Epcot 'Horizons' Disney Attraction Desert Harvester model (FINISHED 4/2020)

joez2391

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RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
So this has been something I've put on the backburner for a long time. Horizons in Epcot was one of my favorite rides back in the day before it was demo'd and replaced by Mission:Space. I always loved the designs of the futuristic vehicles, especially these harvester robots seen in the desert scene. Reference pictures are really lacking for this but thanks to Mesa Verde Times, i got a couple nice behind the scenes pics.
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I tried scratch building one years ago but it just wasn't coming out the way I saw it in my head, so i decided to scrap it and come back to it someday and here were are now. I decided this would be a simpler subject to teach myself 3D design using Fusion 360. I just purchased a Creality Ender 3 3D printer so I wanted to start making my own models and printing them. Here is the final design of the harvester.
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And now the fun part, making a model kit out of it!

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Designing the control tower for the base:
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Sanded the harvester smooth, just need to prime and smooth out the base and control tower:
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Fantastic!!! We spent a lot of time at WDW in the '80s and my first job was at EPCOT. Horizons was one of my favorite attractions and I can remember when it first opened in 1984. Glad to see some of that history being preserved. :)
 
Fantastic!!! We spent a lot of time at WDW in the '80s and my first job was at EPCOT. Horizons was one of my favorite attractions and I can remember when it first opened in 1984. Glad to see some of that history being preserved. :)

That's so awesome! Where did you work at Epcot? Horizons was one of my favorite rides by far, I really want to replicate some other things from the ride too, the next one on the list would have to be the Solosub, such a cool retro design.
 
I was a portrait & silhouette artist in the France pavilion. At one point in the '80s, everyone in my immediate family worked at Disney. :)

Have you seen these?

http://jefflangedvd.com/shop/Epcot_Center_DVDs.html

Oh no way that's so cool! what a great job. Did anyone in your family manage to get any good "souvenirs" from the rides? I collect WDW park props and signs, mostly Star Tours pieces but love anything old school Epcot.

The Jeff Lange dvds look pretty cool I'll have to look into it. If you want to see some awesome behind the scenes pics/stories from Horizons you need to check this out:
http://mesaverdetimes.blogspot.com/

Without these great pictures and videos I would have never been able to make this model as accurate as it is that's for sure. Really interesting read and the pictures are insane, so many details that you couldnt even see from the ride itself.
 
Horizons was a favorite of mine as well. The scenes from that ride were an inspiration to me when I was younger. Love that you made these.
 
Have you seen this channel?
https://www.youtube.com/user/MesaVerdeVideos/videos

During the last days of the ride, a couple of fans discovered how to jump out of the vehicles and explore the sets without getting caught, documenting a bunch of stuff. They get some pretty close shots (albeit SD video quality) of this vehicle.

edit: oh I guess the same guys joez was talking about.
 
This project is finally finished! I wasn't happy with the way the model was turning out on my Ender 3 printer, so it sat waiting. I finallyyyy added a resin printer to my modeling arsenal and resurected this project now that I could print it up to my expectation standard.

Here it is! The model is fully resin 3D printed with custom designed decals, complete with "Lorange" (Lemon-orange) trees. Reference pics were hard to come by, but i found one where you could actually make out that there was a '38' on the blue stripe. Im guessing it was a reference to the attraction opening in 1983.
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