Wabigbear

Some of the best stuff comes from there!

Love the Las Vegas sign!

Thanks for the kind comments - much appreciated! Citytrader and I trade off working on each bench. On this one Citytrader had laid out most of Main Street and it's structures, then I pretty much created the entrance area, the parking lots and part of the the backstage area. At one time the entrance had a very different look - I had the idea to have a sub-area devoted to MGM and Hollywood - guests would even enter a version of Grahman's Chinese Theater to access a studio tour showcasing the making of the Wizard of Oz (you can still see glimpses of this idea with the collection of soundstage buildings). Then we decided to scrap that idea and concentrate more on following the Goddard Group plans for the park. Once I finished the front part of the park, Citytrader tweaked things there and finished off placement of the Main Street buildings and started building Gale Farms and Marvel's World areas along with Munchkinland. Once he was done we traded off, I added a structure or two to his work, then added some details to his great base structures. Yes, we do tweak each other's work, but our styles are pretty much in sync anyways so it's always an improvement to the others work. Since we needed to break up the park into multiple benches (mostly due to those 'details' I sometimes get carried away adding...LOL! ), it's allowed each of us to work at our own pace on different areas. For instance, the Haunted Forest area I've been working on, along with the Emerald City bench while Rich has been doing great things on the Yellow Brick Country bench. Works out great because it allows us to do things like create TMTK items for the park as we go (now at 535 pieces...yikes!)

I'm wondering if maybe even covering the white door surround wouldn't help? The blue doors aren't so bad, I think it's the contrast between the white and the blue that stand out perhaps?

Really well done! I like the interaction you have going between different rides and attractions - the boat ride and the cars along with the train for instance. Your structure building skills aren't bad at all! I don't see boxy buildings and you vary the height and layout quite well, and that's what takes it up a level. If I could offer just one suggestion? The in-game service doors (the white surrounds with a blue door and light above it...) I personally think distract from your theming and the over-all look...they kind of stand out. One could swap them out for a different style, or keep them but add what many theme parks do - a wall to block the view, or a recess in the building to move the door a bit out of sight, maybe mask them a little with some climbing vines or even just an awning over them - any of those would help it to blend in a little more and allow the eye to focus instead on all the other spot-on things you have going... Great job so far...keep it up!

Thanks for the kind remarks gentlemen! To finish up our look at Main Street Kansas, here's some night-time images... Dogs are not allowed at any Gulch owned property or facility... Gulch Savings & Loan... If Gulch Bank won't give you a loan, there's always the handy Gulch Pawn Shop next door... Justa Momento has a little more period-appropriate sign I made... The Baum Museum... Kansas Cases and Bags... Hamilton's Department Store... There's still a rack of Dorthy Gale dresses on sale...wonder if they have my size? Candle-light dining at Bert's Cafe... Anyone with a desire for late-night screwing or cleaning their pipes is in luck at Thorpes... Grab a half a roast chicken and a gallon of milk after you're done next door at the Mercantile, or get your teeth straightened at the dentist... Make sure you're always on time at our watch repair shop... The Railway Express Office anchors the end of this block... Almira Gulch is so cheap she eats her nightly meal of cold oatmeal and saltine crackers by lamplight in her room - the rest of the house remains unlit and unheated...

Sorry about the pause... I came down with pneumonia and had a lovely two week vacation in the hospital. But I'm back! We'll continue our stroll down Main Street Kansas... Just past Hamilton's Department Store we find the American Florist shop... In the middle of the street is the memorial statue to L. Frank Baum... Just around the corner is Bert's Cafe... Thorpe's Hardware is next, where you can pick up your Wonderful World Of Oz-themed souvenir can of 10-40w oil or find the right tool to tighten your nuts... The County Notary Office... The town Mercantile for all your grocery needs... A Dentist office and a small hotel for travelers to this fair city... Watch Repair Shop is next door... The Railway Express Office ends this block... Almira Gulch's Mansion dominates the end of the block as she does life in the county. Her infamous bike stands ready... Miss Gulch doesn't welcome many visitors...

It's not your unparalleled building skills, nor your mastery of lighting, it's plain and simple your imagination that I'm most jealous of! You not only come up with fantastic theming, but I know few who have your skills at combining individual parts to create such a whole. It's been a pleasure to watch progress on different parts of this over the years, and this video is a wonderful testament to the work and creativity you've put into this (and all your other projects...). Bravo. Bravo indeed.

They're all playing poker in the backroom...

And here, as threatened promised are some night screens for this same section of Kansas... Hat's Fantastic Millinery Shop... Hailey's Haberdashery... The Hungry Dragon Chinese Restaurant and Sushi Palace... MGM Grand Theater... One can almost hear the sticky floors... Kansas Chocolate Shoppe and the Coffee Shop and Bakery (I'm kinda proud of how the chocolate and coffee shop signs turned out...) Baum's Wonderful World of Books... Fully detailed interior... Ray's Barbershop...fully detailed billboard image. and City Drug... Now...don't wander too far off 'cause we still have a whole 'nother block of shops to look at! But we'll take a break so yer eyeballs can rest from all this awesomeness...

