Day of the Tentacle diorama

It was only after I completed the full set of characters (ok, not quite – I’ve still got the cron-o-john and Doctor Fred to paint) that I thought they needed something more interesting than a bare shelf to stand on, to really show them off to their best (did I mention I was actually rather pleased with the paint job?)

There are so many iconic and instantly recognisable scenes from Day of The Tentacle – from Doctor Fred’s lab, the kite scene with Benjamin Franklin, George Washington’s wooden false teeth, to Hoagie cutting down a “cherry” tree….

One scene that everyone immediately connects with is probably the opening location in the game – when you’re done with the cut-scenes and you’re finally left to it, controlling the characters and actually moving around yourself. Everybody immediately recognises the motel lobby:

I decided to recreate this location for my Day of The Tentacle diorama.

I loved the quirky angles and slightly disjointed look of the artwork in the game – like a Van Gogh painting, you can see the perspective is all wrong – yet it also looks “just right”.

I found that converting a 2d image into a 3d location, complete with messed up perspective angles, tricker than I first thought.

I used grey foam to mock up a simple layout. It looked quite nice, and being able to hack at the foam with a knife to change the angles where it was needed was fun to do.

But ultimately the foam had a nasty “furry” finish that I wasn’t happy with – it detracted from the nice “clean” look of sharp angles and bright, almost primary colours you typically get in a cartoon.

So I scrapped the lot and started again.