IMO, Dragon is right up there with (and in some cases even exceeds) Pixar quality. Hear me out, this is special, special film. It heralds the triumphant return of writer/directors Chris Sanders and Dean Deblois, of Lilo and Stitch fame. Go see it….NOW! You won’t regret it! It’s quite a ride.

First things first, a quick look a curious little anomaly involving Stitch.

One of my more random projects, was pin that was a part of this crazy scavenger hunt series. It had to involve Stitch (can’t remember why), and a clue that might lead a guest to the main EPCOT pin station… add that to the fact it was only sold at ~one~ store in Animal Kingdom, and you’ve got one strange little pin.

I messed around a bit with the Communicore logo, but the general consensus was that people wouldn’t “get it” (which is just ridiculous =). So, I threw together something a little more normal. It didn’t have to be too obvious, because it came with a poem that included clues.

The finished design, which includes one of my favorite shapes, the hexagon!

I know, I know… But it’s retro future-y so I’m going to include it. This is part of the Designer Mug Series, one of the two things I did with my actual name on it (very exciting). I had carte blanche to do whatever I wanted, as long as it related to both Disneyland and WDW.

Well, it’s me, and I couldn’t do EPCOT, so in my head the next best thing was Tomorrowland. Given the opportunity again, I would probably do something with the Tiki Room — but I still like what I came up with.

I wanted to commemorate the land’s better days….

I was rather in a hurry (finished on my very last day of work), so I had to limit the detail. I kept everything fairly simple, in both color and design. My first idea was to use the World Clock from “old” Tomorrowland in Disneyland….mostly because the shape seemed serendipitous in relation to my mug. I also made use of the Skyway and Rocket to the Moon.

Finally I inserted some favorite Disney phrases, because I could.

From the Disneyland TV show: “(Tomorrowland) A promise of things to come.”
Meet the Robinsons (among other sources): “Keep Moving Forward.”
Walt Disney/Horizons: “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
Space Mountain Exit Queue: “In the future, you may find yourself off world.”
Carousel of Progress: “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day.”

(While random, I always loved that Space Mountain quote. It made me feel very immersed in the whole ride experience.)

So, without further ado…

Tada! Here’s the final product. As far as I know, they are still for sale all over property. Tell your friends, because now is the time! Now is the best time! Now is the best time of your life — to buy one of my mugs!

Early in my internship, I made a point to bug the pin team until they gave me an assignment (anything!). My first pin was in honor of………wait for it…….High School Musical 2! A girl has to start somewhere, at least I got to draw characters. After that, several of us non-pin interns were able to cut our teeth on awesome jumbo monorail pins, thanks to the generosity of full timer Monty Maldovan. Unfortunately we didn’t get the credit, but it was still a great opportunity.

From that point, my goal became to coat my work in as much retro EPCOTy goodness as possible. Old logos, fonts, color schemes, attractions, anything that gave the park it’s original signature look.

My monorail pin was to be Figment themed, and I was thrilled to find out they didn’t mind if I went old school with it. I started by taking elements from an illustration I had made the year previous, while practicing my Adobe Illustrator skills.

I did a really rough mockup and proceeded to ink it all out.

And here’s the final pin!

My favorite accomplishment, and the next bit of merch on my EPCOT journey, was a 5 pin set dedicated to EPCOT Center…actual EPCOT Center, not “Epcot.” This I scored because of fellow intern, Maria Clapsis, bringing my name up in a pin team meeting. I was so so so excited to get this assignment, it was to be my magnum opus.

I pretty much had free reign to go any direction I wanted, and settled on theming each one to a different future world pavillion. The worst part was only have 5 pins to work with (you mean I don’t get 12?). I’m still a little unsure as to whether I made the right choices. I figured I wouldn’t be able to make everyone happy, so I went with attractions that meant the most to me growing up.

Pin 1: Communicore

This was a fairly easy decision, hardly any merch for Communicore existed and it had a lot of cool visual possibilities. I went with the somewhat obvious choice of using SMRT-1, and later used him again in my Vinylmation figure.

Pin 2: The Land

This is the pin I had the hardest time choosing a pavilion for. Originally it was going to be for World of Motion…but honestly I don’t remember WoM that well, and Kitchen Cabaret was a childhood favorite. The other reason I abandoned WoM was that I just couldn’t get a good concept going, my heart wasn’t really in it.

This is the only version of the World of Motion pin I have in my files. It wasn’t going to be this cluttered, I promise! These are all of the elements I was considering. I quickly mocked them up so I could move them around, try things out, etc.

Pin 3: Journey Into Imagination

Easy choice, Figment, Dreamfinder, Rainbow Corridor, good stuff.

Pin 4: Spaceship Earth

This is an homage to a sweet button from the 80’s.

Pin 5: Horizons (of course!)

Last but not least, my favorite all time attraction, Horizons. This was the most fun and ended up being easily the most popular. My one regret is that I couldn’t fit the actual names of the locations on the “choose your own ending” portion. Sorry Brava Centauri.

The final piece for this post, is my SMRT-1 Vinylmation. My little purple Mickey-bot was a product of an open call among DDG artists, to submit ideas for the first set in the series. I submitted a couple other concepts, but this is the one that got picked. Because it was early in the Vinylmation process, no one really knew the limitations of what could be printed on a vinyl toy. The possibilities were seemingly endless.

Part 2 tomorrow……