No, we haven't forgotten this... Both have been busy with work (well, Citytrader anyways...), and also working on future benches for other parts of this park. But I have some time to continue a little further on our tour of the Kansas section of the Wonderful World of Oz... First, a view of where we left off, the hotel with the infamous meat market on it's ground floor... The Millinery Shop on the corner...if those heads could talk! (It would be totally weird if they could, but I digress...) Hailey's Haberdashery, where the smartly-dressed gentlemen get their wardrobes... Just around the corner is the Hungry Dragon Chinese Restaurant...a touch of the exotic here in the center of Kansas! Next up is the MGM Grand Theater, where, surprisingly enough, The Wizard of Oz is the feature film... Copies of actual theater promotional materials from the 1939 release adorn the theater... A Chocolate Shop for those who didn't pig out on popcorn or Mike & Ike's during the film to stop by, along with a coffee shop and bakery for a little more substantial repast... Baum's Wonderful World of Books is a great place to curl up with a favorite tome... Next door is a barbershop for a quick trim... City Drug stands ready to help with an upset stomach after all that candy, popcorn and Egg Fu Yung you pigged out on, as well as treatments for those embarrassing rashes you may have (their help on that is limited to ringing up your purchase, you have to apply any salves or ointments to those rashes yourself!) Finally we'll take a quick overlook at this part of Main Street Kansas... We'll add a few night-time screens here shortly...

My guess is that they are a knock-off cover band...never as good as the originals but certainly a lot cheaper to hire...

Thanks for the nice comments everyone! Planet Coaster often has rather opaque 'glass' in the windows of some of the in-game storefront pieces. That's fine if you aren't detailing your interior to be seem during daylight hours (or don't bother to add an interior in the first place!). But PC makes up for it with nice clear 'glass' at night when it's lit. So here's a few screens showing some of the storefronts we've already visited...but under cover of darkness... The moving picture theater... McKenzie's Music store... The Kansas Travel Agency... Kansas Sporting Goods... The Gulch Gazette... The Candy Store... Fleming Cigars (*Cough* *Cough* *hack*)... The infamous Meat Market...

Ahhh, thanks for the kind words wolfpaw! Here's the basic structure I built on my test bench... The covered walkways were added once placed. And this was the artwork of Tony Baxter's idea that I based it on...

And in case anyone is wondering about some of the signage - both store signs on Main Street and the Kansas Balloon Co sign above - I made those using a wonderful site called Kittl.com They let even someone like me create some really great graphics that can be turned into TMTK items. I highjly recommend them (and I get nothing for saying that! LOL!)

Thanks wolfpaw! While admittedly we made full use of the many wonderful structures people have uploaded to the Workshop, it as still like a puzzle to fit them all together, something Citytrader is great at as shown here on Main Street and Marvel's World. Many things we did tweak, recolor or add onto to suit our purposes. And while we DID use Workshop finds, we also scratchbuilt a large number of structures as well. Here's one in Marvel's World that I'm quite proud of...it's the station for "Marvel's Kansas Balloon Co." In the original Goddard plans for an skyway, these were envisioned as having 'balloons' attached to each car. Since that's not possible in Planet Coaster if you want the ride to actually function, we skipped the individual balloons but stuck with the theme. I scratchbuilt this based on a design that I saw on a sketch for Disney's unbuilt Discovery Bay expansion, where a similar structure would shelter the Hyperion airship. My version is simpler of course, but the same basic shape anyways. The ride carries guests from Marvel's World in Kansas to the Emerald City in Oz. It also helps block the sightlines towards the park's service areas too. Not far from the entrance to the Kansas Balloon Co. is a side street that usually dead-ends at a closed factory... Hmmm...seems like the closed and locked gates are open...perhaps we can do a little exploring later as long as we don't get caught? But first there's more of Marvel's World and Main Street Kansas to see...and a visit to a certain farmhouse...

Actually it's Miss Almira Gulch who owns half the county. "Professor" Marvels is just a huckster, plastering his name on everything when actually this was the County Fairgrounds before he talked the County Commissioners into allowing him to manage it for a 'modest' fee. They were undoubtedly impressed with his claimed friendships with the Crowned Heads of Europe you know...

You know, I hadn't even noticed that there is actually a ball of twine on that museums sign until I enlarged the screenshot...LOL!

VERY atmospheric!

"Twine Museum"??? You're not 'stringing' us along are you now?

I want to mention that the horse-drawn streetcar is a tweak of the Parisian Tramway by 爬到墙上等红杏 from the Workshop. I tweaked the sides to make it open-air, shortened it, added steps, opened the ends, lowered the roofline and switched it from electricity to horse-power of course. It was a wonderful creation to base our streetcar off of!

I love the creativity and sense of FUN in this park! You've certainly captured some of that "Disney Magic"...

Just past the Candy shoppe there's a Magic Store, and next to it is Fleming's Cigar Store... Above is the Kansas Hotel and next door is Vidor's Kansas Butcher Shop... Rounding up this short block is Hats Fantastic, for all your chapeau needs...the Millinery Store is upstairs

Citytrader was in charge of most of the structures in Kansas, he has a good eye for period styles. I just prettied them up a little later....(AKA dumped a bunch of crap in and around them...).

Citytrader voted for either of your last two options... Now that moment you've been waiting for with baited breath! (And someone here's breath does in fact smell like bait...who had sardines for lunch???) The Park Entrance... Once inside we are transported back to a small mid-western town in Kansas...circa 1938... Ignore the storm clouds or the funny shaped silos in the distance... Since most people tend to start their tour by turning right, we'll buck that trend and start by going to the left...contrarians as always... The town fire hall starts off this street... Helpful signs in case you don't know where you are... Ahead the first MANY locales to quench your thirst or hunger and lighten your wallet... The Bijou Theater next door offer ice-cooled air while relaxing watching assorted features... Not sure which 'holiday' is currently being featured... "More to come..."