Show us your under the tree layouts!

This is what the mountains were carved out of 2' x 2' x 8' blocks of Styrofoam.. 

Wow Kenb301, that is pretty extensive rock work you did!  It looks great!  What are the rocks made of?

Mark Boyce posted:

Wow Kenb301, that is pretty extensive rock work you did!  It looks great!  What are the rocks made of?

The mountains were carved out of Styrofoam.   I added two pictures of Styrofoam showing what it looked like before carving.

That’s great Ken!  Thank you!  It’s like Michaelangelo carving a block of marble into a sculpture.

Janitor John posted:

Thanks Arnold!  The kids and I had a great time building it for Christmas.  The wife wasn't too thrilled about it taking up our entire living room, but once she saw the finished product she was on board

Tell her it could be "worse".    Building Disney Park layouts can get out of hand! 

well I went a little over the top this year ! 

First off, thanks to everyone who posted their pics and videos. It was an absolute joy to see them all!

I'm late to the party but here's what we did at the house this year. Had to get things up in a hurry and, as we're also in a new house and still figuring out spaces, I kinda throttled back a bit compared what I'd normally put down. So, three tracks under one tree, Polar Express around a table, trolley on the hearth and a train, trolley and village under the other tree...

redrockbill

redrockbill posted:

First off, thanks to everyone who posted their pics and videos. It was an absolute joy to see them all!

I'm late to the party but here's what we did at the house this year. Had to get things up in a hurry and, as we're also in a new house and still figuring out spaces, I kinda throttled back a bit compared what I'd normally put down. So, three tracks under one tree, Polar Express around a table, trolley on the hearth and a train, trolley and village under the other tree...

redrockbill

 

Can only imagine what you might have done if you hadn't "throttled back."

Looks great Bill!!

GregM posted:

redrockbill posted:

First off, thanks to everyone who posted their pics and videos. It was an absolute joy to see them all!

I'm late to the party but here's what we did at the house this year. Had to get things up in a hurry and, as we're also in a new house and still figuring out spaces, I kinda throttled back a bit compared what I'd normally put down. So, three tracks under one tree, Polar Express around a table, trolley on the hearth and a train, trolley and village under the other tree...

redrockbill

 

Can only imagine what you might have done if you hadn't "throttled back."

Greg, I didn't throttle back that much  Just didn't have time to finagle as much track as possible into the spaces I had under the trees. Hopefully next Christmas, I can work in some more track sections, add a few of the cars that didn't get out this year, and expand the village to include of few of the buildings etc that didn't make it under the tree...

redrockbill

t8afao posted:

At work today so I set up a fastrack loop with my USMC war train. Nothing says Christmas like a rocket launcher. The tree it sits under the original when the station was built in 1958. 

Great retro tribute!

Before I saw this post, my wife and I were talking about our old Christmas trees over 49 1/2 years of marriage.  I reminded her of the aluminum Christmas tree that I would put up every year in the window of the Parts Department where I worked in our family's Ford Dealership, complete with rotating color light and lovely gifts under it such as a box of spark plugs, a case of oil filters or a shiny, right hand outside accessory mirror.  

Too bad that, being more into my cars and girls (mostly my then girlfriend, now wife, of course), I never thought to dig out some of my American Flyer trains to add even more holiday  "class" to the display.

I think that the aluminum tree was in a well worn box in the parts storage area when we bought the Ford store in 1963, and it was still in use when we married an moved away in 1969.

Thanks for the memories!

Alan

Keizer, OR

Like the old days. A circle of track, a white sheet, and a few buildings, ...heaven.

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

Thanks Arnold!  The kids and I had a great time building it for Christmas.  The wife wasn't too thrilled about it taking up our entire living room, but once she saw the finished product she was on board

Tell her it could be "worse".    Building Disney Park layouts can get out of hand! 

Penny, your layout is one of the major reasons I was inspired to try and do one of my own

Where can I find myself that awesome Small World paper model?

