At the top of the hill, Braugtigan's sits on the edge of a cliff overlooking a river. The 'Balloon Yard' is down a flight of steps on a section of meadow. There's a large flagstone walk down between the lines of balloons.

Amazing Pics Kelley !!! Your ability to draw is fascinating ....How did you draw them ??? Any specific software ?

Thanks Xtaz. It's just pens, pencils and paper...and years of practice. I drew underground comics for a while.

However; I was having trouble with my printer last night. I wanted to print out black and white copies and tone them with grey markers. As a fall-back, I did the grey tones in Photoshop.

Excellent drawings. When I saw the third image, I thought the characters had to walk up all the steps to get to the balloons. It could make for some interesting acting from scarecrow and seems more practical to have the balloons on the highest cliff to avoid hitting things. The effort of going up could also show the viewer that nothing will put them off getting home. But either is good. I'm probably getting too philosophical about it.

Since the balloons lift off vertically, they can be in either location. I can go either way with it.

I also think it has the potential for a great shot......the camera pans up and at the top of the mountain are all these balloons. I'll try it like that and see how it goes. Here's the progress so far.....

I had a similar experience while driving through Albuquerque New Mexico many years ago.

I was driving up the highway and noticed a solitary hot air balloon... rather pretty... I thought... 'cool'.
As I drove over the crest of a hill my brain was overwhelmed by a vision of hundreds of balloons of all manner of size and color.
It took a moment or two for my senses to recover it was such an unexpected view.
It was the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Needless to say my journey was delayed a few hours due to taking pictures.

For more information on the Fiesta, images and videos too... see: http://www.balloonfiesta.com/

Sounds magical Rodney.
Here's abit more progress. There's a red 6 foot scale at the top of the steps.....

Looks great so far. What's that tower looking thing beside the path by the steps?

Not sure....a look out? It's in the sketch.

Machine shop. Or...a storage shed. Office? All the buildings are soft, globular shaped, and can be whatever we want them to be.

If you'll notice, in the sketch that shows the main office, there are bubbles rising from the roofs. These just 'sorta happened' as I was drawing and the thought was that the whole building was a quasi-balloon, with these 'lava-lamp' globs slowly forming and rising, and as they rise they get more and more transparent, so that twenty or thirty feet above ground they vanish altogether. Or, like bubbles rising through water, they break up into progressively smaller and smaller pieces as they disappear.

Just a thought.

Ken: The landscape is looking like it was slowly eroded out of a block of taffy. Could we get a more hard-edge look? I'm attaching two scans from a book on the making of "Open Season" They designed some really good looking rocks and mountains out of very simple shapes.

I guess I could peak a few splines to try to get that look. I was hoping materials would help too.

Whew...lanscapes are triiicky. Here's abit of an update. I'm not sure what I'm going to fill the right side up with.....probably trees and a wall. Maybe some more of those mushroom buildings. I'm still fighting with the cliff rocks. How does the bit on the right hand side look?

Looking good. I'm for it.

You're doing great so far Ken. I agree, landscapes are tricky.