Animatronic Pirate Barker Build

[Lord Hater]

Hey! Remember the Pirate Barker Bird outside of Disneyworld's Pirates of the Caribbean?

(Photo from DisneyFans.com)
No? Me either! But he's really cool, so I decided to build one!

Originally called the "Plaza Parrot," he was designed by Marc Davis - best known for animating Cruella DeVille.

Here's Marc pretending to draw the finished animatronic:

Luckily there's a lot of great reference for this bird on the internet.
Disney brought one to D23 to promote the Pirates of the Caribbean movie:

And the incredible Kevin and Jody made one to auction for charity:

 

[Lord Hater]

Step one was to model one in ZBrush:

There are two problems with ZBrush - 1) It's the worst sculpting program on Earth. And 2) There's nothing better.
But like a million Monkeys working away at a million typewriters, eventually you get something pretty good.

 

[Lord Hater]

The next step was to design and build the armature.
Learning from my first animatronic - I didn't try to 3D print it - I made it from aluminum.
.

 

[division 6]

Another EPIC BUILD.

 

[animator]

I'm so excited to see this!

 

[Lord Hater]

Another lesson learned was to design with maintenance in mind. Accessing the head servos and beak linkages was a nightmare, so this time the face is a seperate piece, held in place with magnets.

The face is 3D printed resin- making it fragile and it will shatter when you drop them on the floor right after you paint them... Sigh.

Another huge improvement over the previous build is using Design Master paint. Designed for flowers, it's fine enough to use on fur and feathers as well as hard surfaces, allowing you to match colors across multiple materials. Amazing!

 

[Lord Hater]

After 3D printing the shells in PETG, the next step was to pattern the fur.
An neat trick is to use paper towels. They're cheap, easy to work with, and did a great job!

 

[division 6]

Looks like he may reappear in Florida at a new Pirate Tavern.
Link

 

[Lord Hater]

That would be amazing!

 

[blewis17]

I am an AVID fan of both the Disneyland and Disney World POTC attractions and have amassed a modest memorabilia collection over the years. I would LOVE to have a static prop of our beloved barker bird! I LOVE you progress so far, and if you would be willing to do a commissioned work, PLEASE PM me!

Kevin and Jody's Barker Bird was auctioned off back ~12 years ago I believe, but it has recently re-appeared at Heritage Auctions Disney/Marc & Alice Davis' collection. You can see him here... (time code queued and ready)