--- In disneyworldmodelersclub@yahoogroups.com, "Brad Day" <bday789@...> wrote:

>
> WOW! GREAT work!

Thanks! I'm having a ball! : )

> It looks like you are using a mix of materials.

Yes. 95% of the structures are 65 or 67 pound cardstock. But since many things would be too hard to do in that medium, I use wood, plastic, foam, cardboard, kraft paper and whatever's neccessary.

> I especially like the Skyway vehicle. Is that one of the paper models from the internet that I've seen around (I can't remember where and would love to find it again).

Me too! It's such a cool little model! : ) It's Robert Nava's from the Disney Experience website. I miniaturized it by having Adobe Acrobat print 4 parts pages on one sheet of cardstock. So I guess that's 25% of original, but since I never built it full size I'm not really sure of the scale. I just know that the 1:50 scale figures I have look reasonable standing beside the gondolas.

At the Disneyexperience dot com (I have to spell it or AOL kicks me out for sending spam) you'll find a ton of unbelievable models! Sleeping Beauty Castle came from there as did the majority of the models I'm using. I do some minor mods like giving Space Mountain a base or making things smaller, but otherwise I build them as he designed them!

> Do you draft your parts out on computer first, what graphics program do you use, do you stay in any particular scale?
> Thanks, Brad Day, Kingston, WA
>

I used to. But unfortunately a recent RAM upgrade has left me high and dry. I was using Adobe Photoshop 2.0 (from 1996) and it can't recognize 960 megs as being enough RAM. Which is stupid of course since it was originally designed to run with 16! But, I'm poking around with other applications to see if I can get back up to speed again. In the meantime, I've just been modifying kits I find on the net.

What I would do was build the basic model shape in Metasequoia, a free 3D rendering program. Then I sent it to Pepakura which flattens a 3D model into a printable paper model. Finally I would do the texturing (or painting) of the parts using PhotoShop 2. But without the final step all I can make right now are very simple models. The small information kiosk with the green and white striped roof at the end of Main Street and the Small World clock tower are my own designs. There are many more, I just don't have much done on the display modules yet.

The train that will stand in for the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad on this display will be an O gauge Lionel MPC Santa Fe James Gang General 4-4-0 locomotive from 1982(?). The engine is roughly proportioned to 1:43 which is a bit large for O scale. It will pull at least 3 of the passenger (baggage) cars from the James Gang set. So I'm trying to keep everything so it will look good next to that train. However the Temple of the Forbidden Eye is more like 1:32 while the Haunted Mansion is closer to 1:64. So it will be far from perfect. The tiny figures from the monorail playesets are like toys in the hands of my 1: 43 figures! : )

Much more to come! I have a lot more to do!

Becky