Bringing Poppy Playtime’s CatNap to Life
The Wicked Makers brought Poppy Playtime’s CatNap to life in their most recent animatronic project.
Poppy Playtime’s creepy game world is full of interesting characters that are both terrifying and very intriguing. As players progress through the series, they come into contact with more and more of those characters — usually with fatal results. In the most recent episode, Chapter 3 – Deep Sleep, players must contend with the horrifying visage of CatNap. That’s a giant cat-like monster capable of spewing “Red Smoke,” which is a gas with hallucinogenic effects that was manufactured by Playtime Co. to put children to sleep. As they love to do, Wicked Makers' Jaimie and Jay decided to bring CatNap and the Red Smoke into the real world.
This is the Wicked Makers’ second foray into the Poppy Playtime universe, with the first being a towering Huggy Wuggy animatronic that they constructed last year. Their CatNap animatronic is similarly massive and is just as scary as what see in the game. It has glowing eyes, a gaping pitch-black maw that emits red smoke, a head that pivots left and right, and a body that does a sort of wiggle thing like a cat that’s getting ready to pounce on a helpless mouse — and you’re the mouse.
This project started with the fabrication of the body, which has a skeleton made of PVC pipe. The Wicked Makers chose that because it is strong and light with a bit of flex to it. They then filled out the torso with wire and duct tape. Some chopped-up pool noodles emulate the appearance of vertebrae and ribs. The head is a huge block of foam carved and sculpted into shape. The feet and claws are molded clay. When they were satisfied with the body shape, the Wicked Makers covered the entire thing in furry purple fabric.
That would have been creepy enough on its own, but then the Wicked Makers brought CatNap to life. Under the control of an Arduino Uno Rev3, it can move its head using a servo motor and its torso using a wiper motor (connected through a relay). The Arduino also controls the LEDs in the eyes, the smoke machine, and the LEDs that give that smoke a red tint. Bottango software, which was designed specifically for animatronics, makes it easy to program animated movements.
Whether you’re a fan of Poppy Playtime or not, you’ll find this animatronic CatNap as terrifying as the rest of us do.
