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I had to paint a lot of real-world, turn of the century props for Tinker Bell And The Great Fairy Rescue and these are some of my favorites.
Below are the designs for the biggest glue bottle in the world. That is because this glue bottle was made real and huge and was installed at Tink’s house in Disneyland along with a couple of other things I worked on. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll be sure to post pics here when I do. Thanks for rocking my world, Imagineers!
Some of these objects might not be as interesting as the stuff I posted last week or the stuff I will post next week, but I wanted to give you an idea of how much time and effort and care goes into things that the audience takes for granted.
Just to be clear, I believe that the audience should take these things for granted. We’re designing worlds and the more care and detail we put into those worlds, the more believable they will seem and the more lost within those worlds the audience will become. Nobody wants to see a movie where the glue bottle on the kid’s craft table is the most interesting thing to consider. But when we take that glue bottle out of the context of the movie, it can become something noteworthy.
My design for the label was based on an old rubber cement label we found. Steven Speilberg’s E.T. was often referenced in the writing of our movie so I made up the brand “Gertie’s” as a reference to E.T.
But Gertie is also a significant name in the history of animation, so it was my Art Director’s idea to make the manufacturer McKay’s cement company after Windsor McKay, creator of Gertie The Dinosaur and one of the forefathers of animation.
The next two props are found in the Father’s study. Note the details like the ink splatter on his reading stand.
I love painting wood grain. One of these days I’ll do a tutorial about how to get cool wood grain effects in Photoshop.
The line art for all of these props is by Ron Roesch with Art Direction by Fred Warter. Painting by me.
Next week I post the coup de gras. The SHIPWRECK!
