Becker & Mayer: Build Sleeping Beauty Castle
Trader Sam | July 6, 2014
This is unusual, and a bit of a shocker. Tonight, I checked my smartphone after a nice enchilada birthday dinner, and there’s an email from one of our contributing artists, Becky.
It seems that Becker & Mayer, the producers of many cool books, will be releasing a “Build Sleeping Beauty Castle” kit, featuring “specialty printing and LED lights.” I would assume that specialty printing would refer to gold foil, and I wonder if soldering is required for the LED lights. But, Becky’s question was, “Is this your model?”
I honestly don’t know; I haven’t been told anything. Could it be my Sleeping Beauty Castle paper model that I released back in 2006? There’s a slim possibility . . . very slim. Let’s take a look at the brief details that Becker & Mayer give about the upcoming kit.
The box measures roughly 9 in x 12.75 in x 2 in. That would just about fit all of my printed parts, the instructions (in the form of a booklet), and an LED kit. So, the box size seems to fit. But, what about the booklet?
The instruction booklet measures about 5.5 in x 8.5 in with 5,000 words. If you shrank my own instructions—23 pages (normally printed on 8.5 in x 11 in paper) and approximately 2,000 words—to that size and added extra instructions for the LEDs, you would get around the same number of pages and words. It’s a rough deduction, but it comes close.
Honestly, I wouldn’t publish my model in a book as-is. I’ve learned so much in the past 10+ years (wow, over a decade!) of designing paper models and creating their graphics. There are, I believe (we artists are always tough on our own work), flaws in the model that could be greatly improved . . . both graphically and physically.
Before anyone gets into a huff or a panic, Disney does own the rights that permit them to make this into a book/kit. It was part of my contract with them in 2008. I can’t say too much more than that.
For now, let’s all wait and see. If it’s a brand-new model, that would be awesome. I’d like to see what the “specialty printing” actually is, and how the LEDs are incorporated into the model.
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If any one is still interested in this, I just bought it at Barnes & Noble for 50% off ($11). The model is much simpler than yours. Although it is printed on heavy gloss card stock and die-cut. They also had the Disney Cross Stitch kit (shown in the picture above) and kits to build R2-D2 and Darth Vader (hey, they’re Disney now…) at 50% off.
Thanks, Scott! I still haven’t found any photos of it online.
Bought it last week and steadily making my way through.
Those booklet measurements you mentioned are for the accompanying booklet about the inspiration, construction and history of Sleeping Beauty Castle, not the manual itself. Instruction booklet is eight pages, lot of visuals.
Awesome! I didn’t know that it was out. I’ve been searching, but to no avail. I’ll have to look for it again, maybe try to find some pics.
Barnes and Noble’s where I got mine. They’re pretty good at carrying those sorts of kits after all.
I’ve found the kit on the Barnes & Noble website, but nowhere else online. I was hoping to find some pictures of the kit contents.
Hey! Happy Birthday! : )
Why, thank-you!
Gold foil would be interresting to say the least, but “specialty printing” could just refer to “not printed on your cheap pc printer”! lol : ) Lighting kits have become cheaper and more popular. Most notably there are incredible USS Enterprise kits from Polar Lights that come with them. It’s the question of how many and where they have you install them that has me curious.
I was 99% positive this wasn’t a traditional piracy/plagarism issue based primarily on the fact that they used the Disney copyright. If it was, it would certainly be the most brazen one I’ve seen. No, I figured it was most likely part of the agreement you made with Disney a couple of years ago and it’s just now coming to the market. Something about the wording in the Becker and Meyer catalog makes me think that this may be a scaled down model, half size or smaller. That would allow for the consolidation of several parts from 3D to 2D and greatly simplify construction for kids. It’ll be interresting to see how this works out to say the least!
Thank you Paper-Inside for posting the info about this that I spotted last night. I never heard of Becker and Meyer.
I admit that my model is a bit too complicated for the average adult, which is another reason that I would never publish it without simplifying it to reach a much wider audience. Larger audience equals more sales/profits.
I highly doubt that this is my model or even a variation on it. I hope it’s something new, original, and exciting. If not, I’ll have a nice collectible that I can add to my portfolio and pass on to my nephews.
I REALLY wish I knew when this was coming out!