Jurassic Art Attack - Park Gates

Credit: Amblin/Universal

Hi! I made my own set of Park Gates! And I did so to scale with Mattel's line of Jurassic World dinosaurs. Whilst they initially ran with the ball on picking up the Jurassic licence, Mattel have more recently dialled back the variety of toys on offer and are now mostly focusing on just the dinosaurs themselves. This meant that any chance of any more play-sets, such as the RV from The Lost World, are now next to none. That doesn't stop these kinds of things from being on my wish-list though...! But with that in mind, I wanted something that would be a centrepiece for my collection and what better than the Park Gates...Thus came the 'wouldn't it be cool if I could make one' thoughts...

I was considering doing this project from either cardboard or simple plywood...However I lack the necessary wood-working equipment to do this to a level I would be happy with, so cardboard it ended up being. Another main reason I decided cardboard was that when I bought Mattel's HUMONGOUS Brachiosaurus figure, she came packed with one big piece of plain, protective cardboard...Enough cardboard to make something from it...

Colours: Matt 60 (Red), Matt 154 (Yellow), Matt 32 (Grey), Satin 133 (Brown)

First; supplies! If you want to make your own, here's what I used; glue stick, PVA glue, tissue paper and the paints are all Humbrol...I would advise getting all acrylic if you can. That one colour in enamel was the one I used for the doors and...well, it was in hindsight frustrating that I couldn't find a good brown in acrylic. Enamel is oil-based, which makes it incredibly difficult to clean...! (I recommend gloves!) Anyway, everything in that first photo I bought from Hobby Craft...And when I did, the staff there were very interested in seeing what I'd make of the project, which was nice and encouraging! In the following photo were the items I bought much later down the line when I realised I hadn't the brushes to start painting with...! As you can see, I got them from WHSmith and the Glu Dots I bought from PaperChase.

With the brush heads, you can tell I took the photo /after/ painting...!

I began the actual creation by trying to research how big the gates would have been in real life...Which isn't very easy; I couldn't find any info on how tall they were in the film, for instance. Something that clued me in was LEGO's UCS Jurassic Park T. Rex Rampage set which, when I saw built up in person in the LEGO store, I realised that both the Tyrannosaurus and Park Gates were more-or-less in scale with a 3.75 (or 1:18) scale toy line, which Mattel mostly adopted for their Jurassic lines. And it was Pixel Dan's review on the LEGO set that told me how tall the gates were, because Dan always handily measures the stuff he reviews, so thanks, Pixel Dan!

So 1:18 scale gates are roughly 18 inches tall...Which is handy mathematically because the frame pillars are clearly divided into threes! Using the screenshot above, I was able to go from that 1:18 scale to measure out the rest of the details, such as the width of the horizontal section and the outer slopes (which mostly involved slapping a ruler on the computer screen and going from there).

And here is where I ended up with the basic shapes. For the curve, I initially cut a straight piece, but then outlined a curve from the middle to one side and, to get it as even as possible on the other side I traced the cut-off onto the next side and voila! A simple switch from the top to the bottom creates the famous arch.

The only thing I really futzed was that I made the measurement of the horizontal arch from either outer side of the pillars...! It sort of worked out for the structure I was to end up with, but covering two big chunks either side looses a lot of that curve that I was pleased in producing...Oh well; sacrifices!

The next thing to do were the doors. I knew these were going to be the trickiest and most-involved pieces, but it was mostly about getting the look of the layers of beams which wasn't to bad, once I had settled on the right size for my gates (I used a lot of eye judgement to determine it they looked right within the frame).

Next step; words! I had already made my mind up on what to do here; since there are two Jurassic IPs, Park and World, both were just as valid as the other and decided to incorporate 'Jurassic' onto the arch, but have 'Park' and 'World' as separate, modular pieces.

Making it swappable between 'Park' and 'World' means that the nostalgia offers a cool opportunity to see what it would look like had the Jurassic World gates been done in the same style as the Park ones. (Though, to be fair, the upcoming series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous offers that opportunity, too...)

As you can see, I tried to match that peculiar under-slung angle from the 'Park' word block without making it too intrusive...Whilst the 'World' block I made as straight and contoured as possible to evoke the clean, clinical way that the park in Jurassic World was run and presented.

"This is an Art Attack..."

Some hinges for the doors and a set of flames to glue on and 'phase 1' is complete!

"Now, here comes the messy part!"

Some context for the quotes (and title of this post); when I was little, I used to watch a programme called Art Attack, a creative and crafty kids show from CITV, presented by Neil Buchanan. There was something about the show that made me watch it religiously...And one of Neil's often-used techniques for making solid structures was to coat it in a mixture of "PVA Glue with equal parts water" and pasting it with tissue paper (sometimes newspaper) all over the creation, with a couple of layers, and leaving it to dry overnight. It's this technique that I've had stored in my memory for over 20 years and now I've finally got to use it!

The idea of this technique is to make the structure more solid and robust, whilst giving a 'primer' for the painting...In my case it looks like it's been abandoned and covered in spider-webbing for the past couple of decades, but it did the job!

"And it should look something like this..."

But the best part is definitely 'phase 3' - painting!

"THIS is an Art Attack...!"

Now, it the film, the gate lettering are clearly individually crafted and coloured before being placed on the arch and, whilst that could have been a way for me to do it, I opted for painting them as 'blocks'. For screen-accuracy, individually would be recommended, but as mine has this modular thing going on, I decided to run with the idea to make it look as if the letters were carved out of the same stone they are sat on (a decision based on the glue-tissue paper mix coating, too).

The letters were simple to pick out with the base yellow, but I had to free-hand the red innards! There was a lot of adjustments and touching up after the initial coats, but worth it to get a good balance of clean red lines and yellow outlines! As for the flames, I did the initial body in yellow, then went over in red, then roughly and lightly swirled on some yellow again, inverting the colour scheme of the letters, but also trying to get an effect of motion with the fire...In any-case, they look orange, which is something I was aiming for!

As for the doors...The messy enamel paint sort-of worked out in the end for the final result, because it gave a satin gloss that made them appear as if they were made from treated/varnished wood...Sort of. They look different from the frame anyway, which was good for me, because I feel that it's a good indicator of the (implied) different materials.

"THIS IS...ART ATTACK!"

The final touch was the detailing on the doors, too; outlining the gaps between planks of wood. I did a bit too much on one side, though...Where the planks suddenly shrink in size. I would have painted over that and started again if not for the oily enamel...! Oh, and I made the detail outlines with a ball-point pen. I also lined in the divisions of the pillars again, where they are divided into thirds!

Here you can see how a classically-styled 'Jurassic World' gate would look. And it's also a good indicator of how I used the Glu Dots; stick a couple of the back of each modular word and then lightly stick one beneath 'Jurassic' and the other one I 'store away' by sticking on the back!

But all this was to compliment my Mattel Jurassic World collection and I think it looks okay, especially with the Legacy products!

"What've they got in there; King Kong?"

So to reiterate, all the cardboard used in this build was from the one piece of protective cardboard that was packed in with Mattel's Brachiosaurus...The kind of packaging that would have otherwise been discarded. I have quite a few left-overs, too...plenty of off-cuts...Maybe I can do something with them to emulate some destruction from angry carnivores? We shall see! I definitely know one thing; this won't be the last 'Art Attack' I'll be doing!

Thank you for reading! And as Neil would say; "Try it yourself!"


AM