I DREW THAT: Zazzle x D23 2026

 

A selection of items are available on Zazzle featuring the exclusive character art that I created for D23 now splashed across their 2026 everything; or perhaps they’re on the D23 site offered through Zazzle. The Print-On-Demand platform features Mickey, Miss Piggy, the Mad Hatter and The Sun Bonnets on shirts, drink ware and other items. I don’t know how long these have been available. 

I don’t know if other characters are waiting in the wings to be featured on merchandize. I also don’t know if these are D23 Gold Member Exclusive items. All I can say is order it while you can and keep an eye open for more in the future.

https://d23.com/shop/

D23 Character Collage Tote Bag

This large page with sold er straps features 8 pieces of my character art: the Mad Hatter, Dory, Daisy Duck, Lightning McQueen, Kermit the Frog, the Sun Bonnets, Pua and Cruella DeVil with the D23 logo in the center square. It appears to have the same design printed on the reverse.

Character Tee-Shirts 

Mickey Mouse, Miss Piggy, the Mad Hatter and the Sun Bonnets are available with character art printed on the fronts of shirts. Shirts are offered in a variety of colors.

The same selection of character art are available with the art printed on the backs and the D23 logo printed on the fronts on the upper-left chest.

Mickey 2-Sided Hoodie

This hoodie features Mickey Mouse printed on the back and the D23 logo on the front, upper-left chest. The hoodie is zippered in the front with hoodie drawstrings and 2 pockets.

Mickey Hat

The classic dad hat is available in a variety of colors. Is is contracted with 100% cotton bio-washed chino twill for a soft, worn feel.

Character Insulated Tumblers

Here are a selection of three characters: Mickey Mouse, Miss Piggy and the Mad Hatter. The tumblers stainless Steel construction holding 20 oz.

D23 Character Mugs

Mickey Mouse, Miss Piggy, the Mad Hatter and the Sun Bonnets are printed on two-sides of a coffee mug. The handle and inside of the mug are colored to compliment the art. The mugs are available in two sizes.

I DREW THAT- D23 Gold Member 2026 Branding

 

It’s a remarkable honor to have contributed this year to D23 look. D23, the official Disney fan club changes its branding look in subtle ways that still engages its fan community. The branding applies across most of the elements that reach the fans including membership cards, display banners, and not the least of which pins. I drew as many as 17 pieces of character art for the D23 group. We’ll see as the year progress which of them pop up and in what variety of uses.

 

A lot of the character choices in the mix give nods to significant anniversaries celebrated by the many characters, movies and theme park icons that Disney is famous for. 

 

Among the items in the Gold Member gift kit are a members card and certificate, a commemorative Mickey Mouse pin celebrating “Thru the Mirror” 1936 short, collectible magnet featuring Pluto, $25 event discount and D23 Disney Lorcana card.

This year, higher level membership offer additional premium gifts including a a few items featuring some of my art: a 10-piece pin set and a RSVLTS x Disney Shirt.

Here, I share 14 of the characters that I created for D23.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (No. 1)
Mickey Mouse (Thru the Mirror, 1936, 90yr)
Cruella De Vil (One Hundred and One Dalmatians, 1961, 65yr)
Pluto the pup 

Daisy Duck
Pua (Moana, 2016, 10yr)
Mad Hatter (Alice in Wonderland, 1961, 65yr)
James P. “Sulley” Sullivan (Monsters, Inc., 2001, 25)

Dory (Finding Dory, 2016, 10yr)
Sun Bonnets (Country Bear Jamboree, 1971, 55yr)
Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog (The Great Muppet Caper, 1981, 45yr)

Lightning McQueen (Cars, 2006, 20yr)
Mickey Mouse (No.2) (Thru the Mirror, 1930, 90yr)

 The style that D23 had me apply to the characters is an extension of what I’ve been doing on my ongoing series of sticky note sketches. I describer it as something honoring 1930’s newspaper clip art or “Monopoly Man” art. It incorporates bold line work and clear silhouettes. It sometimes has rubber-hose arms and legs. It never fusses with making sure shapes are closed off to define spaces to drop in color.

 

monstergram7 - Top 3 January 2022

 

The monotonae blog has been a current-works portfolio. It has also been neglected for quite a while. At the end of 2022, I thought that I would at least do some sort of Top 9 or 10 liked postings from my instagram account, monstergram7. There are phone apps that will filter that kind of thing, but for reasons I didn’t like the results, not the least of which is the inclusion of the 2021 “Top 9” post. I felt that the pool ought to be limited to the original posts. So in brute force manner in went back through my posts to see what the top 10 were, and in the process I could determine the tops by each month.

And now here I am, beginning a month by month accounting of the top 3.

#1- Cinderella’s Broken Coach (ballpoint pen ink on paper napkin). 

I had drawn this in a Carl’s Jr. one morning while waiting out work being done on my car, so the vehicle repair theme was at the forefront of my mind. Playing around with stylizing the Disney princess is a frequent part of my 9-to-5 job.

 

#2- World Pictographic Icons from a D23 Map (digital). 

