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So, this happened recently.

Black ink and color pencil on Bristol Board.
17.8 cm x 12.7 cm (7.00 in. x 5.00 in.)

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monstergram7 - November & December 2015

Instagram posts from the last two months of 2015.
https://www.instagram.com/monstergram7/

That’s what you get form me: non work related sketches and doodles. No beauty shots of desserts. No declarative self-composed photos as locality testaments. Oh, and I’ll conduct “what shall i draw today” sessions, in fact I’ll be doing that in a few weeks.

Halloween Tricks

This week’s post features a Halloween themed drawing.

Focusing on costumes, I was inspired by the classic Mickey Mouse Club and particularly with its Circus Day. The Mouseketeers routinely performed in costumes. For western skits, they may have had galloped around with what I’ll call pony-dolls that had stuffed legs hanging off both sides for the illusion of them being the rider’s legs. You can find images of this from Disneyland’s opening day with the Mouseketeers in their western wear. So here, an elephant-doll, sans stuffed rider’s legs, is the same idea.

In the end, it doesn’t look like “Halloween.” If only Halloween had landed on a Thursday this year, then the thematic link would have been stronger, since “Circus Day” on the MMC was traditionally on a Thursday.

[digital color@tumblr]

“Here Comes the Circus” from the Mickey Mouse Club:
http://youtu.be/D42Czi8TMSY

Mouseketeers on Disneyland’s opening day July 17, 1955:
http://youtu.be/ge3QXyxwsGk

Vitual Royality

Having been back at Disney after several years at Cartoon Network, I’ve resurrected intrest in Royality. This you may have suspected from the previous posts of a Frozen drawing and the Belle and Beast illustration.

Here’s a montage of some of the Disney princesses in the Royality style taken from a note book. (L-R: Snow White, Rapunzel, Pocahontas, Cinderella, Cinderella doing laundry, Rapunzel, Jasmine mad, Eilonwy with Hen Wen).

Nothing may come of it, but they’re fun to draw almost anything in my sketch and note books is good blog fodder.

Good, Better, Beast

update from HNY+1:

Check out the finished color image @ tumblr.

I made this image especially to decorate my office nameplate. I felt it had to be Disney Princess related since I expect to be doing a lot of those kinds of drawings. Having the Beast at the drawing board then fell out naturally. At first the drawing only included Beast, Belle and the furniture property. In the few days leading up to hand inking it, I felt it lacked some thing(s). Lumiere and Cogsworth were then added to help fill out the storytelling. The result is the not so subtle analogous situation of the harried artist working under deadline with an expectant audience.

While I’m satisfied with the composition, I’ll admit that the character size comparisons aren’t quite accurate.

HNY +1

HAPPY NEW YEAR +1!!

Now, get back to work.

The Royal World: “Drawing”
Red pencil and black ink on paper.
21.59  x  27.94 cm (8.50 in.  x  11.00 in.)
2014

Art © Bryan Mon.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and related characters ™ and ©Disney.

The Royal World: Frozen

sketches.

Red pencil and black ink on paper.

21.59 x 27.94 cm  (8.50 in.  x  11.00 in.)

Characters from Disney’s Frozen in the “Royality” style (more or less).

Characters ©Disney Enterprises.

Rose Red and Snow White

carmine red pencil on paper

sketch

2013

Something inspired by story in the Grimm Brothers’ book of fairy tales.

Hocus Pocus

Dazatta attitude explorations (Royality)
color pencil and color ball point-pen ink on paper
21.59 cm x 30.48 cm (8.50 in. x 12. 00 in.)
Sept. 2007

Dazatta is either a Gypsy princess or a princess of an Arabian desert kingdom. In that she's a made-up character from an as-of-yet uncomposed fable, her royal lineage, back story, motivations and even her name are all in flux.

In the mix of the seven regular princesses of Royality, she has the singular talent of controlling magics, often with two wands. She's more spoiled and elitist than the other princesses; a lot more than Snow White and Cinderella. Being so far from the comforts of her desert home, however, the medieval castle and temperate climate housing their highnesses, presents many challenges - wait until her first winter storm.

She Kissed a Frog

Essile character sketches
Royality
Col-Erase pencil and ball point pen on paper
21.59 cm x 30.48 cm (8.50 in. x 12.0 in.)
October 2007

Essile (es-seal) is the princess who kissed (or in the case of "Royality" will kiss) a frog. The act will break the enchantment to return the frog to his rightful form of a young prince.

Older sister to four princely brothers, Essile's world is facts and known quantities with no room for fantasies and magic. In that way, she's grown to become quite judgmental. Her story arc then is to open her mind to new ideas and put herself in new experiences.

Once There Was Princess

For a span of about two years, I drew princesses at Disney Consumer Products (DCP) group. It’s difficult, now, to say of what qualifications I had for such a position - drawing over 80% of the art of the character Mulan for her licensing styles guide and all of the Jessie art for Toy Story 2 guide? For my part, my interest was equal parts contributing to the custodianship of classic Disney properties and characters plus I like drawing girls.

It can not be overlooked that, DCP had divided into separate lines of businesses by categories (hard-lines, soft-lines, toys and new film properties) each with their own team of designers and artist, while the long time residing Cinderella artist, Diane Keener, had recently retired. I at least had Mulan, Jessie and a few Belle drawings in the portfolio, compared to the Mickey and Pooh artists in the soft-lines artist pool.

Unfortunately, fashion programs quickly turned out to be more design oriented, which favored artistic interpretations rather than the classic versions of the characters. Then next big thing was the company’s discovery that “The Disney Princess” was an untapped brand and the company’s decision to make it an official brand with product.

I had a satirical response to the trend of mashing Snow White, Cinerella, Ariel, etc. together on to tee-shirts: “The Royal World”. Drawing upon and spoofing the conceit of MTV’s “the Real World”, I had drawn up a little poster featuring six of the company’s most popular heroines, suggesting that in doing so that trouble would ensue. I then carried the idea further by drawing a few newspaper styled comic strips.

Five years later, it’s an idea that hasn’t died. In my current sketch book, I drew my version of the Grimm brother’s titular character, Snow White. The property, whether it reappears as a book, comic strip or TV cartoon, has been re-named “Royality”. The design is rather simplified as if for animation. Snow White takes on the leadership roll most often - mostly because, as they all live in her castle, after her wicked step mother/ queen has been dispatched.

The “Disney Princess” brand continues to be successful. No surprise considering that the princesses themselves have continued to be popular through the last seventy years. On the other hand, the success of films “Shrek”, “Hoodwinked” and to an extent the comic book “Fables” prove that its still worth satirizing.