Below is an illustration — a 'collage' panorama — I did in Photoshop of the "Spy Team Headquarters".
Navigation: You may need to download the images to see them whole, as previews may be truncated, depending on your screen resolution / browser zoom setting. Although, if you click on an image, it should zoom you in, and then you can click-drag on the middle mouse button to pan around.
The only sketch I did, before giving up on that strategy and figuring things out in Photoshop instead:
(https://i.imgur.com/IpQUDmn.png)
Here is a cropped view of the Spy Team HQ, only:
(https://i.imgur.com/vMZ4ec8.jpg)
And here is the entire panorama ( 28Kx2400 ):
(https://i.imgur.com/Db5Fh4A.jpg)
Spy Team HQ is located on Playmobil Island ( a paracosm I developed with — and largely for ;) — my 9 year-old nephew / no relation to the Playmobil Movie ), due east from the previously mentioned Future Valley ( see "Space Patrol HQ" thread ). The panaroma is a north-to-south slice of the island.
To the south of Spy Team HQ lies Serenity Valley, which is bisected by a wide river called "The Tomorrow River", flowing westward across the entire width of Playmobil Island, toward the 'future' — except once a month during the full moon, from midnight to 4:00AM, when the river inexplicably reverses its course and flows 'upstream' ( east ), all the way to Jurassic Valley, aka. Playmo B.C.: not a good place to find yourself in the middle of the night, should you take a full ride on the river at that time!
Spy Team has a very efficient, secret ( naturally ), bullet-train underground network, allowing them to get in the vicinity of any theme / location on the island within minutes. They also have secret access tunnels to all the known jails, everywhere ( including Space Patrol's, who are frenemies — they are in good terms, at present — ), should one of their guys get captured.
Spy Team employs trained wolves, dolphins, whales, penguins, squirrels, owls and seagulls, for various tasks. Wolves are usually used for security ( ‘Wolf Patrol’ takes turns guarding the railway tunnels ), and for scaring people away from sensitive spots — though they also use animatronic monsters ( ex: Yeti ) for that purpose, from time to time!
Spy Team has a special arrangement with Captain Blackheart, whose pirate ship is anchored in the big sea cave, to the south: "Don't try to break into our base, and we won't confiscate your ship — and your treasure ( we know where it is )!" A deal which Captain Blackheart, ever endowed with a keen sense of self-interest ( and self-preservation ), promptly accepted! Spy Team does keep an eye on them, along with all the known bad guys in the area, of course: Dr. Devil, Megalomax, Dr. Drone, Team SHARK, Ice Pirates, and Arctic Rebels — though none of these guys know where the Spy Team HQ is located.
Notes:
- This panorama took me over a month to complete, during the coronavirus confinement, and was mostly finished prior to starting the Space Patrol HQ ( which explains why it is not quite as polished as the latter ).
- RMDO refers to my nephew.
- The source *.PSB ( a large image format Photoshop required me to use ) is about 44Kx4K, and was designed to be printed on 9 borderless 8.5"x11" @ 300PPI
- If this panorama was built irl — klicky-scale, 1:24 —, it would be 73' long ( 22m ); I would personally love to see something similar at the Funpark in Zirndorf! :lol:
- Fun feature: the panorama can be made to wrap-around.
- This type of illustration is known in German as a 'Wimmelbild', and are typically found in children-oriented books called Wimmelbilderbuch ( literally: "teeming pictures book" ).
... Thank you, Tahra. :)
What's with the stuffed animals under the treehouse, and the dogheaded boy with the handcart near the stables?
Funny you picked-up on them; they are so tiny! It's a — very — long story. These characters are all stuffed animals belonging to my nephew, and are all part of Spy Team in our fantasy universe narrative ( which blends toy lines; ex: Playmobils can talk to stuffed animals and vice-versa ). The characters under the treehouse are a married couple — both officers of Spy Team — called Spot and Wolfie ( female ). The dog-headed stable boy is the Playmobil incarnation of "Blue Dog", who is a cadet at "Spy Team Academy". He doesn't have clearance yet to know where the base is located, but he's itching to find out to prove he is a 'real spy' and boast to everybody ( hence the squirrels and detector jet keeping an eye on him ). He's got no idea there is a secret access tunnel below the Ponyhof! I have been animating him and doing his voice since my nephew was 31/2 ( he does Spot ); he's become quite a 'character' over the years! He is totally earnest, megalomaniac and egocentric in a buffoonish and credulous way ( kind of — seriously — daft, to put it mildly ), and always the butt of jokes. Oh, and he died 6 or 7 times, but he keeps showing up at the door the next morning, as a new iteration ( like: "Hi, I am Blue Dog 7! Who are you?!" To which my nephew would answer: "I am your owner." :) ). Here is what he looks like, irl ( brand: Piccolo Bambino ):
(https://i.imgur.com/Bp58Ssm.jpg)
The time when he 'borrowed' ( stole! ) my Spy Glasses — my nephew and I are part of Spy Team ( he is a General ) —, and broke onto my computer, before running away from the house ( ...with my iPad! ):
(https://i.imgur.com/VyKiZTu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/FtCbfgI.jpg)
He did some serious time-out for that ( 14 days! ):
(https://i.imgur.com/yVoUdo2.jpg)
The spirit of childhood play is alive in this picture. :cloud9:
Thank you, Macruran! This is the greatest compliment I could wish for, regarding this piece. That's basically what I tried to do: capture the archetypal essence of the 'fortress', particularly from a boy's perspective, who are usually very keen on war games and 'defend-the-castle' type of scenarios ( 'territorial defense', shall we say ) — a place where they would want to project themselves, and play, mentally.
Note: The fortress is a recurrent motif in boy toys and paracosms. Elements one can typically expect inside such toy- or 'pretend' fortresses, whatever their form ( castle, base, actual 'fort', etc. ), are: 1) a detention area, 2) a secret treasure spot, and 3) some kind of command / decision center ...and 4) loads of weapons ( + occasionally, traps ), of course. Like many — most? — boys my nephew's age ( he is 9 ), I used to draw these kinds of things as a child ( sci-fi bases, mostly — cross-sections! —, filled with weapons and counter-measures to defend against ubiquitous 'bad guys' ), and also build them as toy dioramas ( action-figures, Lego, Playmobil... ). Age 9 happens to be the peak age for worldplay ( a.k.a. 'paracosm play' ), according to child development research. Thankfully, that worldbuilding spirit never left; though spending time around my young nephew definitely inspired me to formalize some of the elements we had talked and played about, checking with him from time to time as I went, to gauge his reaction and make sure I got it right.
(https://i.imgur.com/wBCsPgk.jpg)
MARX TOYS Navarone Playset ( 1976 )
(https://i.imgur.com/dzX1mLF.jpg)
LEGO Nexo Knights — The Fortex ( 2016 )