This square of 3 is just one of many that features the pictographs that I designed to embellish a map for the D23 Disney Fan Club. The map that I had created is just the backing board for the real prize- a set of enamel pins each representing a different Disney resort plus the Disney Cruise Line. The inspiration for the style was Rolly Crump’s animals for “it’s a small world” attraction that compliments Mary Blair’s  fanciful designs.

#3- Poppy Jean, Tiger (black ink and color pencil on paper).

Poppy is another of my attempts to develop a pin-up/cheesecake character design in my own style, whatever that is. Many successful artists can be identified by how they draw and paint beautiful women: Dan DeCarlo, Frank Frazetta, Alberto Varga, Olivia Berardinis, and the list goes on. However, I get in my own way because so much of my 9-to-5 job is to be a style mimic, and not a style originator.

I think some time in 2021, I had drawn a loose princess character, which I thought could be the basis of that pin-up. Even now, I’ve not settled on a distinct design, but just to be contrarian, she’s keeping the glasses.

I had explored perhaps two dozen different names. I perhaps settled on “Poppy” because I frequent do my initial sketches with a Poppy Red Col-Erase color pencil. The second name, Jean came about because I liked the three syllable rhythm. It won out over Poppy Anne, Poppy Jo and several others.

The costume is a nod to the Lunar calendar Year of the Tiger for 2022.

Mapplicable

 D23, The Official Disney Fan Club, has announced the 2022 D23 Gold Member Collector Set. It’s the exclusive gift that every new and renewing member receives.

For more information about the club, please go to the D23 site, naturally: https://d23.com

My contribution to the set, was a world map that is the backing board for the real prizes that are a seven-piece set of exclusively designed enamel pins. Each pin features one of the six Disney theme Park Resorts plus a seventh for the Disney Cruise Line. To be clear, another artist designed the pins.

All two-dimensional maps are necessarily stylized representations of three-dimensional features existing on a spherical globe. In this, I chose to build the land masses from circles and parts of circles and a few straight lines.

The characters and things iconography on the final piece of art are all blues, teals and purples so as not to compete with the pins. 

However, there were more colorful early versions.

conceptual sketches

Many of the animal elements are inspired by those found on the “it’s a small world” attraction: hippopotamus, tiger, penguin, llama, kangaroo, and goose. I think the animals for the attraction are more Rolly Crump designs inspired by Mary Blair’s stylization than purely coming from Blair’s work for the boat ride. Keying off of the style, I chose other animals and things as nods to other Disney things.

Sea Serpent - Disneyland’s defunct Submarine Voyage attraction

Parrot - Rosita from Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, Adventureland

African Bull Elephant - Jungle Cruise attraction, Adventureland.

Polar Bear - Walt Disney’s White Wilderness (1958)

Big Horned Sheep - Grand Canyon diorama, part of Disneyland’s Railroad experience

Baobob Tree - Disney’s Animal Kingdom’s Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction

Steam Locomotive - Walt Disney’s love of trains

Baby Oyster - Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland

Moose - Disney’s Brother Bear

Aulani Resort and Spa main building

747 Jet Airplane - Intended align with the “travel” theme to embellish a title box that didn’t get included on the map

London Tower and Notré Dame Cathedral couldn’t fit on the map and were eliminated as candidates

I am pleasantly surprised to see that the D23 designers had taken the purple grid pattern I had created for the map’s oceans for the background and repurposed it for the collection’s passport cover. For this pattern, I was inspired by the tiles of the Mary Blair murals that once flanked the Tomorrowland corridor in Disneyland. In fact, the square tiles were cut from a larger pattern of waves and mixed up. It is possible that many of the tiles can be reassembled in a few continuous lines. That’s trivia, not a challenge.

conceptual sketches

early green & blue version

exploratory purple & yellow version

early red & purple version

Eyes 'n Ears

Continuing my Behind-The-Sketch coverage of the map the I designed and draw for the D23 2020 Gold Member gift- D23 Fantastic Worlds package. This time I have for you a complete accounting of the 23 Mickeys that I hid on the map.

These clipping were composed for Instagram, but I think that they work as helpful keys to each of the 23 “hidden Mickeys.” Each square is a detail shot, clearly, to my eyes, showing the Hidden Mickey with sufficient contextual surroundings and framed to indicate the map coordinates where each may be found.

For example, in this first square, within or mostly-within the box that is the map coordinates of B-16 you will find something designed to resemble Mickey Mouse. It could be his head in part or full, or a simple 3-cicle representation of his familiar head silhouette.

This last hidden Mickey is either the most obvious or the most hidden Mickey of them all. For those of you who still want the thrill of finding it yourselves, but require a hint, then here’s the hint: turn the map up-side-down.

A funny thing happened while I was drawing this map and hiding Mickeys- I may have drawn some accidental Mickeys too. Have I been working for Disney too long? These two were spotted by my brother’s coworkers whom I assume spent part of their lunch break combing through the map.

And now here are all 23 intentional HM’s pulled together in a high-contrast chart (click on the image to maximize):

That’s not all of the things that I hid in this map, but, I’ll just have to reveal those at a later time. Or you can comment with your theories about what you think you have spotted (by map coordinates, please) and I will confirm if I can.

Happy mapping.

– Bryan Mon.