Lair Layout

[KBK]

Originally Posted by t.u.r.t.l.e.power918

Hello, everybody,

So I recently had an idea to replicate the sewer liar from the OT, and I stumbled upon this forum and have been reading everybody's posts for the last few days.

I've been planning to do the exact same thing myself. Perhaps you'd like to do a collaboration?

[Genesis]

The lair from the first movie felt so real, like it could actually be found in a real sewer. As far as aesthetics go, however, the abandoned subway from The Secret of the Ooze was the coolest to me. And on musical terms, the OT did the sound of a sewer home right.

[pannoni1]

I found 4kids' lair to look too fake; the ceilings were just way too tall to feel like a sewer and it felt more like a temple or dungeon chamber. The Mirage lair however is under appreciated in terms of layout and appears quite well-designed. I feel that it resembled the lair shown in the first NES game, with its automatic door with "Teeth" shutting it closed, and looked like an actual above ground studio apartment room.

[Genesis]

That's true; I'd almost forgotten about the Mirage lair. I aways liked its brick wall entrance (to which TMNT paid tribute), and it looks remarkably similar to the OT's.

[SoundBlaster7]

This is awesome! Thanks so much for all the screen caps and and that scan of the turtles lair, oldmanwinters! I never really paid any attention to the layout before, I'm pleasantly surprised to see it was so well thought out! I wanna make the turtles lair in the Sims now!

[MightyThirstyPirate]

I registered just to say thank you to Vivi for starting this thread so many years ago and oldmanwinters for the insane amount of screencaps.

I LOVED my Sewer Playset when I was a child. It was a home all my other figures envied except for perhaps the Ghostbusters, who had their Firehouse. However, it did bother me, even then, that Playmates didn't even try to make it resemble the cartoon(That bunk bed hallway featured in the playset is seen twice in the cartoon, but it wasn't where they ordinarily slept). It was a sewer lair, but it wasn't THE sewer lair. This thread helped me do what I wanted to do for over 20 years, which was simply to have the cartoon lair represented in the playset we were given.

Mainly, I wanted to replicate the TV Room from the cartoon show inside of the Playmates Sewer Playset. That seemed iconic and the most logical choice. The size of the playset requires you to scale things down a bit. Portals are a little on the small side if you stand a figure right next to them for comparison, and the wall decorations are not spaced as far apart as seen on the cartoon. If you fudge the sizes and the distances only as much as needed to make it fit in the playset, you wind up with this.



The scale may be a little on the smallish side, but that's often true with playsets. Case in point, have your ninja turtles climb on the side of your Technodrome playset and see how out of scale it looks.

The brick walls, sewer portals, dragon poster and mirror are all from screenshots in this thread. I believe I googled the "One Way" and "Stop" traffic signs. I downloaded the screenshots, made the the portals and the signs and the dragon poster all seperate elements that I could arrange on the brick background however and wherever I needed in Microsoft Paint. Then I put thick cardboard on the floor to make it even, since the playset has that "floormat" part that is raised up. Then I cut the box for a 24 pack of soda so that it would fit inside the playset. I printed the backgrounds on white cardstock, and affixed them to the soda box. With paperclips. I've since glued them, which looks much better.

I really think the printed toon lair background and the childhood toy nostalgia of it actually being inside the original playset that I loved as a kid, merges the two in an awesome combo.



I'm insanely happy with how this turned out. Master Splinter can finally watch his soap operas in the comfort of his true home. And it was all thanks to this thread, so thank you!

[oldmanwinters]

Slick work, Mighty Pirate!

[snake]

I like how you did that, it takes up a lot of sewer lair room, but it's still nice.

[Zulithe]

Fantastic, fantastic pics. Really interesting. But I can't get over just how much better the 2012 Lair is For my tastes, that is. I wonder what the full layout of the 2012 lair is?

[Refractive Reflections]

I don't know if this was discussed earlier in this thread, but no one mentioned the...bathroom. I know it's not important in terms of the series/plot, BUT when I was watching the OT episode "The Ice Creature Cometh" Season 5 they showed it. YET it was in a bizarre location.

The scene starts out with Donatello using his invention to flame defrost the ice-covered refrigerator in the kitchen, but naturally it dysfunctions. So Leonardo runs to the bathroom (you can see the sink and shower stall, and if I remember...even a toilet) to get a wet towel to put out the fire starting in the kitchen.

