I went to Oaxaca Mexico for vacation a week ago and I found this toys at a city "mercado" puppets alebrije plastic Bootleg plastic Gorilla
Pikleloaf yes you should visit mexico (center and south mexico), Locomoto is correct that's the way to pronounce it Wa-Ha-Ka the gorilla has 9 point of articulations and cost me $25 pesos, around 2 us dlls
the gorilla is amazing! everything about it, the pose, the hands, looking off into the distance, fantastic. i need one.
That gorilla's got a serious case of Popeye Syndrome. Really cool stuff danlord. Goji boot is my fav.
Man, I've wanted to go to Oaxaca for years, but have never managed to put enough aside for the trip. The woodcarvings from that area are incredible. THe sheer variety of sculptural styles and ideas is really on par with japanese vinyl: animals, monsters, half-monsters, half-people, dragons, frog-demons, bat demons! And that painting style can get really intense. I'm also impressed with those puppet head sculpts. They have that great crudeness to them but still have all the details to make a great character. I'd love to see a L'Amour Supreme version of those! Thanks for sharing these!
I went to a "factory" (was more like a house with a back yard workshop) and the skill for the wood craving is impressive they made all of kind of weird monsters of a piece of wood starting with a machete Missy: the puppets cost me $30 pesos each, like $2.50 us dlls, I don't know where you can find more, I got it at a street market, I have a pic of the rest, I'll put it asap i'll get home