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

Thanks Arnold!  The kids and I had a great time building it for Christmas.  The wife wasn't too thrilled about it taking up our entire living room, but once she saw the finished product she was on board

Tell her it could be "worse".    Building Disney Park layouts can get out of hand! 

Penny, your layout is one of the major reasons I was inspired to try and do one of my own

Where can I find myself that awesome Small World paper model?

Like many of the structures on the layout (many, far from all) I made it myself to fit available space.

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

Thanks Arnold!  The kids and I had a great time building it for Christmas.  The wife wasn't too thrilled about it taking up our entire living room, but once she saw the finished product she was on board

Tell her it could be "worse".    Building Disney Park layouts can get out of hand! 

Penny, your layout is one of the major reasons I was inspired to try and do one of my own

Where can I find myself that awesome Small World paper model?

Like many of the structures on the layout (many, far from all) I made it myself to fit available space.

It's absolutely perfect!  Where were you able to find such a perfect drawing of the Small world drawing to cut out???

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

Thanks Arnold!  The kids and I had a great time building it for Christmas.  The wife wasn't too thrilled about it taking up our entire living room, but once she saw the finished product she was on board

Tell her it could be "worse".    Building Disney Park layouts can get out of hand! 

Penny, your layout is one of the major reasons I was inspired to try and do one of my own

Where can I find myself that awesome Small World paper model?

Like many of the structures on the layout (many, far from all) I made it myself to fit available space.

It's absolutely perfect!  Where were you able to find such a perfect drawing of the Small world drawing to cut out???

Metasequoia, Pepapkura Designer and Photoshop.

First I made a minimal 3D model in Metasequoia:

By studying thousands of photographs of the real "kinetic sculpture":

Then I take my 3D Metasequoia model and open it with Pepakura Designer which allows me to turn a 3 dimensional model into 2D parts:

Then the parts went to Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2.0, which was what I was using at the time, in order to be turned into fully realized paper model parts:

Many of the details have depth the old fashioned way, by layering the parts or by gluing them to thicker stock before cutting.  Others, like the triangular parts on the left, build as "boxes".

With a fair bit of hard work, it turns out like you want it to be:

Until those pesky Daleks show up in mid January to take your layout apart...

I'm a dinosaur technologically so if I understand 10% of what Penny said above it's a lot, but I can still appreciate Penny's amazing artistic skill in making this beautiful paper model.

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

Thanks Arnold!  The kids and I had a great time building it for Christmas.  The wife wasn't too thrilled about it taking up our entire living room, but once she saw the finished product she was on board

Tell her it could be "worse".    Building Disney Park layouts can get out of hand! 

Penny, your layout is one of the major reasons I was inspired to try and do one of my own

Where can I find myself that awesome Small World paper model?

Like many of the structures on the layout (many, far from all) I made it myself to fit available space.

It's absolutely perfect!  Where were you able to find such a perfect drawing of the Small world drawing to cut out???

Metasequoia, Pepapkura Designer and Photoshop.

First I made a minimal 3D model in Metasequoia:

By studying thousands of photographs of the real "kinetic sculpture":

Then I take my 3D Metasequoia model and open it with Pepakura Designer which allows me to turn a 3 dimensional model into 2D parts:

Then the parts went to Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2.0, which was what I was using at the time, in order to be turned into fully realized paper model parts:

Many of the details have depth the old fashioned way, by layering the parts or by gluing them to thicker stock before cutting.  Others, like the triangular parts on the left, build as "boxes".

With a fair bit of hard work, it turns out like you want it to be:

Until those pesky Daleks show up in mid January to take your layout apart...

Penny, I don't supposed you'd be interested in selling a printable copy of the Small world would you?

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

Thanks Arnold!  The kids and I had a great time building it for Christmas.  The wife wasn't too thrilled about it taking up our entire living room, but once she saw the finished product she was on board

Tell her it could be "worse".    Building Disney Park layouts can get out of hand! 

Penny, your layout is one of the major reasons I was inspired to try and do one of my own

Where can I find myself that awesome Small World paper model?

