It's a good mini. It fits together well and flash and seams were minimal. I put it on a homemade Sculpey base instead the flat rectangular base because (1) I don't like rectangular bases for the most part, and (2) it looks more natural to put an animal on a more natural-looking base.
This thing is HUGE. Look at the picture ... his head is as big as the human miniature! The D&D dire ape is a Large creature with a 5 ft. by 5 ft. facing, and since the dire ape doesn't advance beyond Large, this must be something a little different. This thing probably is Huge and has a 10 ft. by 10 ft. facing (not including an extra bit of length in the base needed to make sure it doesn't tip forward). It's also very heavy, and probably one of the heaviest minis I own, not counting one of the dragon box sets from Reaper or WotC's black dragon mini.
The paint job is pretty simple. The whole mini was covered in black, then drybrushed with a slightly browned black. The palms (both hands and feet) and face were washed in a lighter brown to contrast them from the fur, and the fingernails and toenails were also done in that color to make them stand out from the blackness of the hand or foot. There's also a very slight drybrushing of gray-silver along the shoulder blades to show that this is an older ape starting to become a "silverback." Teeth are Ivory and highlighted with an Ivory-and-white mixture. Tongue is brown mixed with Blood Red.
One really cool thing about a mini this big is that his eyes are actually large enough to see some detail; his irises are more than just a tiny dot, and when viewed from the front he looks a little sad, but determined.
Ghostwalk connection: I'm sure there's at least one gigantic ape running around in the Spirit Wood....
I used this mini in an adventure I wrote published in Dungeon issue #120.