Handmade Tomica Town ideas: build your own DIY Tomica city to play with
Tomica, which lets kids grow their imagination and enjoy all kinds of play like building miniature towns, is popular with people of all ages.
A wide variety of toy cars—sports cars, passenger cars, and more—are available, and some of you may want to create a handmade Tomica Town where you can race the cars or line them up on display.
In this article, we’ve compiled a concise guide on how to make your own Tomica Town.
Use it as inspiration for your Tomica Town, whether you theme it after your own neighborhood or build the setting of your dreams—let your ideas run free.
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Handmade Tomica Town ideas: build-your-own Tomica city you can play with (1–10)
circuit (race track)
How about creating a racetrack inside Tomica Town where Tomica cars can speed through? Not only can you enjoy building the cityscape, but you can also highlight the key aspect of Tomica—the cars themselves—and their sense of speed.
A notable feature is adding verticality with a course that slopes down from a higher point to help the cars run smoothly.
Recommended materials are milk cartons and cardboard; aim for a sturdy build that won’t collapse if cars crash into it.
It’s also a great idea to focus on design by putting up signs around the course or unifying the course’s color scheme.
drugstore
Drugstores are as numerous as convenience stores and are essential to creating a friendly neighborhood feel.
You can either re-skin existing buildings like convenience stores with new stickers, or build from scratch using foam board to shape the structure.
Since they’re basically rectangular buildings, focus on the details—signage and advertisements—to clearly convey that it’s a drugstore.
It’s a good idea to observe local drugstores and recreate a color scheme that fits the town you’re making.
restaurant
In the Tomica Town series, a variety of shops are available, but there are also some that haven’t been made into products.
Creating your own restaurant is recommended because you can make types that don’t exist as ready-made items and also customize the exterior.
By carefully observing and replicating local eateries—such as how many floors they have and how their signs are arranged—you can make Tomica Town feel more familiar.
Using cardstock for an easy build is fine, but constructing it with materials like foam board for durability can help it match the look and feel of official products.
Handmade Tomica Town ideas: DIY Tomica city-building you can play with (11–20)
police station
The police exist to protect people’s safety, and having a police station—their base—nearby emphasizes that a town is a safe place to live.
In this project, we’ll build a DIY police station for Tomica Town, not only recreating a typical station but also adding our own twists.
We’ll focus on the image of rushing to help when bad guys appear, installing features like ramps for quick dispatch so vehicles can roll out in a more stylish way.
It’s also important to make the structure sturdy using materials like milk cartons.
Let’s clearly express both the speed of deployment and the dependable strength that keeps everyone safe through the design of the building.
gas station
Gasoline is essential for running cars, and the gas stations that supply it are important spots in any town.
Let’s incorporate such a gas station into Tomica Town to recreate a more comfortable, realistic city.
The steps are to place pillars while considering the height of the Tomica vehicles, build the fueling equipment around the pillars, and attach the characteristic square roof.
Equipment scaled to Tomica can involve many small parts, but paying close attention here will result in a more realistic gas station.
It’s also recommended to recreate features beyond just refueling, such as facilities for car washes and maintenance.
multistory parking garage
A multi-story parking garage that can hold many cars is a spot that reflects the idea of making effective use of a town’s limited space.
Recreate such a garage within Tomica Town, neatly storing lots of Tomica cars while blending it into the urban setting.
Since it’s a multi-floor structure where many cars will be parked, the most important point when building it yourself is to prioritize sturdiness.
Create a solid base that won’t collapse under the weight of the Tomica cars, and be sure to reproduce the finer details like the entrance and payment booth to clearly convey that it’s a public facility within the town.
car wash machine
Let’s try building a DIY car wash machine—like the kind you strongly associate with gas stations—focusing on how the washing mechanism works.
A hallmark of car wash machines is the rotating brushes on the left, right, and top, so we’ll create a rectangular frame that moves forward and backward with those brushes positioned accordingly.
On the back side of the frame, all the brushes are linked by gears, so turning the top brush will simultaneously rotate the side brushes.
Pay careful attention to details like the brush width to match Tomica scale and a frame design that clearly emphasizes it’s a car wash machine.