Backyard Imagineering

[jaredkari]

I am so excited that there is a thread on this topic. I love imagineering at home, although all of it centers around halloween. Halloween is really the time when you can entertain and interact similar to WDW. I am a home haunter but my mission is to steer clear of the blood and real scary halloween stuff and create a home haunt that is entertaining and fun for all ages. I guess really this past year was my first year trying but I have some little videos of what I did and am working on. Last year I built a "Magic Mirro" like from Snow White which interacted and gave candy out to trick or treaters. It was a huge hit with kids and parents. This year I am working on building a cemetery complete with Grim Grinning Ghost singing busts. I have a lot to work to do but it will be worth it halloween night. Let me know what you think. Thanks

[SoupBone]

I am so excited that there is a thread on this topic. I love imagineering at home, although all of it centers around halloween. Halloween is really the time when you can entertain and interact similar to WDW. I am a home haunter but my mission is to steer clear of the blood and real scary halloween stuff and create a home haunt that is entertaining and fun for all ages. I guess really this past year was my first year trying but I have some little videos of what I did and am working on. Last year I built a "Magic Mirro" like from Snow White which interacted and gave candy out to trick or treaters. It was a huge hit with kids and parents. This year I am working on building a cemetery complete with Grim Grinning Ghost singing busts. I have a lot to work to do but it will be worth it halloween night. Let me know what you think. Thanks

Man that is insane! The singing busts would be really awesome too. I wish I was a more mechanically minded person because my entire house would be some sort of Disney themed ride. I keep telling my wife that I would love to make my spare rooms ceiling the same as POTC. If you ever looked up in POTC you see the clouds rolling by and other effects of a night time sky in the Carribean. I've looked everywhere but can't really find much on it. I did find something else really cool though. The fireflies from POTC apparently can be bought from a few different sources. You can get the ones with fans that sort of move here https://www.azengift.com/product_inf...products_id=45 or the ones that are still here Magical Firefly Lights Create Lifelike Fireflies . So now I just need to figure out the rest....LOL

[jaredkari]

Man that is insane! The singing busts would be really awesome too. I wish I was a more mechanically minded person because my entire house would be some sort of Disney themed ride. I keep telling my wife that I would love to make my spare rooms ceiling the same as POTC. If you ever looked up in POTC you see the clouds rolling by and other effects of a night time sky in the Carribean. I've looked everywhere but can't really find much on it. I did find something else really cool though. The fireflies from POTC apparently can be bought from a few different sources. You can get the ones with fans that sort of move here https://www.azengift.com/product_inf...products_id=45 or the ones that are still here Magical Firefly Lights Create Lifelike Fireflies . So now I just need to figure out the rest....LOL

That would be awesome if you could do the POTC ceiling. That is one of my favorite effects at WDW, sometimes I ride and just look at the ceiling the whole time. It almost messes with your head because you know you are inside yet you look up and your eyes tell you that you are outside. Thanks for posting the firefly thing, my wife and I have always said we should put some lights in our trees in the backyard around our deck.

[SoupBone]

That would be awesome if you could do the POTC ceiling. That is one of my favorite effects at WDW, sometimes I ride and just look at the ceiling the whole time. It almost messes with your head because you know you are inside yet you look up and your eyes tell you that you are outside. Thanks for posting the firefly thing, my wife and I have always said we should put some lights in our trees in the backyard around our deck.

That's exactly what I do on the ride. I love just staring up and watching the clouds blow by. If I had the know how it would have already been recreated in my spare room. I think the fireflies are the next purchase for my backyard. It will add some spark to my pool area.

[Dizisit]

Great thread!
The closest I've come, so far, too any 'Backyard Imagineering', is when my father and myself rebuilt a section of 6' wood fence at the house and I tried to find some brass furniture tacks or something similar to put little hidden Mickey's in about every 3rd board or so.
The best I could find was an upholstery supply store, but they didn't have exactly what I wanted and they also wouldn't sell them in quantities less than 500...!
I'll find another 'Backyard Imagineering' project soon...!

