Disneyland Medievalism and Embroidery on Wood

Sleeping Beauty Castle

Sleeping Beauty Castle

Peter Pan's Flight

Disneyland Resort Shadow Boxes

The designs in Illustrator before printing

WIP: Disney Mountains

Don't know where this is going yet. It keeps changing.

Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room Part 3

I was told that the original totem dudes needed some totem buddies.  So here's the latest pledges to the ongoing Tiki Room fraternity.

Disneyland's Splash Mountain

This design is actually based on the original model of Splash Mountain entrance barn before it was built, so some of the coloring and design is a bit different than what was actually constructed. My main goal was really just to make some vector wood grain since I had never done it.

Disneyland's Submarine Voyage

Here's an old school submarine from Disneyland's Submarine Voyage with a little nod to the current attraction.

Click the pic for a bigger version.

I was hoping to incorporate some foreground or background detail and thought nautical flags would be cool if done right. I ended up passing on that idea, but I had already made the flags. Each flag stands for a letter. And, yes, you guessed it, the letters spell out SUBMARINE VOYAGE.

Disney has a history of referencing a piece of attraction history if something new replaces something old. In 'The Many Adventure of Winnie the Pooh" at Disneyland, the original Max, Melvin and Buff are hidden above and behind the riders. You can't see them unless you turn around. In the 'Indiana Jones Adventure,' there's an old Eeyore sign in the projector room as a wink to the fact that the show building for the attraction takes up the former Eeeyore parking lot. In this case, I wanted to play with the reverse and have an old attraction contain a nod to a future one. Darla from 'Finding Nemo' has a porthole all her own.

Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room Part 2

These crocodiles are actually on a singing totem pole.  I have them holding up a bowl here for a specific purpose on a side project.  I think they are adorable, but I'm not in love with my gradient work.

Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room

While working on a little side project, I needed an original graphic inspired by Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room.  It's one of my favorites and makes me miss Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings, the kinds of attractions I wanted my niece and nephew to experience.

There's No School like the Old School

EPCOT Center.  Circa 1989.  Ahh.  Magic.

And each Future World pavilion used to have its own logo.  Simple and pure and genius.  Here's a wallpaper for your magical iPad in honor of this great time in history.

Click here to download to whatever folder syncs with your magical iPad.

iPhone Version!

Click here to download to whatever folder syncs with your amazing iPhone.

Dreamfinder would be happy.

Updated Design

Got a magical iPad for my birthday.  Somebody loves me.  Now I just have to go down to Starbucks with it so everyone can see me using it.  ;)  But now I can test my designs!  Which led to this update of the too-busy, colorized Tomorrowland Terrace.  This looks WAY better on the magical iPad.

Click here to download to whatever folder syncs with your magical iPad.

The magical iPad

Beauty and the Beast Dark Ride

Whenever a new Disney movie (the animated kind) was released, I used to imagine what a dark ride for it would be like.  Of course, my dark rides were always 4 times as large as is realistically possible without a show building the size of the Indiana Jones Adventure and $200 million dollars.  I'm guessing I drew this around 1992, back when I was fascinated with the use of a turntable that matches the speed of the ride vehicles to tell an extended piece of the story.  Journey Into Imagination at EPCOT had one, and I thought it was the coolest thing EVAR!

It's Fun to Be Free

I fell in love with EPCOT Center during my first visit in 1988.  What an immense playground for the mind and heart!  Each pavilion brought new use of technology to tell a story or share information in an amazing way.  Sadly, the place has very few wonders left in it.  Most of Future World has been stripped of its elegance and spirit.  Although World of Motion was not a favorite of mine, it believed in itself.  And it believed in you.  And that's worth celebrating.  So I made a little illustration of its grand facade, simple and striking.  (Not to scale.  At all.)

Peoplemover Vehicles

Just messing around in Illustrator with an iPad-sized canvas.  I miss the Peoplemover at Disneyland.  It gave the whole area movement and life.  And the ride itself was a fantastic getaway from the people below.  You kind of felt a bit superior riding around over all the guests.  AND you could spot the short lines and plan your next move.  Hope they bring it back.  If not, enjoy it on your iPad.

Click here to download it to whatever folder syncs with your iPad.

Intergalactic Zoo

While contemplating the future of Tomorrowland at Disneyland, I thought a great attraction would be the Intergalactic Zoo.  An alien corporation partners with Disneyland to bring a whole herd of interesting beasties from planets around the galaxy for the people of Earth to enjoy.

