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Full steam ahead!

Keepsake Artist Matt Johnson’s tabletop piece celebrates the 125th anniversary of Lionel® Trains.

Lionelville®
LIONEL® Trains

The long-standing partnership between Lionel® and Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments has always been about celebrating Christmas. This year marks 125 years of Lionel® Trains, so Keepsake Artist Matt Johnson created this tabletop piece to mark the milestone. Matt shared some of his favorite things about the process of creating the Lionelville® Table Decoration releasing in July at Ornament Premiere.

“Our original idea was just to scale up an ornament created back in 2004 by retired Keepsake Artist Ken Crow. But I soon realized that was not going to work, so l actually had to rebuild it to get it to stay within the parameters of the mechanics we wanted.

“Getting everything to function correctly was a challenge for me because I’d never done a magic ornament so complex. We didn’t have digital assets so I resculpted it digitally to rough in the shapes I wanted. It’s like hand-sculpting, pushing and pulling and adding and then using different textures, especially with creating the rocks.

“The most challenging part of the project was making sure the train tunnels would actually work. Our engineer, Samantha Heryford, gave me a 3D model to work from and I used that to make sure everything would fit. It took a couple iterations, but we made it through getting the sizes and mechanics just right. Once we figured that out, then I really got into sculpting the rocks. And there’s a certain point where you get in this flow state and you’re just really enjoying the process. I really liked even just painting it. When you get past the process of getting the mechanics and lights and everything to work, then detailing it all out is the enjoyable part for me.

“And what I really like about this piece is that you can control it. You can have it on without music, so it’s just moving with light. And you can also activate sound, light and motion to create a fun atmosphere. I’m really pleased with how it all turned out, and I love the idea that people will have it in their homes during the holiday season.”

“Let the Wookiee™ Win”

Amazing new technology brings the scene from Star Wars: A New Hope™ to life.

“Let the Wookiee™ Win”
Star Wars: A New Hope™.

Sometimes, new technology really is all it’s cracked up to be. Like with this Keepsake Ornament featuring the memorable “Let the Wookiee™ Win” scene from Star Wars: A New Hope™.

Keepsake Artist Orville Wilson explains, “This is something we’ve never done before. Holographic technology has been out for a while, but this is the first time we’ve integrated it into an ornament, along with lights and actual dialogue from the film.

“In this scene, we see Chewbacca™, R2-D2’™ and C-3PO™ in the middle of a Dejarik (holochess) game, where all the pieces are holographic creatures. We sculpted the creatures for our ornament to be smaller than mini ornaments. They’re transparent and in different colors. The creatures are placed on a chip that projects onto a clear sheet. We’re using a really small video screen that’s inside the table they’re sitting at. When it lights up and plays the video of the creatures fighting, the projection causes it to look like a holographic image, like they’re actually right there moving and fighting.

“And as the dialogue from the scene plays, you’ll see lights that pulse near each character when they speak, which creates some motion. It was all a challenge, and it was a huge collaboration between engineering, editorial, the sound studio and the video studio.

“I really enjoyed putting on my engineering hat to build the main structure of the scene. I had to hollow it out to make a cavity for the electronics and then hollow the walls so we could run the electrical wires up through them and into the top where the lights are. After doing that digitally we got a 3D print, and then Kristina Ferguson, our engineer, placed the components, including the video screen and speaker, inside that structure.

“After we showed Lucasfilm and got approval to move forward, I started sculpting the characters and adding in all the fine details on the back, the base, the top and the back walls, including the instrument wall where the panels light up.

“If you’re an avid fan, you’ll notice we did have to make modifications to house the electronics and make sure they all work. Like we lowered the ceiling so we could be hyper-focused on the characters and the scene. And the table is bigger to house the video screen.

“It was a challenge trying to make all the parts sit together so that everything makes sense. And then I really looked at the movie scene imagery to add in extra details. Like the pod shapes along the ceiling aren’t in the scene, but they are on the walls of the ship, so we added those and imagined what was underneath the ship where we cut away at the front of the scene and what would be on the outside of the ship. So, I got to use a little bit of artistic license there.

“I’ll definitely buy a couple of these ornaments myself. What I loved about working on this was that I got to be an artist and add some of my own flair, but at the same time put my engineer’s hat on, too. I’m a bit of an engineer at heart. I like to tear stuff apart and see how it works-then diving in to do that kind of detailed work when you’re actually creating something like this is so much fun for me.”

Orville and team put a lot of research and passion into this ornament, and it shows. Pick yours up at Keepsake Ornament Premiere in July and bring joy to any fan’s galaxy!