Designing themepark dark rides is a complex multi-step process. As a concept designer you have to work with multiple elements and disciplines to develop a story with engaging characters, design themed vehicles for the guests, and build a complete theatrical experience with costumes, sets, props, mechanical props and scenery, special effects, sound, lighting, and all kinds of safety back-up systems to ride through. Plus it all has to work non-stop, year-round and be totally magical but easy to maintain, and fun enough to be seen over and over!
I design and creatively direct rides and attractions for the last twenty years. Here is one of them, the Music Factory for the Everland park in Korea done for the Hettema Group under the creative direction of Phil Hettema.
I was the concept designer, art director and illustrator for the ride. The final characters were developed by Shane Prigmore.
All the artwork here is Copyright © 2008 Hettema Group - All Rights Reserved. No Copying or Reproduction Allowed.
Kicking off the concept of a Music Factory starts at the front gate - early facade concept sketch.
My early character development sketches for the music factory master and his sidekick.
Working back and forth with the show writer I develop gag and scene detail sketches.
The theming carries into vehicle design. These are early concept sketches based on musical instruments theme.
Early concept scenes development sketches done by hand then scanned and painted digitally.
Frog belches and bursting bubbles create the base for the musical piece.
Giant goofy hammers and gears pounding away set the rhythm.
The ride engineers and facility architects take my initial, hand drawn ride layout into CAD and overlay it onto facility plans, adjusting as needed for the vehicle and track technical specs. Then I refine the individual scenes and timing. Here for fun I built a miniature model to better visualize what goes where and how it all fits. This model is cardboard, but most often we work digitally and create 3-D models to do virtual fly-thru's.
My IPhone view down the Rhythm Hammer Alley in my rough minature model.
Here is the 1/4 inch foam core model of the same scene with more detail.
Character study of the Music Master setting the rhythm for the Rhythm Hammer Alley scene. Character refined and finalized by Shane Prigmore.
Further refined belching frogs bass section. The illustration was digitally painted over a foamcore model photo that I scanned. The model was built from my hand drawn elevations copied to scale. For speed and flexibility I often move between hand drawn sketches and elevations, digital painting and 3-d models - physical and/or virtual. I work digitally but nothing beats rough study models to make sure everything works according to gravity and physics. It also helps client understand what they are looking at much better.
Another scene based on electricity.
Mixing room set up for the Grand Finale
Here is one of the color boards on the conceptual elevation of the Rhythm Hammer Alley scene.
