Paragon Entertainment : Celebrating International Creativity Month

18 January 2018

This month were celebrating Creativity! Were taking a closer look at one of our latest creative projects, the incredible Voletarium Flying Theatre attraction, which opened to guests in 2016 and tells the story of the Adventure Club of Europe (ACE). As guests wait for their turn on the ride, the queue line takes them through the ACEs headquarters past the various artefacts and items their members have aquired.

In 2017 Paragon Creative was approached by Europa Park to create three unique creature figures to feature in a brand new queue area never before seen by guests. These figures were a 2.5m tall Yeti, a sabre toothed Fire Tiger and a Giant Chimpanzee Skeleton.

Both the Fire Tiger and Yeti were created by making a clay sculpt over a metal armature. Once the basic figures were produced, we created the real thing in GRP from a silicone mould, all supported by an internal steel frame. Particular detail went into sculpting the face of the Yeti and Fire Tiger. Paint and fur were then applied. The look of the figures were guided by reference images sent by Europa Park, but our sculpting team were able to add their own creative flare to the creatures.

The Chimpanzee Skeleton was made in GRP (including a sculpted skull) with a mix of modified faux bones. All held together by a metal armature frame. All figures were then installed onto pre-constructed museum style plinths.

The figures now sit proudly in the brand-new queue area for the ride creating a unique blend of theme park style fantasy with museum style reality and are sure to both intrigue, thrill and tower above guests as they discover the story of Voletarium and the Adventure Club of Europe in one of the resorts most cutting edge and beautifully realised attractions.

We asked our Creative Director, David Bloodworth, about how his team tackled this project, 'To produce life size representations of a 9ft yeti and a 7ft long Sabre Tooth Tiger allowed our team to fully flex their creativity. The research, sculpting, moulding, hair flocking and making up the final models touched all disciplines within our art department. It was a huge team effort and we are quite rightly delighted with the results. It is very representative of not only the conventional creativity required in the execution of lifelike sculpture of exhibition quality, but also of the creative thinking that is required to succeed in a project of this type. As Creative Director, I am extremely proud of not only the final results but also of the team which showed such tenacity to finish the project to such a high quality.