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 )