Posts in quick succession? Shhhhh, don't ruin the illusion of the blog schedule... ;)

Actually, I just had this recent sketch at hand and thought I'd display it.



Its an airship observation ride. As in, a genuine tethered airship that carries large groups of people up for a long distance viewing experience.

I pondered how this would be possible for ages. As far as I'm aware, real hot air balloon trips are insanely expensive, and so the idea of doing that on a massive scale, several dozen times a day... seem out of reach.

But could the airship be attached to a long supporting beam, much like those "flying island" viewing platforms that already exist around the theme park world. Sure, it wouldn't look as free as with only a rope attached, but you could cover it through story.
Say, the airship had only just been built and the designers want to test its air resistance and load-bearing capabilities. They could have decided to do this by raising the whole think out of the hangar on a huge cantilever =)

How possible would this be I wonder. There's already an upcharge observation balloon at the Paris resort...

I also want to mention the various accounts I have for displaying stuff at this point.
Firstly, there's my Flikr account, for still images. This can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27832896@N07/

And then there's the Youtube account, riiiight here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/HomeImagineering

Those links are for when you want to skip the chatter and get right to the point!
There will also be stuff posted there that I won’t refer to here, you should also note!

Past projects: Tower of Terror

Sometimes I get really big ideas. Big ideas that need multiple drawings and longer brainstorms in order for me to convey them effectively.
These projects tend to be few and far between, as it is rare I have the time to invest into thinking about something for such a length of time.

More often than not, delays through work and education commitments see these projects massively ignored and eventually burnt out through expired motivations, but occasionally I have something reasonably complete to show for it!

This little project came about around the time when Disneyland Resort Paris announced it would be receiving its own version of the Tower of Terror. Watching the building take shape on forums and blogs was exciting enough to kick-start me into designing my own version.

In my version (as with the one in Tokyo) the Twilight Zone story overlay is dropped for a less specific ghost story. The tower hotel in this case was built upon a buried catacomb somewhere in France. Though not disturbed during the construction process, it was weakened and unstable.

The opening ceremony was a grand occasion. Ballroom, dining, the lot! The event was massively attended and the elevators were put into heavy use for the first time. As the catacombs gave way, the tower split down the middle. The spirits that had been entombed for generations were released and the party guests were trapped.

As a rider, you would enter the crumbling building and work your way around the ground floor lobby. After a quick line in the dining courtyard, you head inside and up to the second floor to board one of three elevators.

The ride would first visit a ballroom scene where the scene story is told. The elevator would then lower a few floors past foundations (an elevator than goes below foundations?!) and stop in front of the burial chamber. A few more lines of story dialogue and then the show room ceiling would cave in dramatically to re-enact the fateful night. The elevator would erupt up from the smoky mess abruptly and peak somewhere near the top floor suites... only to plummet in time with the hotels final collapse.

How would the problem of having a building with a huge split down the centre in rain have been solved? Who knows! But I’m not here to be realistic, I’m here to dream =)

All credits for actually thinking up the original hotel and tower drop concept go to Disney Imagineers of course. I’m just playing with their main idea.

A quick demo

While I can be surprisingly fast creating projects originally, it sometimes takes me a while to get around to scanning them or taking photos. So until I have a free day to track the progress of my current projects, I will share a few of my older works.

Gotta have something to start off the blog, after all!
Here we go...




Here's something Disneyland fans might recognise. The cool, robust mine explorer vehicles from Disneysea's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth". When I first heard about this ride, I searched EVERYWHERE for good documentation and photos. Sadly, I could find very little.
I took the scraps of blurry photos and few rider reports I had gathered and tried to sketch it down on paper. How close was I? No idea! One day I will journey far enough overseas to find out though.



Another famous Disney ride vehicle. These beauties run on the Paris version of Space Mountain- a Jules Verne inspired steampunk rollercoaster of epic proportions. With onboard speakers (brand new tech at the time!) and theming wrapped all over it, these trains look stunning!



Here's an old study I did of a standard Vekoma Suspended coaster vehicle. I was just looking at ways to theme it a little.



Aaaand finally, a generic mine themed water ride. There's no story here, specifically... I just wanted to try my hand at putting together a mountain with a waterfall ride =)

These sorts of one-off doodles are what I do for a "quick fix" between major projects. Sometimes it’s just good to chuck out a bunch of ideas. Keeps things productive.

It begins

It feels weird, writing for a blog audience who I’ve yet to advertise myself to and therefore don’t yet exist, but to set myself up properly for this project I will need an introduction. Readers can come later… it will still be relevant.

Simply, I dream of designing theme park attractions.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by theme parks and the attractions and experiences they offer. Unlike literature, plays and even movies, a themed environment offers a completely enveloping sense of participation to the viewer. The setting is right there! You are in them, they feel real, and they look real. There are no borders, no framed scenes and nobody telling you how to go about exploring it.

It is this sort of involvement from the viewer that I believe is the peak of storytelling opportunities, and thankfully, many companies over the years have realised this. Theme parks exist almost everywhere, and expand/change almost every season.

There are a good few companies doing this sort of work and I can barely find fault in any of them. They consist of creative geniuses and people sporting massive ranges of skills, and I would be proud to work amongst ANY of them!

However, since the majority of my inspiration and love for the scene of theme park design originates from observing (and experiencing!) the work of Disney’s Imagineers, it seemed more relevant for me to style my own projects after theirs.

A tribute, if you will! =)

So there it is folks! Theme park fans like myself, I think it’s safe to assume!

Where my muse and free time allows, I will try to get some of my daydreams into forms where I can share them with you and hopefully inspire you to discuss them with me and share some of your own ideas!

Thanks for reading

With many thanks to Joe Cardello, who through his own home imagineering projects finally gave my the motivation I needed to pick up on mine.