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This blog is here to document my latest 2009 project, an extensive recreation of the Disney 1954 movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea through a series of detailed miniature dioramas, all contained under my model railroad table. This will be a "crawl-thru" type attraction (What is a crawl-thru? Read about it here).

Like Disney, I usually tend to keep everything under-wraps until I unveil the final product at the end. However, by keeping everything a secret, I end up not taking any photos of my projects and it is often disappointing to not have any documentation in the end showing how everything worked and was constructed. This time, however, I will document every step in the process of the creation of the project with photos and drawings (and maybe some video) illustrating each leg of the construction. Even though the posts here will be chock-full of spoilers, it will show the amount of work that goes into this and other projects--which is often under-appreciated.

This blog includes weekly updates that consisted of notes, ideas, photos, and maybe some video of what was worked on each week up until the estimated completion date of December 2009. (It was officially finished on December 10th, 2009).

December 14, 2009

12/14/09 Update--Finished and the End of Weekly Updates.

As of last Saturday, I'm proud to say that the 20k project is finally finished after nearly a year of work and construction. The last few days and hours leading up to our annual Christmas party consisted of frantic working and stuff being rushed in order to meet the deadline (the next party won't be for 2 years!). But, as the paint finally dried, the relatives who squeezed their way through and approved delightfully. So in the end, the work paid off even though I nearly broke my back doing it!

At some point during the week I'll be documenting the finished product showing every little thing I did as well as with a "ride-through" video showing exactly what it's like to move through the table. Also included will be some really nice "press shots" that I'll be taking of each scene. That will take a while to do since I want to do it right, so don't expect anything popping up here too soon.

Since construction has come to an end, so will the weekly update of this blog. It was a tedious task to document everything for this project, but I don't regret doing it all; this blog provides a very valuable insight into how such a complicated project gets down and all the steps involved. I've never documented something this extensively ever.

Just because I won't be doing weekly posts doesn't mean I'll never do another update; planned for the future is "Phase 2" of the project which is essentially all the stuff I never got to do on the first go-around. This might include the extensive Nautilus themed interior, new props for the sets, upgrades and improvements of scenes, or even a whole new scene. But that's the future at this point. Right now I want to get back to my very neglected projects that includes my Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland model above the 20k project as well as some smaller projects. When "Phase 2" begins, I don't know. I really want to get away from anything 20,000 Leagues under the Sea for awhile!

Thanks to those who have followed and commented on here and the YouTube videos, and Happy crawling!
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