Some of y’all might have thought I abandoned DWS.

That’s a very logical assumption, but no, life got in the way.

For the last fifteen years I’ve had a very rocky existence. Offline life has taken a great deal of what would otherwise be free time to work on personal projects. I had very little free time to devote to this site and its projects. And what precious free time I did manage to squeeze out (many late nights), I devoted to trying to get a few businesses off the ground.

Most failed.

My latest, looks like it might finally be at least able to sustain itself. But time will tell, there are a lot of things in this life over which I have no control. If I can get it rolling it may afford me enough free time to work on these kinds of projects again.

Will I continue to update this site?

Honestly, I don’t know.

I’d really like to get to a stage in life where I can produce theme park models again. I am currently working on finishing up a physically 3D printed model of my Horizons model. I’m hoping to have enough time and energy to finish it soon. Who knows, if it turns out good, I may even make a few to sell.

I have a lot of things to get straight in offline life before I can devote the proper amount of time to these kinds of projects again. And if they do come back, they may come back in another form.

I guess what I’m ultimately saying is that my future is unclear for now. I’d really like to pick these kinds of projects up again, but I don’t feel it’s right to promise what I cannot assure to deliver.

Jason

The post Where Have You Been? first appeared on Deep Water Studios.

I remembered I had this old Horizons hovercraft model that I hadn’t finished and it might make a good test sample. So I cracked open the ‘ol model and finished it up. During the process I found out that the so-called “hovercraft” actually had a name and it was written on the nose. That Horizons hovercraft is actually a “Pegasus Hoverlift”. So here are some final renderings of the hoverlift:

For more renderings and to follow our progress into turning this into a prototype physical model, join me over at Retro-Replicas.net.

The post Horizons Hovercraft Model – Finished. first appeared on Deep Water Studios.

The first major change is to the landscaping. I’ve spent hours going through all of my photos and technical drawings I’ve collected – cross referencing them with one another to form my best estimation as to what the landscaping, lighting and walkways looked like back when Horizons opened in 1983.

Now it’s not 100% perfect, but its as close as I could get it for now. I’m going to go back and rebuild the landscaping part of the 3D model and set it up in such a way that if I need to make further corrections, it’ll be easier to do so.

I’ve also rebuilt the Horizons sign to be 100% accurate to how it looked in 1983 down to the exact version of the GE logo used. FYI, the 1969 version of the logo was used for the Horizons sign and in 1986 GE made some small tweaks to the design that make it subtly different.

Below you’ll find the new landscaping master plan I’ll be using to rebuild the area surrounding the Horizons show building.

The plan includes the location of all trees, shrubs & bushes, benches, trashcans, walkway lights, light posts, umbrellas, outdoor speakers and even the location of the concrete expansion joints. You might be wondering why I put in details like the concrete lines. They actually helped me verify the exact shape and placement of the islands of landscaping.

If you look at an aerial image of Epcot you’ll notice Future World East is highly angular and somewhat symetrical. It was designed with so much attention to detail that many of the angles of one island are used to align and build others. The corner of an island often line up directly with a construction point of another island. Most of the time, these concrete expansion joints run along these geometrical lines between the islands.

So my next step is to finish up the Horizons sign. I have to build the little “Entrance” sign that sat in front of the big sign. After that, I’m rebuilding the landscaping and making some further refinements to the existing details.

The post Horizons Project Is Back On first appeared on Deep Water Studios.

Nara Dreamland was built in 1961 and operated all the way up to 2006. It’s clearly inspired by Disneyland as evidenced by the layout. Supposedly the building of Nara Dreamland and its blatant copying of Disneyland pissed off Walt. Of course, it wasn’t anywhere near the quality and detail level of Disneyland.

The post Abandoned Amusement Park – Nara Dreamland – A Japanese Disneyland first appeared on Deep Water Studios.

The post Horizons Hovercraft Model – Update 2 first appeared on Deep Water Studios.