Ranging from the cute and cuddly to the ferocious and deadly, the beasties would roam about custom enclosures that were designed to look and feel like their home planets.  You would tour this zoo in an open-air hover craft.  Sometimes you would enter the enclosure itself and sometimes you would be behind glass, depending on the relative danger to the park guests.  Wink, wink.

I made a quick sketch of the marquee that hints at all the treats to expect inside.

*I spelled intergalactic wrong on the sign.  D'oh!

it's an iPhone world

Here's an iPhone wallpaper made in Illustrator, which is based on Disneyland's it's a small world tower clock.  I did my best to line up all the various sections so that it would match the interface.

Click here to download to whatever photo folder syncs with your iPhone.

But it started as a sketch first.

UPDATE: I decided the date/time area was too boring and the slide bar area was too busy.  So I tweaked it a bit.

Click here to download to whatever folder syncs with your iPhone.

Alien Encounter Entrance

After Alien Encounter opened at Walt Disney World, I began a design for Disneyland. Wishful thinking...

Flying Carpet Ride Vehicle

Disney's Route 66

Back in January 2007, ThemedAttractions.com's (now defunct) Armchair Imagineering contest (the goal was to design a Disney presence in Las Vegas Nevada--NO GAMBLING!) inspired me to design this:

Disney’s Route 66

The site I chose contains quite a few smaller hotels and businesses just north of The Venetian and just south of Circus Circus.

I have no idea if this land can be purchased, but who cares right? This is just for fun. So, in my crazy world, I have set off enough TNT to blow the area to smithereens!

After the dust has settled, I’m proposing to build Disney’s Route 66, an expansive mixed-media shopping/attraction/resort hotel destination.

Larger version here

I like this idea for a Downtown Disney-type area. And I think Walt would have liked it. Like Main Street and Frontierland, it combines a themed-area for families to play together, study a time in American history, and relish in nostalgia. It’s Fantasyland-type area is Radiator Springs from the movie Cars. Cars also provides the central weenie for the area—Radiator Cap.

Like a castle or geosphere or volcano, Radiator Cap can be seen from almost anywhere along Route 66. It’s situated just at the entrance to Radiator Springs. I colored the different zones to make this a little easier.

Larger version here

The area known as Route 66 runs the length of the property. Guests will find restaurants, shops, and attractions along a road that is themed to the glory days of Route 66. As guests walk from one end to the other, they will encounter recreations of some of the most iconic structures you would encounter if you were to drive Route 66 from LA to Chicago.

The main entry for pedestrians on Las Vegas Boulevard is a drive-in movie theater. This instant sense of nostalgia (since there aren’t all that many left) sets the perfect mood for what’s to come.

Larger version here

The road twists and turns just enough to keep guests wondering what’s around the next corner. The first main attraction is Soarin’ Over Route 66. Guests will fly the entire route—at times the journey will offer a slow-moving bird’s eye view of the architecture they see as they explore the area and sometimes the film will be speeded up as they travel to the next location.

After more shops and restaurants, guests come upon Radiator Cap, which houses the Cars Raceway. This attraction (think Test Track with different theming) will pit you against fellow drivers as you race through desert canyons.

Towards the eastern end is the last main attraction, the Route 66 Museum.

Radiator Springs doesn’t need much explanation, I’m guessing. It’s a recreation of the town from the movie. Guests can ride an Autopia-like attraction I’m calling Sarge’s SUV Boot Camp, which runs along the perimeter of the property towards Las Vegas Boulevard. Those walking along The Strip can stop and watch (hopefully, this will act as a draw to bring them in).

In the south-east corner, I’ve left lots of room for expansion. After a year or two of operation, Disney can look at the numbers and decide whether they need more attractions, more shopping, more hotels, or whatever. There’s also a parking structure in the far corner.

The north end of the property contains the resort hotels. The Santa Monica Hotel is an art-deco inspired ‘beach-front’ resort. The Hotel El Rancho is inspired by the hotel of the same name in Gallup, New Mexico.

The moderately-priced hotel, Lakeview Courts, is a kitschy family-friendly area inspired by the hotel of the same name in Oklahoma. Finally, the Will Rogers Hotel is placed near the end of Route 66 (not historically accurate—but it fits better with the Chicago skyline near the eastern edge).
I also left some room for a future water park. Honestly, I just ran out of time to design it, but there’s a spot for it anyway.