Has any model company produced a kit of the Black Pearl from the POTC movies?
Peewee
This is fromthe back reaches of the mind but one of the ships used In the movie was the Miss Washington from Washington State I believe. [%-)]
The brig Lady Washington (http://ladywashington.org/ ) starred in the first POTC movie as HMS Interceptor.
(She was also in a Star Trek flick - Generations? - as the brig USS Enterprise in a holo-deck scene, I seem to recall)
Rick
Leave it to a couple of lads that hail from Seattle and Tacoma to know this kind of information. Some should have made a model kit of the Black Pearl.
Peewee
Revell makes something they call the “Caribbean Pirate Ship”. It comes with glow in the dark paint. Its not based on the movie but to me they are trying to pass it off as the Black Pearl especially to some kid or unknowing adult buying it as a gift.
Heck, they almost got me! I was going to buy it until I became suspicious when I didnt see any reference to Disney anywhere on the box.
The Revell “Caribbean Pirate Ship” actually does have a Disney connection - but not the one Revell is hoping you’ll take for granted.
The kit was originally released in 1960 (my source, as usual, is Dr. Thomas Graham’s wonderful book, Remembering Revell Model Kits), in conjunction with the recently-opened Disneyland (the original one, in California). The kit is in fact a reasonably accurate representation of the full-size “Pirate Ship of Captain Hook” that had been built at Disneyland. That “vessel” was in turn based on the one in the Disney animated movie “Peter Pan,” from 1953. It has nothing to do with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” part of the park, on which the modern movies were (sort of) based.
Mitsdude is correct: Revell is recycling this old kit, apparently without any blessing from the Disney people, in an effort to capitalize on the new movies.
That’s pretty funny - my daughter took one look at the “Caribbean Pirate Ship” and said it looked nothing like the Pearl.
She opted instead for the HMS Ark Royal from Lindbergh as her summer project, no. 70862. Anyone have any idea about what scale this critter is? And no, we are not going to replace the plastic sails [:O]
screw the black pearl, do the flying duchman!![;)]
The Dutchman would be great! Now I wonder if there would be a model kit that would be modifiable for a Black Pearl treatment? A true hobbyist would build one from scratch. Arrrrr, that would not be me, mate.
Peewee
I haven’t watched the movie for a while. However I recall that the “Pearl” was a real ship as opposed to a computer generated one. If that is true then there is a real ship out there that portrayed the pearl and someone should know who she is. Maybe I’ll check google.
Try www.kipar.org/piratical-resources/potc-black-pearl.html
more
:Of most importance to the film were the three ships: the Black Pearl, the Dauntless and the Interceptor. For budget reasons, the ships were built on docks, with only six days spent in the open sea for the battle between the Black Pearl and the Interceptor.[12] The Dauntless and the Black Pearl were built on barges, with computer-generated imagery finishing the structures.[9] The Black Pearl was also built on the Spruce Goose stage, in order to control fog and lighting.[9] The Interceptor was a replica of the Lady Washington, fully repainted before going on a 40 day voyage beginning December 2, 2002, arriving on location on January 12, 2003.[13] A miniature was also built for the storm sequence.[9]
more:
[edit] Armament
The Black Pearl is heavily armed, she carries 32 6-pound cannons: 18 on the gun deck and 14 on the upper deck. Its full broadside contains 16 cannonballs and weighs 96 Ibs. (35,8 kg). Strangely, the Pearl does not have any guns neither on the bow nor on the stern which is very unusual for a pirate ship and gives her a grave tactical disadvantage during a chase; the Pearl isn’t able to shoot the ship she chases or to reply her hunter’s fire. Only her high speed negates this handicap partially. In Dead Man’s Chest another advantage the Black Pearl has over her enemies is her ability to hide in the sea at night, if all the ship’s lamps are blown out then the ship is no longer visible on the sea thanks to her black hull and sails. This is also seen in Curse of the Black Pearl where she is able to sneak into Port Royal under the cover of darkness, unhindered.