[SoupBone]

Well I will start researching the POTC ceiling but so far I haven't found much. I need pics or a video to start but youtube has a ton of videos from the ride. Plu s I'm not good at things like this but I'm willing to try!

[SoupBone]

Ok I found this thread suggesting that the POTC ceiling was done with metal gobos? I have no idea what those are but a quick search shows they are used in lighting effects. We are getting closer to an answer. I just wonder if it's possible to do in a bedroom on a smaller scale. Sweet!

POTC+SM Queue effects [Archive] - WDWMAGIC.COM Forums

Cloud Gobos


For the night time star effect you could do fiber optic lighting in the ceiling. Seems pretty easy.

http://www.fiberopticproducts.com/Fiber_optic_items.htm

Here are some gobo projectors although I think the POTC ones might be on a revolving disc rather than a single image.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Irradiant-LED-Ar...3A1%7C294%3A50

[horchata]

in 1999 my friend and i built a backyard roller coaster called "roller coaster". we were 12 & 13, and it worked, it was actually super cool. we were in the newspaper and on the news and everything. We actually recently agreed to make another one. We're both "Superman" fans, so we kind of wanted to link it to the new movie somehow. We decided on calling it SUPERMAN RETURNS the ride... We are only working with about 40 feet, so we cant make a continuos circuit, but none the less, its going to be super cool. Gotta get it running before the WDWCP

[FinePhotoGraphx]

Cardboard is your best friend!

I've built my 4 year old (at the time) son a cardboard Wall-e. Simple box with cut-outs and magic marker details. Used binoculars for the eyes. Toughest part where the treads on the sides. He had that thing for months and it was a hit at his 5th birthday party.

I also recreated the Monsters Inc. ride (Disneyland) in a hallway in our finished basement. We printed out oversized coloring book versions of the characters, colored and sticky-tacked them to the wall. I snagged the audio from a YouTube video and added cue points and put it on a CD player. For the ride vehicle we used his little learn-to-walk scooter. I taped Christmas lights on the wall. Then I scooted him down the hall in synch with the audio cues so I knew when to go to each character. After all that I was quite exhausted. I think I enjoyed the challenge more than he enjoyed the ride!

[Disney2000]

I don't really have a whole "Disney themed room" going on, but I have done some dreaming and sketching in the past...

Most importantly, I want a Disney Room. Anything that I have, memorabilia, posters, collectibles that don't fit anywhere else, I want the room COVERED. I want people to walk in and go WOAH. I want them to be able to look around for hours and still not find everything that's in there. That'd probably be my computer room/office.

I'd also like a room that is a New Orleans Square room (combo of Pirates, HM). There's plenty of merchandise out there, the tapestries, plaques, sconces, the room would look great. Not a lot of light, a fancier room, that borders elegant and expensive (Club 33) and old mansion room. Dark reds, purples, greens, and browns here.

The entryway would have to be wide open with lots of windows, hopefully in a circular form with a large chandelier. There would be the "Here you leave today" plaque above the main doorway, and dedication plaques from each of the parks spread around, along with Art... Preferably painted-looking concept art.

I really liked the idea of an It's a small world bedroom. Lots of fun possibilities there, and a space for my WDCC Small World collection! I also think that having a porch/tiki bar would be a great idea.

I sketch out ideas and designs for rides all the time, and I have one idea im really getting into developing, so there's bound to be some prototype model there.

[WDW1014]

I just built a Disney themed Polynesian bedroom for my self complete with bamboo walls and tiki masks hanging. i also included a fish net on the ceiling and twinkle lights around the room that almost look like firefly lights. it took a while but now that i just bought a projector and im trying to recreate the fireworks with the music and having led lights synchronize to it like a show

[MattBirchfield]

Bump!!

Any movement on any of these ideas? I recently been bitten by the bug myself and was searching for projects.

matt