base, but happy with the main piece getting cleaned up.

 

[jlong]

That's way cool!

I love Monsters: Inc.
I've actually built tons of stuff for the rides

 

[YenChih Lin]

Coooool!! Sulley is life-size but what about Mike? Is he? I haven't seen the DVD for a long time... got grab it and put it in...

 

[TheRealFennShysa]

Coooool!! Sulley is life-size but what about Mike? Is he? I haven't seen the DVD for a long time... got grab it and put it in...

They're both life-size... these guys are great - I won a set myself from a ToysRUs contest not too long after the film came out... we took this picture with the gang right after I got the guys home...

These days, Sulley lives upstairs in my office, but Mike is still there in the living room...

 

[THStudio]

Awesome! I just got done watching Monsters Inc!

 

[Star Wars Helmets]

I used to have the lifesize Mike and Sulley - I got them from Asda (Walmart) who did a short run for Store Demo's at the time of the DVD release.

They were superb and I was sad to see the go but Sulley takes up a LOT of room and British houses are small!

Cheers

Jez

 

[tripoli]

Yep, they are both lifesized and Sulley is huge. I have a nok in my den that I have a file cabinet and books shelf in. I think at one time it was a closet inthe house. Thought I would place Sulley there looking out of the area but he is too large for it. So for the moment he is going to stay in the work area until I can figure out a spot for him. Mike is in my den on display with a board members constrauction hat and clip board. I also have a Pixar promo piece with the Harryhausen's sushi bar pieces displayed with him.

Jlong, Love Roz's glasses. Must have been fun to be able to work on the Monsters Inc project!

 

[fuzzylover]

TOO weird- I was doing restoration on my Sulley this weekend too!

I've got him unassembled at the moment, but I completely refurbished his base....sanded, primered, new coat of paint, and a glossy enamel protective cover.

I also took off the nameplate, cleaned it up, repainted the white lettering, and recreated an identical name sticker to place back into the plate (it was ripped and discolored), and sealed it with a glue varnish. Good as new!

Now to assembly!
Sounds like your Sulley was a little more beat up than mine, but I'm still a little nervous that I'll be able to get him back together and have the PVC all snap back snuggly. I remember taking him apart to move was a nightmare!

After that, I just need to do Mike's base (of course, he'll be harder to do, since he's stuck to the base and I'll have to protect him from my work).

 

[tripoli]

Yep, quite a chore to do. Had to pull the fur off carefully since some sections were glued on. We them cut off all the tape that held the foam sections together. The tubing was 32mm pvc from China. We could not find anything that fit it so we ended up getting new US pvc piping and fittings and measuring off the old to rebuild it from scratch up. Worked out quite well although we also had to rip apart the tail, arms and head to pop in new fittings there. We were depending on good friction fits for it to hold together but after working with it, have concluded we will need to pop in securing pins on the arms. There were shoulder pins there before. I will be popping in a more heavier duty metal pin instead of the old plastic ones. We also weighted the tail tubes so Sulley can stand alone or with the base. The base I have is pretty bent up, I don't know if I can repair it or have to go with a new one. I noticed the Sulley display at Pixar had no base, so might go without it on mine as well.

 

[fuzzylover]

Yeesh that sounds like alot of work- if I have trouble with mine, I'm not sure I'll be as resourceful/knowledgeable as you to come up with an alternative way to get him to stay together! I'm going to take a preliminary look at him tonite.................

 

[jlong]

tripoli wrote:
"Mike is in my den on display with a board members
construction hat and clipboard."

Too cool. Did your friend make an actual clip for your
clipboard replica? When I did the ones for Disney, the
only reference they gave me was that picture you
see on my clipboard. Nothing like making real-world
props, using cartoon reference:lol

Great looking stuff trip.

 

[tripoli]

A while back, one member here offered the clip boards and hats, so I bought a couple. My son Michael loved the movie, so it was standard fare seeing him around the house with it for awhile. Got shelved until we were able to find these figures. They occasionally come up in the JY here. I understand a few of the theatre pieces came with a hard hat but they are extremely rare to find out there.
I would love to see more Pixar props, they have designed some pretty incredible items for the screen.

 

[jlong]

If you have one, I'd love to see a pic of the clip.

 

[tripoli]

The board is right there in the Mike shot. The front clip is just a regular clip, not like the jagged teethy piece you made.

 

[shotts63]

My Wife has a set of these guys as well,I took Sullys tail off so we could move him into the corner closer.You cant really tell that its not there.

Mike has a eye problem as some little kid broke about a 2 inch hole from the plastic covering,and it has the iris paited on the backside of it:cry

 

[tripoli]

There is plastic sheets you can get to melt over a globe that would replace the broken plastic on your Mike. For smaller models, I use a heat gun with pepsi bottles over a wood mold to make cockpit glass. You can get the plastic sheets at many RC hobby shops. Just use a rounded mixing bowl as the base to melt it over. You can do the same on a larger scale to repair your Mike. Hopefully you could just slide over the paper to make a new eye or have to print one up and then wet and stretch it as well. I would definately look into it, the repair seem tough, but its not really that hard to do.

 

[The Stig]

These are so cool. The look a little different than the one they have at Pixar though, something about the fur.

 

[fuzzylover]

Well, I tried to assemble ol' Sulley last night. His head popped on pretty well, got him standing back on the base, but his arms are still a problem. The right one's pretty loose (though not quite enough to not be hidden by arranging the fur 'just so'), and the left one isn't popping back in at all.

If I keep the PVC piping in there, I was wondering if I might epoxy the whole attachment area and lay in velcro..........you think? And, or if I could manage to get the fur seams close enough, I might hot glue in some tabs with snaps, so I could snap them together.

I'm in no place to re-do the whole skeleton as you did, but I think it might be a good enough fix to make a static display.

Oh yeah, and I'm in my new house and had a corner alllll picked out for the big guy. He is STILL way bigger than I remember and a pain in the a$$ to position. I've kept his tail off too, to place him closer into the corner. I just lay it on the floor behind him, with the end sticking out. You can't even tell it's not attached.

One other question- has anyone ever WASHED Sulley? Mine still looks pretty great under certain lighting, but his vibrant blue definitely has a little dirty/dust that's dulling it...you notice it more on his lighter belly. I'd like to scrub it and blow dry to see if it might brighten up, but am pretty afraid....

 

[shotts63]

Thanks for the how-to Tripoli.

 

[shotts63]

fuzzylover, I took Sully outside and used compressed air,worked great!