Since the pirates had the upper hand I needed a second hand and recruited my mom to help. She helped make the ninjas heads for while I made the full body pirates, if you see the more serious ones were hers. Mine were the country bumpkin ninjas. She also made all the doubloons that were stacked inside the cake and the swords and legs for the ninjas. She drew the line at making hands... unless I wanted Canadian ninjas with mittens on she wasn't going to make them. I finished up all the details and painting of eyeballs and tiny things a couple of days later. It was really fun to get her involved, she's super creative but I think she's scared of cake... I might convert her yet!
