Loved Nigel. Not only did he show off Jemaine Clement's acting chops, he also made a disturbingly realistic Sulfur-Crested Cockatoo.

Most people think cockatoos are cute. They're one of the most demanding of the parrots, and if you cease fulfilling their demands they can be plain evil. And they're omnivorous! Nigel was a sulfur-crest to a T.

That's pretty cool to know. x3 No wonder the villain's a cockatoo.

My Australian friend used to tell a tale of a sulfur-crest in public display in a park in Melbourne. The bird would chatter cheerily at passersby and look as friendly as possible, even offer his crest for scratches - then try his best to bite them if they actually got their hand close. If he missed, then he'd do his level best to poop on them.

Nigel and he would have gotten along JUST fine.

It was rather ironic that the villain was much better characterized then either of the "heroic" birds. Macaws are every bit as omnivorous as cockatoos. Those little birds? Tasty snacks! And they are just as high maintenance.

The best macaw of the lot was the poor Military Macaw spinning around going, "Who's a pretty birdy?!" I've seen the broken remnants of stressed-out large parrots before and that one was far too accurate.

I can't wait for the sequel TT_TT

Nigel

come to think of it, neither can I. 8I damn.

Even though I love psittacines, Nigel never really clicked with me XD

I do however love all the birds in that movie. Even with the damn toe problems.

You should snag the artbook sometime, it's full of all the awesome concepts :D

toe problems?

The toe arrangements (toes forward, toes backward) were all wrong on the macaws (not sure about Nigel). They went far out of the way to create accurate-looking birds (ESPECIALLY Blu - take a look at a Spix's Macaw photo sometime) but got that bit wrong.

In the regular birds (everything not parrot or toucan) they kept all four toes; but in the zygodactyl birds (said parrots and toucans) they only kept three toes; two forward and one back.

In the artbook it says they did it to avoid confusion in the designs but... seeing how well they handled the realism of the birds in other aspects, it confuses me!

WELL I can be pretty picky about media depictions of my fav critters too, so I don't blame you!

AND YEAH I only realized the number of toes being wrong after I started looking up references for Nigel.

and good gravy wow I ought to. I love birdy things.

IT IS AMAZING it has the art for both the first AND second movies!

Thought he was a cocakatiel

he'd be quite a big cockatiel. asfdg. unless you mean in my art, in which case I oughta try to work on the cockatoo-ness. asfdg

awwh i haven't seen that movie but i do love this drawing!! it's so hard to capture emotion in animals sometimes, especially critters like birds that don't emote a whole lot irl .o. but you did really well with this and they're so cute!

Thank you! the movie's alright, nothing world-changing. I just saw some clips of Nigel and decided that WELP I NEED TO SEE MORE OF THIS GUY
OH and birds, they're surprisingly emotive! they can puff out their plumage and contract their pupils at will, which is incredible. there's also other body language related quirks, but I'm sure it's for the benefit of other birds, and not so for us humans to understand. but yeah, animals, they're tricky, you have to anthropomorphise them to a certain degree, especially if there are aspects that would be too alien for the regular moviegoer and whatnot. *shrug*

oh ok! well i do love birds, so maybe i'll see it :D

i own a pigeon and several chickens and the pigeon especially isn't really emotive at all haha. i guess the chickens are a little more so, but creating human emotions without the same amount of facial expression is tough. My pigeon is very much a lap-pet and she loves being stroked, but you won't see her express the enjoyment like even a dog or cat might. birds are so weird ovo

yeah, I imagine their language is quite distinct from our own. Oh gosh, I'd love to interact with a pigeon.

awwh if you can i'd recommend it! sometimes pet stores have doves and stuff. they're so gentle and sweet and they don't bite because their beaks are very soft. they make great pets, i think c:

omg I'm sure ; v ; if I were to get a pet bird, it would be a pigeon. parrots and budgies are charming and all, but not my thing.

yeah!! same! they are cute, i love all birds, but the biting and shrieking... and they live so long, whereas pigeons live like 15 years tops. idk i don't wanna be retired and unable to keep my parrot and trying to find a home for it y'know? and the cooing is so sweet; my pigeon seems to think it goes with everything. every time she hears music she starts singing haha

Nigel

My fave character, even if he did try to kill Blu and Jewel.
Jemaine Clement, man.

W