Cool "Realistic" Disney Characters

I just came across Jirka's blog, and he has an assortment of great designs. But what really caught my eye was these Disney character's.

Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Princess Jasmine from Aladdin

Pocahontas

Mulan

Aurora the Sleeping Beauty

Megara from Hercules

Belle from Beauty & The Beast

Ariela The Little Mermaid

Ursula from The Little Mermaid

7 Deadly Sins of Disney

Illustrator Chris Hill does a nice job interpreting the Disney Princesses as the Seven Deadly Sins. He has some other Mucha inspired pieces at his DeviantArt page, which are worth looking over as well.

Jasmine as Wrath

She was selected due to her aggressive nature and because of one scene from the movie where we see her one suitor exit the courtyard very flustered and missing the fabric covering his underwear. No doubt the doing of Jasmine's tiger Rajah.

Belle as Vanity

Here's Belle, the victim of vanity. While she herself is not vain, those around her seem to see nothing but her beauty, such as Gaston only wants her due to her radiance. Her tale itself is one completely focused on Vanity.

Auroro as Sloth

Aurora was selected to represent sloth for a number of reasons. First because she is widely known as "The Sleeping Beauty", and secondly because for the first 16 years of her life she lived in a homely cottage in the woods, never really doing much other than sing to her woodland friends and pick berries. This was not her choice however, she was in hiding and even that was not her choice. She was largely affected by Sloth although she herself never willingly committed any Sloth acts.

Cinderella as Lust

Cinderella was selected to display Lust because I see Lust as an inner desire that strives for personal pleasure or gain. Cinderella is always dreaming of a life other than the one she has with her wicked step-mother, and who could blame her. And then after dancing with the Prince, he becomes her every thought and she cannot stop wanting to be with him again. She was illustrated in an enticing manner to symbolize temptation, as Lust I feel is the most tempting sin.

Ariel as Greed

My girl Ariel was selected to showcase Greed due to the fact that she was never completely satisfied with what she had under the sea. A crown, a loving family, friends... and copious amounts of human-world treasures were not enough to suffice. But all of these things she really had to try hard to achieve, except for maybe outsmarting Glut the shark, but she made that look effortless. When it came time for Ariel to try to achieve what she wanted most, to be human, she takes the wrong approach, and ends up getting pulled into Ursula's own greedy scheme to rule the oceans. In the end, after Ursula had been destroyed as well as Ariel's chances at humanity (or so she thought) she finally earns her legs by proving her love for her prince to her father.

Snow White as Gluttony

Snow White was selected to represent Gluttony because first and foremost, she takes a bite of an apple and that bite is her demise. I see gluttony as eating so much that harm occurs, and that is precisely Snow White's story. She is also herself a symbol of triumph over Gluttony, for she was saved by her prince. Each of the characters in this series will both represent the sin and triumph over said sin.

Tinkerbell as Envy

Here's Tink, not a princess but the most suitable character to represent the battle with Envy. Tink's envy of Wendy and Peter's relationship causes her to do some pretty mean things, but in the end she overcomes her envy and grows to be the sassy fairy we all know and love.

Via

Dali's Destino is Finally Available!!

I've noted on here before regarding the stunning artwork and animation of Salvador Dali's collaboration with Walt Disney for a short that was originally to appear in the film Fantasia.

Now, after 64 years, we can finally watch Destino in the comforts of our home on our large screen HDTV's! According to Usa Today's Pop Candy: This week marks the Blu-ray release of Fantasia & Fantasia 2000 Special Edition, Disney's animated epic. While that's pretty cool in itself, one of the extras is worth noting: the landmark collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali, Destino.

Work on Destino, a seven-minute animated short, began in 1946 but wasn't completed and released until 2003. It contains many hallmarks of the surrealist painter's work: melting timepieces, telephones, figures morphing into each other, even the "ants in the hand" trick seen in 1929's Un Chien Andalou.

The Fantasia release contains the film in its entirety, along with a feature-length documentary about the making of the piece (and why it took so long to complete).

You can watch it on YouTube. I love how such care was put into this film that you can watch it 20 times and catch new images with each viewing. (I recommend seeing it both with the music on and off.)

Dali & Disney!

The other day I found this great link to the fabled Disney/Dali cartoon that was to appear in the remastered Fantasia 2006, but which never surfaced.

