Draw 51 Disney Parks Fan Arts

a.k.a. What I Drew for Disneyland’s 65th Birthday - July 1 - 17

This the “aftermath” article; a follow-up record of my experience drawing 51 Disney Parks inspired sketches in an official Disneyland autograph book over 17 consecutive days. This project was constructed to celebrate and honor Disneyland’s 65th Birthday anniversary, occurring July 17th, 2020.

You may explore this blog for scans of each sketch, each accompanied by “Hidden Mickeys” guides.

51

The number of sketches was simply dictated by the number of pages in the book, electing to only draw on one side, the right side, of each sheet.

As much as I tried to pace my sketch output over the 17 days, an early miscalculation had me creating 5 sketches in each of the days 2 and 3. By the last five days, a production rate of 2 and 3 sketches per day had me thankful that I had “banked” the additional sketches early in the life of the project.

Ink and Pencil

With the exception of one, all of the sketches were drawn with black ink and color pencils. As dry media, it’s something that I am comfortable with and has the benefit of their control and absence of drying time. Only for the “Main Street Electrical Parade” sketch it was that I added white opaque paint for the effect of the tiny lights on the parade floats.

The last sketch of each day was fully colored. The rest of the sketches were toned with a single pencil color. The last day, I went full “fancy” with all three sketches completed in full color.

Ideas Abound

The whole endeavor was branded with my “What Shall I Draw Today?” banner. These are limited-time opportunities for folks to offer sketch suggestions. I treated each day as distinct windows of time in which to gather suggestions with no prior suggestions carrying over to later days. This meant that, for the most part, I didn’t know what I was going to draw on any given day. Neither was I keeping track of the suggestions, so there was always the possibility that a good suggestion would come and go and not get included in the series.

Top 10

According to the number of “likes” received on Instagram, here are the top 10 sketches:
1. Splash Mountain feat. Br’er Rabbit & Tiana
2. Animation Academy feat Aladdin and friends
3. The Voices of Liberty feat. Sam the Eagle and Ariel and her sisters
4. Radiator Springs Racers feat. Ian and Barley Lightfoot brothers vs. Kim Possible and Ron
5. Character Meet and Greets feat. Penny meeting Tiana
6. Dapper Day feat. Roger and Anita with Pongo and Perdita
7. Kilimanjaro Safaris feat. Oliver and Dodger
8. Fantasmic! feat. Mickey vs. Maleficent in dragon form
9. Pirates of the Caribbean feat. Captain Hook vs. Captain Jack Sparrow, with Lilo and Stitch meeting Captain Redd
10. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad feat. Max Goof and Roxanne

The Splash Mountain sketch depicts Br’er Rabbit handing over the deed to the mountain to Tiana. This was topical as Disney had just announced their plans to re-imagine the attraction to be inspired by The Princess and the Frog (2009). As nearly every such announcement that entails changes to an established Disney Park’s attraction, this was also the most controversial sketch, with several folks expressing disappointment in the announcement.

Favorite Characters, Favorite Attractions

I had attempted by my choice of words to stress that ideas should be about favorite, beloved things found and/or experienced in a Disney Park and the like. Basically, if it’s the type of thing covered by the Disney Parks Blog, then I thought it worth consideration. Adventures by Disney being vacations that on Disney properties fall outside the intent of the “Disney Parks” theme.

I an certain that many suggestions were lead by choices of favorite characters who were subsequently stuck into arguably appropriate attractions.

I didn’t approach some of the big “E“-Ticket attractions until after the July 4th weekend, knowing that there wouldn’t be a shortage of suggestion for those.

Disneyland First

The number of Disneyland, California centric suggestions far out numbered those for other parks. You may speculate as to why as well as I can.

For my part, I leaned towards the original incarnation of an attraction when devising a sketch. For example, Space Mountain exists in different parks, the cars drawn have the in-line configuration of the Magic Kingdom, WDW original version. But since the original park’s attractions have been carried over to the other parks, things like “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “it’s a small world” and “Haunted Mansion” were all considered to be of the original California park.

Attractions, Rides and Shows

If there’s any commonality to the type of storytelling guiding the sketch compositions, then it's present in how I tried to follow the example of “Donald Duck Goes to Disneyland.” The conceit here is that everything that Donald experiences at Disneyland is “real.” Donald can meet real pirates on “Pirates of the Caribbean“ and see real singing birds and tikis at the “Enchanted Tiki Room.” He rides a real elephant, but not IN an elephant shaped vehicle attached to a long arm.