Using this OT floor plan that Blade Raider made:

Originally Posted by Blade Raider

What's interesting is that the bathroom is shown being just to the right of the kitchen, BUT wouldn't that lead directly outside of the lair? Meaning they would encounter the sewer canal. But whatever...just another room I guess to confuse us all. LOL

I'm trying to remember also wasn't that same doorway used in the OT episode "Leonardo the Renaissance Turtle" when the reprogrammed Rex somehow finds the Turtles' lair? I don't know...

[Vivi]

I tried cleaning up the image and deciphering the text of the scanned floorplan to get this:



And to make it easier to read, made a copy like this:



I could not decipher everything, but if anyone has CSI-like powers of image enhancement or could fill in any of the gaps, I'd gladly fix it. I noticed that they haven't marked all the doorways in as 'portholes', such as from the tv room into the kitchen.

Thanks to oldmanwinters and bladeraider for the screenshots/scan and layout (which is indeed very close to the scanned copy).


Edit: The original OT Lair model sheet for reference:

Spoiler:

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Donatello's workshop must have some own exit, since professor Lloyd Cycloyd could run out from it directly (he only seemed to care for Donatello's workshop workshop, of course).

I'm pretty sure they move between season 1-2, since Baxter Stockman's mouser robots trash the lair during season 1.

[Vivi]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

Donatello's workshop must have some own exit, since professor Lloyd Cycloyd could run out from it directly (he only seemed to care for Donatello's workshop workshop, of course).

I'm pretty sure they move between season 1-2, since Baxter Stockman's mouser robots trash the lair during season 1.

It is possible that there is an entrance on the opposite wall to the lab door, but it is difficult to determine from the scan. It may have also been an inconsistency.

There are also doors/ladderways not accounted for as seen in the screenshots, particularly the ones in the kitchen.

[MightyThirstyPirate]

Originally Posted by JLS

I don't know if this was discussed earlier in this thread, but no one mentioned the...bathroom.

I actually wondered about that when I got interested in figuring out the layout. I eventually concluded that... it being a sewer... they just left the lair and found a place. I'm kinda disturbed that my brain is wired to ask such practical questions, because it led to mental imagery I never expected to have.

Vivi, that's a very nice version of the layout sketch, much easier to see what's what. Very cool!

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

And isn't the garage placed at the end of that tunnel (where the Turtle Van drives in and out, see the "5th Turtle" episode). "To surface" sounds like a sewer manhole.

[Refractive Reflections]

Originally Posted by MightyThirstyPirate

I actually wondered about that when I got interested in figuring out the layout. I eventually concluded that... it being a sewer... they just left the lair and found a place. I'm kinda disturbed that my brain is wired to ask such practical questions, because it led to mental imagery I never expected to have.

LOL...I know EXACTLY what you mean It did lead to some unwanted mental imagery!

Originally Posted by JLS

I know it's not important in terms of the series/plot,

...And judging from the lack of replies to that "bathroom" issue, I guess I was right in it not being important since they were in the sewer after all (as you pointed out MightyThirstyPirate) or no one wanted to mentally "go there" LOL
...But whatever, it's cool, I'm not offended or anything....

[Vivi]

Looking at the scan again, I think the room just left to the TV room is the "Weapons Room", and beside that the "Practice Room". Anyone care to agree/disagree with that guess?

Also, is it possible that the room below Raph's is the bathroom? It would mean that it is accessed from the garage - which is weird but better than no bathroom.

The 'to surface' marking I've just assumed was a ramp that led to an outfall pipe, like this one.

[Vivi]

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

I figured I'd revive this thread to share a very unique look at the good ol' Sewer Lair courtesy of one of the vintage Japanese publications I just received in the mail today:

Sneak Peak at the Secret Sewer Lair! by oldmanwinters, on Flickr

It provides some good points of reference for the training room, Splinter's room, and the garage, as well as the storm drain exit!

There are some obvious errors, though, most notably the entrances to the turtles' individual rooms. There is no weapons room connecting the training area to the main living room on this layout. Also, I think Donatello's Lab is behind his room, rather than alongside of it as suggested by this illustration.

You're right about Donatello's lab being to the right of his room. In this picture, the access to Don's lab is from Michelangelo and Splinter's room!

Also, the room to the left of Splinter's is a storage shed.

[Vivi]

Apologies for multipost, but I thought I'd give a rough (and incomplete) translation of oldmanwinters' marvellous scanned map:

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Vivi

Apologies for multipost, but I thought I'd give a rough (and incomplete) translation of oldmanwinters' marvellous scanned map:

Spoiler:

Nice work, Vivi! Do you have some skills with the language or did you just run some of the words through Google translate like I've tried to do in the past?