[edit] Filming
In the first movie, the Black Pearl was a steel barge with wooden structures built on top to resemble a real ship. In addition, a soundstage set was used to achieve better control over fog machines. For the second and third movies, a floating sailing ship was actually built in the shipyards at Bayou La Batre in Alabama on the hull of ship Sunset to serve as the set, though it is not an authentic tall ship.[1]
Barge photo, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/image:Dauntlessbarge.jpg
i have done some looking into the ship and from the information i have been able to look at the ship was an East Indiamen class ship like the batavia not sure of the spelling if you were to look on ebay the same company that is offering a red and black and not very good recreation of the black pearl also offers the ship the batavia to my untrained eye this is ship if painted black and with black sails would be a close recreation to the ship used in the movies i got my information from wikipidia if anyone would like to look for them selves search the black pearl and the information should come up
I give you my best candidate: old Aurora 2’ Bonhomme Richard kit. This model has nothing resembling to the actual Richard nor she even looks as something that should have floated in reality. Nevertheless, her shape resembles most to the Pearl among all plastic sailships ever produced. However, It’s unfortunately OOP for long and only occasionally shows up on the e-bay, and for relatively high prices. Geez I don’t have a digital photographing machine, I should take photos of kit’s pieces to show you. Maybe I can borrow one and do the job. The Revell Batavia kit seems perfect for a flying dutchman (even better for the uncorrupted one that showed up at the very end of the third movie [:D] )
cheers
Arrrrrgh…Cap’in Taylor really cleaned 'er up now, didn’t 'e, mate?
Sound as if the Bonhomme Richard might make a good candidate for a Black Pearl make over.
Peewee
I see a Heller 1:500 Bonhomme Richard listed on Ebay at the moment but the entire bow looks different from the Pearl. An East Indiaman version would be close to what I am looking for.
Peewee
If POTC had been made 20 years ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if a kit manufacturer had produced a kit of the Black Pearl, and maybe other ships from the film like the Flying Dutchman, HMS Interceptor, HMS Dauntless etc. However, the combination of less casual/youth interest in modelling, and movie producers demanding much higher license fees for tie-in products like this, means that film/movie-based plastic kits are rare nowadays (Revell’s “Star Wars” kits are the only recent ones I know of)
The Lindberg (ex-Pyro) Ark Royal would be about 1/250 scale, based on the dimensions of the real ship of this name, but the actual ship represented by the model looks rather smaller, more like the Airfix “Golden Hind”, which would make the scale somewhere around 1/150.
I built this kit last year, after painstakingly removing the plastic sails and the weird “lantern” mouldings - it’s not particularly accurate in proportion or detail but still is quite a nice representation of a 15th century galleon (from a distance, anyway), I built it to practice painting techniques for the Airfix “Golden Hind” and “Revenge” kits.
hereWith the right paint job, it could well be “kitbashed” into something like the Pearl. A better candidate might be one of the Heller galleon kits, but these might be hard to track down in the US. Alternatively, Revell’s “Spanish Galleon” (not an accurate scale model, but perfect for conversion to a fantasy pirate ship! - see Michael D’s very impressive build of this kit ), though at over 2" long this might be a bit daunting for a beginner project.
Thanks for the info on the scale, Ed. I’m trying to convince my daughter that some of my leftover 1/144 Preiser figures would look just fine on her finished Ark Royal … with suitably garish paint jobs, of course!
This looks like a candidate. The bow area looks for in form with that of the Black Pearl.
Peewee
The Aurora model was supposed to represent an east indiaman as Richard was an ex-indiaman by name of Duc de Duras, built in 1769 [;)]
Ok. I need to be looking for the Aurora Bohomme Dick then. Thanks for the clarification.
Peewee
like everyones says i think you would be alot better off doing some sort of a kitbash to make the black pearl, would probably look alot better in the long run. As for the flying dutchman? man i would feel for a persons sanity if they tried to scratchbuild that thing, you can’t move your eye half an inch without spotting a ton of detail, but i sure would applaude em if they tried though.