I grew up close to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, went there multiple times every summer, and spent many many hours working there while in college. So, needless to say, the place has been a big part of my life. During the quarantine, I got an email that the park's online store was selling miniature kits of some of the coasters so I ordered a couple of them as something relaxing to do during the quarantine. After I finished building them, though, just setting them on a shelf seemed wrong. So, I raided my bin of model railroading supplies and built a small display for them.
Step one was (obviously) building the kits. I built them one at a time on random days when quarantine was starting to get to me and I needed to relax, unplug, and do something creative.
I started by tracing the footprint of all three models on graph paper and cutting them out. I researched display cases and plastic bins online to find something that would fit all three along with some "landscaping". I traced the outline of the bin to size the whole thing.
I cut two pieces of foam core to the size of the bin and cut out the footprints of the models in the top piece, then glued them together. I spray painted the black foam core with a "dirt" colored spray paint (which actually looked decent) then, while the paint was still wet, I sprinkled fake grass over it.
I had a bag of ground cover (a cotton-like material) so I tore off several pieces and balled them up to make trees, then glued them to the layout. And, because I've always wanted to do this, I raided the Christmas decoration bin for a string of LEDs to make spotlights for the models.
Here's the finished product:
With the spotlights turned on (I had some fun with the colors):