When depicting a show, that isn’t so much about an ride experience, then that show is an actual event or at least has real performers. So, “it’s a small world” are singing and dancing children. In the “Main Street Electrical Parade,” the dragon, Elliot isn’t a float, but a character that can stand on his hind legs.

Every rule has its exceptions. For example, with “train” being in the name “Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train,” I chose retain that aspect rather than just draw Heimlich carrying passengers on his back.

I Have an Idea

Ten of the 51 sketches were my own elections. Of note, the first sketch is a of the “French Market Restaurant,” in New Orleans Square, Disneyland. Its inclusion is a nod to the restaurant being where I had my first Disney job. Currently, I work as a staff artist for Disney’s products group.

About midway, I decided to reserve the last day’s sketches first for “Sleeping Beauty Castle” and later including the “Main Street Electrical Parade” and “Fantasmic!” Not that folks hadn’t suggested these three night time spectaculars, but first for reason that it seemed appropriate that the last day feature 3 end of day experiences. Secondly, I wasn’t assured that on that final day, any of those would come in as actual suggestions.

MVPs

Mickey Mouse appears in 5 sketches: 1) E.P. Ripley train engine, 2) Fantasmic!; 3) Videopolis; 4) Star Tours; and 5) Balloons on Main Street.

Goofy also appears in 5 sketches: 1) The Great Movie Ride; 2) The Little Red Wagon corn dogs location; 3) Star Tours; 4) The Marching Band; 5) The Matterhorn.

Things Coming at You

In depicting a ride, it seems my go-to composition is to show a rider in a vehicle headed toward the audience/reader.
1) E.P. Ripley train engine; 2) The Jungle Cruise; 3) Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin; 4) Rock N Roller Coaster; 5) The Matterhorn Bobsleds; 6) Tron Lightcycle Power Run; 7) Dumbo the Flying Elephant; 8) Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride; 9) Peter Pan’s Flight; 10) Space Mountain; 11) Star Tours; 12) Radiator Springs Racers; 13) Storybook Land Canal Boats.

Things Going Away from You

It’s not typical that the back sides of things are more interesting than its front sides. Usually, showing the backs allows for the reader to share the point of view (P.O.V.) of the featured character(s).
1) Big Thunder Mountain Railroad; 2) Submarine Voyage; 3) The Great Movie Ride.

Hidden Mickeys

Across the 51 sketches, you can find (maybe) 112-1/2 Hidden Mickeys. Some are poorly drawn. A few were so poorly drawn that I ultimately didn’t count them as Hidden Mickeys. 1/2 of a Hidden Mickey I count because it mirrors a true Hidden Mickey in the sketch. Some of them are literally the written name “MICKEY.”
The one sketch without a hidden Mickey, is that of “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.”
There’s 1 hidden Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
There’s 1 number “65.”

Oops

“Bear Country Jamboree” - The mounted heads each have name plates. I incorrectly mixed up the names tagging the moose as “Max” and the Buck as “Melvin.”

“Alice’s Curious Labyrinth” - I misspelled “Labyrinth” as “Labrynth.”

All other inaccuracies I attribute to those of artistic choices.

The “Almost” Sketch

Each sketch entailed some bit of reference gathering before proceeding to put pencil on paper.

The one idea that I had gathered reference but then aborted was this (more or less): The Starlight Cafe in Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland featuring performer Sonny Eclipse sharing the stage with Max Rebo and also Captain EO’s crew/music band.

The first element here is Sonny who is an audio-animatronic alien creature that sings original space/lounge turns and plays a type of keyboard with a semi circular keyboard. Next, Max Rebo is a blue elephant looking alien from Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi who performs music on a semi-circular keboard in Jabba the Hutt’s palace. As for the last element, what you need to know about the Captain EO (Michael Jackson) crew/band is that Hooter is a blue elephant looking alien, but who isn’t the same alien race as Max Rebo.

All the visual links are there and obvious.

I aborted the sketch because it failed the criteria of whether I thought that Sonny Eclipse was among somebody’s favorite things from a visit to the Magic Kingdom and if adding up to five characters reinforced or complimented that experience.