Read the previous post - the box - here.

Well, since I knew that the park was the most important piece of the city, I designed that first.

It should be noted that design took me about a month to come up with - I didn’t make measured details, or scale dawings, but rather thought through every single moveable part beforehand. Measurements were very much at my will during the build, and some ideas had to be reworked as I discovered small problems, but for about 99% of the design, it went exactly as I had planned in my head. - I did however, make sketches, some of which are shown here.

Anyway, the park. I decided that each of the four sections of the city would have three moveable parts - mainly because I like symmetry and three was a good number. The idea was to have one moveable part on each ‘plane’ of the city: one at sky/backdrop level, one at ‘floor’/ground level, and as much as possible, one somewhere in the middle.

The park, I decided, was to have: a moon (I had planned on making it a sun that moved across the skyline/backdrop, but upon talking to Tom, we decided it was going to be nighttime in the city), the rotating people, and a waterfall. Decorative features (non-moveable parts) were to include: two trees, stars on the backdrop (a last minute idea during build), a pond, and a statue of Jeff in the middle.

I designed this pretty quickly, working out how everything would operate. The moon was fairly simple: create a moon-shape out of some material, attach it to a rod, run the rod through the backdrop. Easy.

The rotating people, not so easy. How do you make people rotate?

I thought this through, and the best way to do it was to create a sort of ‘lazy-susan’/turntable idea. If you’ve ever seen a turntable in a theatre you’ll know what I mean. But this is easier thought of than done. Because to create a turntable, that sits flush with the rest of the ‘floor’ (my name for the ‘ground’ of the city), you have to get it to sit on something, but also have it loose so that you can turn it.

My solution: have two ‘floors’. The top floor would be what the audience sees, the bottom floor would allow a circular piece of the top floor to rest on the bottom floor. A ‘track’ or circular slit in the bottom floor would allow a rod to be attached to the bottom of the circle, and run out through the second floor. (Sounds complicated? Those pics help!)

You can see in this pic the Lego people standing on the ‘donut’ at the left. The circular piece in the middle of the donut is actually part of the top floor stuck to the bottom floor - only the donut piece moves. This idea would prove to be untennable later, and I had to glue the middle-of-the-donut piece to the donut itself, and have the whole thing move. (You can also see the cop standing near his track)

The waterfall idea was simple. Create a black piece of material, attach it to the end of some blue ribbon. Cut two slits in the box: one at the top, near the floor, and the other at the bottom of the box, near the base plate. Make it long enough so that either end can be pulled from behind the backdrop. Pull the black end, and suddenly a stream of blue ‘water’ appears. Of course, as with all the puppets, you have to reset them for the next performance. Pull the blue end, and the black material goes back in place.

This was all sketched out somewhat and sent to Tom. He gave it the thumbs up, and I began working on the next three design sections of the city.

Read the next post - designing the next three areas - here.