Journey Into Imagination Recreation 2

A little over a week ago, I started a new project to occupy my spare time. I've been recreating the original Journey Into Imagination pavilion from WDW's EPCOT in Google Sketchup. It's been a lot of fun and I've had some research help from some great people.

I'm posting a little bit about where I'm at with this because I'm going to be taking a break from it for a couple of weeks. I'm about to move very shortly and start a new job so I won't have much spare time. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, I'll explain shortly in another post.

My eventual goal is to recreate the entire attraction including the ride and theater inside. This model already contains most of the major internal walls but the level of complexity means I'm going to have to build this in several parts. This first model is focused on the exteriors and the rooms you can see through the windows (ride lobby, Captain EO entrance and exit, Kodak store). I think I'm pretty close to finished outside. I just have a few finishing touches like benches, trash cans, and remaining landscaping.

I have tried my best to recreate the original color schemes but that is proving difficult with the poor documentation available. I'm also kind of guessing at a lot of the details. I noticed that the plants and even some planters change, move and disappear throughout the years. There are a lot of anachronisms here that I hope to straighten out eventually. I'm trying to target the look of the original JII / original EO era (my personal favorite). And for those of you that are really detail-oriented, I know there is quite a bit of scale-fudging (Captain EO lobby in particular). I only have ground plans so EVERYTHING vertical has been eyeballed from photos and videos. I think I'm close enough for nostalgia though. I must admit, the exterior seemed so much simpler than it really is when I took this on. All of the crazy triangular faces and sloping curved walkways challenged me but I'm learning a lot from it. Since this isn't my design, cheating is harder to get away with.

Anyway, that's where I am right now. I hope to resume in a couple of week and start hitting the insides.

Here are the latest new shots:

Along with all of the previous progress shots are HERE.

Journey Into Imagination Recreation

I've started a new 3D drawing project as a hobby. I'm still working on my other design stuff but I thought it would be a fun challenge to recreate something that no longer exists (entirely).

I'm rebuilding the original version of EPCOT Center's Journey Into Imagination attraction in Google Sketchup. My intention is to reconstruct the entire pavilion including all the interior ride elements. This may take a long time. You can see my progress HERE.

At press time, I completed the first draft of the ride building exterior and the original sign. I realize that the building is sporting the newer paint job but I did that for comparison with my reference photos. I will be changing it to the opening day color scheme shortly.

I do not have access to detailed blueprints, but I've managed to get some good ground plans and some rough elevation info. The truth is, I'm using the ground plans as a guide but most of the drawing is approximated. I'm going to get it as close as I can but it won't be technically perfect at all. I figure the inside will involve a lot of guess-work so the outside doesn't have to be 100% either. I just want to make it a good trip down memory lane for myself and like-minded others.

If anyone has any good photos, videos, or blueprints, I'd love to get copies so I can get as detailed as possible. Thanks!

Finally, I also want to say that this has been inspired by (and in some cases, assisted with advice and drawings from) these fine recreation projects: Enfilm's Flickr Drawings, Horizons: Resurrected, The Mighty Microscope, and Virtual Toad. Thanks guys!

Unfinished Projects

I have been extremely distracted lately. There is a lot of stuff going on including good stuff, bad stuff and even a few things that manage to be both. When I get like this, I tend to start and stop about a million things. I get very whim-oriented and don't really finish anything. Just so I can feel like I actually have something to show for my stack of unfinished work, I though I'd post a bit about some of the things I've started.

Hopefully, I'll get back to finishing it once my life is a bit less chaotic.

THE TOY FACTORY
This is a flume ride based on a tour through a quirky and cartoon-like toy factory (think of the visual style of the movie, Toys). The ride content is presented in a funhouse / dark ride style with scenic elements that are almost entirely flat. I want that cardboard cut-out Viewmaster kind of depth. So far, I have modeled the entire ride system, vehicles, track, building and some of the exterior decorations. I have also started the interior but only finished part of the load room. The unique element of this ride is that it randomly chooses one of 3 possible paths, twice during the ride. Here are some pictures:



ATLANTIS WATERPARK
I admit, I stopped this one because it started turning into a job. That would be fine if it were a job, but since I'm not being paid, I reserve the right to move on when I'm not having fun with it anymore. What killed me was the tedious rockwork modeling. Blah. Anyway, this was a design for a waterpark based on the lost continent of Atlantis. I know it isn't terribly original but I actually thought of this back in the early 90's and I wanted to see if I could represent my thoughts more accurately in 3D. Once I realized I could, I kind of lost interest. There is a good possibility that I will never finish this one. Pictures:



HOTEL
I started building this one mostly as an exercise in finished rendering. There is no theme, just a standard mega-resort kind of thing. I put a lot of effort into keeping the scale as accurate as I could and I did a lot of work with lighting too. I dropped this one mostly because it was getting a little too Vegas and Vegas kind of annoys me right now (a big part of my distractions lately). Here are some photos:



GOTHIC THEATER
I plan to finish this one. I am modeling a gothic-style theater from a story written by a friend of mine. There are some very specific story elements (gargoyles in particular) that I was having a very hard time representing the way I saw them. That snag stopped me but as soon as I figure out how to draw them right, I'll finish. This one is actually much further along than this one photo suggests:



I have a handful of others that I've started but aren't far enough along to show including a restaurant, bumper boat / water battle, and a roller coaster with a really strange launch system. I'll get to them eventually. I need to get focused first... maybe next week.