Hey guys. I haven't posted in a while, but I've been plenty busy...
I have been making (amongst other stuff) these Pop-Up Playsets since the summer. So far I have four in the line. The design philosophy is to use nothing but printed cardstock. The concept is to bring to life more of the fun Kenner cardboard playsets I loved as a kid in the 70s and 80s. In fact, I started with a challenge to myself to update my favorite, the Sears Cloud City Playset, with new illustrations.
That one was basically just a test to see if I could pull off a 3D playset design and make it work. I liked it enough to move on to the next. It seemed to me the "Jedha Revolt" Gift Pack was exactly what we would have been given from Sears in the catalog last Christmas, if that sort of thing still existed, and of course it would have come with a great cardboard playset. I tasked myself with making that playset next:



I really liked this one, so I decided to keep going. The next challenge was to build the set that I wished Kenner had made when I was a kid, and the biggest hole in the toy line back then (to me) was the fact that there was no Emperor's Throne Room playset. I started, but I couldn't figure out all the engineering adequately, especially a staircase (it had to have a staircase!) and so I gave up. Instead, I went with a Niima Outpost/Unkar Plutt's Booth playset:
This one was easy and not much new to me (the biggest engineering bump I made is the riser that Unkar stands on--and you can't even see when the set is assembled--being made out of a single folded piece of cardstock.) It left me itching to pull off the Throne Room set. So I went back at it, and finally solved it:

This one is my favorite yet, I love that it is mass-producible on cardstock but is strong enough to support everybody on that second level. And the stairs worked great (and again that's just one piece of folded cardstock.)
More designs will be on the way...I want to tackle a Hoth Command Center (like the vintage playset, but the actual Echo Base command center where Rieekan and Leia hung out) and Cantina alcoves (making those modular so you can set up several beside each other) and, and, and...
I have been making (amongst other stuff) these Pop-Up Playsets since the summer. So far I have four in the line. The design philosophy is to use nothing but printed cardstock. The concept is to bring to life more of the fun Kenner cardboard playsets I loved as a kid in the 70s and 80s. In fact, I started with a challenge to myself to update my favorite, the Sears Cloud City Playset, with new illustrations.



That one was basically just a test to see if I could pull off a 3D playset design and make it work. I liked it enough to move on to the next. It seemed to me the "Jedha Revolt" Gift Pack was exactly what we would have been given from Sears in the catalog last Christmas, if that sort of thing still existed, and of course it would have come with a great cardboard playset. I tasked myself with making that playset next:






This one was easy and not much new to me (the biggest engineering bump I made is the riser that Unkar stands on--and you can't even see when the set is assembled--being made out of a single folded piece of cardstock.) It left me itching to pull off the Throne Room set. So I went back at it, and finally solved it:



This one is my favorite yet, I love that it is mass-producible on cardstock but is strong enough to support everybody on that second level. And the stairs worked great (and again that's just one piece of folded cardstock.)
More designs will be on the way...I want to tackle a Hoth Command Center (like the vintage playset, but the actual Echo Base command center where Rieekan and Leia hung out) and Cantina alcoves (making those modular so you can set up several beside each other) and, and, and...