Like many of the structures on the layout (many, far from all) I made it myself to fit available space.

It's absolutely perfect!  Where were you able to find such a perfect drawing of the Small world drawing to cut out???

Metasequoia, Pepapkura Designer and Photoshop.

First I made a minimal 3D model in Metasequoia:

By studying thousands of photographs of the real "kinetic sculpture"

Then I take my 3D Metasequoia model and open it with Pepakura Designer which allows me to turn a 3 dimensional model into 2D parts:

Then the parts went to Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2.0, which was what I was using at the time, in order to be turned into fully realized paper model parts:

Many of the details have depth the old fashioned way, by layering the parts or by gluing them to thicker stock before cutting.  Others, like the triangular parts on the left, build as "boxes".

With a fair bit of hard work, it turns out like you want it to be:

Until those pesky Daleks show up in mid January to take your layout apart...

Penny, I don't supposed you'd be interested in selling a printable copy of the Small world would you?

Oh no.  The Big D comes down hard on outsiders selling their intellectual property.  But.  They're OK with us model designers giving things away for free!    I'm a contributing artist at the Disney Experience which is where a lot of these models can be found and downloaded for free: http://www.disneyexperience.com/models/.  No Small World there, not yet.  But now that I finally have Photoshop working for me again, and an internet connection that runs faster than a garden slug, I hope to find a way to get some of my models out there so others can finally build their own!    But I'll need to come up with instruction sheets first so don't look for them too soon! 

My village this year was smaller than usual, but had just as many trains!

Pictured is a Lionel 2056 pulling a train containing postwar cars and one Menards boxcar, including my new bay window caboose. Also parked on the side is a repainted 1946 Lionel turbine, a 1937 259e, and 1946 221.

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

pennytrains posted:

Janitor John posted:

Thanks Arnold!  The kids and I had a great time building it for Christmas.  The wife wasn't too thrilled about it taking up our entire living room, but once she saw the finished product she was on board

Tell her it could be "worse".    Building Disney Park layouts can get out of hand! 

Penny, your layout is one of the major reasons I was inspired to try and do one of my own

Where can I find myself that awesome Small World paper model?

Like many of the structures on the layout (many, far from all) I made it myself to fit available space.

It's absolutely perfect!  Where were you able to find such a perfect drawing of the Small world drawing to cut out???

Metasequoia, Pepapkura Designer and Photoshop.

First I made a minimal 3D model in Metasequoia:

By studying thousands of photographs of the real "kinetic sculpture"

Then I take my 3D Metasequoia model and open it with Pepakura Designer which allows me to turn a 3 dimensional model into 2D parts:

Then the parts went to Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2.0, which was what I was using at the time, in order to be turned into fully realized paper model parts:

Many of the details have depth the old fashioned way, by layering the parts or by gluing them to thicker stock before cutting.  Others, like the triangular parts on the left, build as "boxes".

With a fair bit of hard work, it turns out like you want it to be:

Until those pesky Daleks show up in mid January to take your layout apart...

Penny, I don't supposed you'd be interested in selling a printable copy of the Small world would you?

Oh no.  The Big D comes down hard on outsiders selling their intellectual property.  But.  They're OK with us model designers giving things away for free!    I'm a contributing artist at the Disney Experience which is where a lot of these models can be found and downloaded for free: http://www.disneyexperience.com/models/.  No Small World there, not yet.  But now that I finally have Photoshop working for me again, and an internet connection that runs faster than a garden slug, I hope to find a way to get some of my models out there so others can finally build their own!    But I'll need to come up with instruction sheets first so don't look for them too soon! 

I look forward to it being available on the Disney Experience site!  Thanks Penny!

They both look great!!  I'm glad you included the Nativity

Nice to see you sneak a blow mold candle into the layout!!!    Awesome!!!    

I never saw a Christmas layout that I didn’t love

I am really looking forward to this years crop.

Bring ‘em on.  We all could use some extra cheer this year.