The ORCA / Orca communicator played a key role in Godzilla: King of Monsters, and now you can 3D print one yourself, though it’s more for decoration than communication.
This version of the device is the work of maker Marcin Poblocki who we’ve featured many times in the past. From Transformers to Dune, DBZ, Star Trek and more, Poblocki is a thoroughly talented member of the maker community, so it’s no surprise that he once again knocked it out of the park here.
“In 2014 The new Godzilla film was released and after watching it my old obsession about radioactive Iguana come back. I started to collect Godzilla drawings and figurines and everything that is related to Godzilla franchise. After seeing the new Godzilla: King of the Monsters and the ORCA device I thought to myself ‘I want that’, so I started designing it in Fusion 360,” Poblocki tells us.
The modelling process here took 30 hours of work to complete, spread over a period of one week. Screenshots from the movie were used here as reference but, as exact details like dimensions of the device are not available, some guesswork had to go into the proportions.
Once the model was done the graphics for each of the small screens needed to be made in Photoshop. For this the printed prop moves just like the one in the movie: the main screen lifts about 30 degrees from the base and is supported by some hidden legs, and the three smaller screens can then be unfolded from there.
After some slicing in Cura to cut everything to manageable sizes, the long printing process could being. In total this prop took between 70 and 80 hours just to print, with a further ten hours needed for assembly, finishing and painting.
The screen graphics were printed with a regular (2D) laser printer on some thick paper and attached to the plastic with simple double sided tape.
The finished version you see on this page is 45 centimetres long and 23 centimetres wide. While these were estimated sizes, it’s rather close to being 1:1 scale with the movie.
Those wanting to make their own ORCA can find the files available to download for free from both Thingiverse and Cults 3D. Regardless of where you download it from, the files also include the screen graphics, so you won’t need to replicate those yourself.