Walt Disney found an unexpected artistic soul mate in Salvador Dali, who he may have met as early as 1937. “We have to keep breaking new trails,” Disney said at the time. “Ordinarily good story ideas don’t come easily and have to be fought for. Dali is communicative. He bubbles with ideas.”

At a dinner party held by movie mogul Jack Warner in 1945, the concept of collaboration between Disney and Dali began to evolve. Disney had been compiling short features for theatrical release. “Destino” was the name of a Mexican ballad that Disney had envisioned as a vehicle for a musical short film project. Dali was attracted to Destino’s title and the concept of destiny attracting two lovers. In late 1946, Dali began arriving at the Disney Studio every morning at eight-thirty and working until five at night. Twenty seconds of film, several paintings, various pen-and-ink drawings and many storyboards came out of this eight month period during which Dali was an employee of Walt Disney Studios. He hinted in his own newsletter, Dali News, that the collaborative film effort would “offer to the world the first vision of ‘psychological relief’.”

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Dali at work on one of the numerous
images used as a basis for Destino

Destino is a six-minute film set to a Spanish song, devoid of dialogue and without a linear story line. It follows a dark-eyed ballerina on a journey among strange objects through a desert landscape in a dreamlike atmosphere. It is a love story as only Dali could envision it, complete with images of ballerinas, baseball players, melting clocks, tuxedo-clad eyeballs, ants that turn into bicyclists, and two giant heads carried on the backs of the Fates (represented as giant turtles.) The project was a collaboration between American animator Walt Disney and Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, and features music written by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez.

Salvador Dali at work at the Walt Disney Studio, circa 1946.

A Dali oil painting produced for Destino was later incorporated within the completed short.

Destino (the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian word for "destiny") was storyboarded by Disney studio artist John Hench and artist Salvador Dalí for eight months in late 1945 and 1946. Hench compiled a short animation test of about 18 seconds in the hopes of rekindling Disney's interest in the project, but the production was no longer deemed financially viable and put on indefinite hiatus.

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Finished oil painting used for the film

Twenty two paintings and 135 story sketches into the project, Dali was asked to abandon Destino as a result of post-World War II changes and other studio commitments. It lay dormant for 57 years. In 1999, Walt Disney's nephew Roy Edward Disney, while working on Fantasia 2000, unearthed the dormant project and decided to bring it back to life. Roy instructed producer Baker Bloodworth and director Dominique Monfery to complete Dali’s short. They did so with the assistance of John Hench, (with a little help from the journals of Dalí's wife Gala Dalí) who along with Bob Cormack assisted Dali on the original project. The finished film unites Dali’s surrealist vocabulary to animation and includes five of Dali’s original paintings. The 18 second original footage that is included in the finished product is the segment with the two tortoises.

Another Dali oil painting to which animation of a baseball player and baseball were later added.

Though the faces are distorted, they resemble the image below.

I'm not sure if this is an actual Dali, as some of the elements do not resemble his style.

From the January 20, 2008 press release: Destino began in 1946 as a collaboration between Walt Disney and the famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali. A first-hand example of Disney's interest in avant garde and experimental work in animation, Destino was to be awash with Dali's iconic melting clocks, marching ants and floating eyeballs. However, Destino was not completed at that time. In 2003 it was rediscovered by Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney, who took on the challenge of bringing the creation of these two great artists to fruition. In addition to the completed Destino, this exciting addition to the Walt Disney Treasures line also includes an all-new feature-length documentary that examines the surprising partnership between Dali and Disney plus two new featurettes; "The Disney That Almost Was," an examination of the studio's unfinished projects; and "Encounters with Walt," which addresses the surprisingly diverse group of celebrities and artists who were attracted to Walt Disney's early work.

A finished conceptual oil painting done by Dali as inspiration for his Disney short Destino.

The Dali painting as it appears in the film -- with some digital elements used to extend the perimeter of his painting and with an animated figure and two prop elements.

A June 2008 press release for the Walt Disney Treasures line revealed Destino is now being excluded from a 2008 "Treasures" release. According to "Treasures" host Leonard Maltin, the film is still likely to see an eventual DVD release, yet not necessarily within the "Treasures" moniker. An August 2008 Disney press release stated Destino is now due for a 2010 DVD release and "will be available to own for the first time along with an all-new feature-length documentary that examines the surprising partnership between Dali and Disney."

Full version of Destino. The video's quality is not that great but the images are still beautiful.




Sources: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5