The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland just turned 41 and to celebrate I thought I would post some fan art inspired by the attraction.
There is an event in Anaheim held by the 1313 clube that I wished I was going too next week called the Marvelous Mechanized Magic Kingdom. They will have on displays actual Animatronics from Disney themeparks as well as have speakers like actor Neil Patrick Harris, designer of the monorail Bob Gurr, the voice of Wendy and Alice Kathryn Beaumont, costume designer for Pirates and Small World Alice Davis, script and song writer Xavier Atencio (‘grim grinning ghosts’), animator/artist Floyd Norman, Garner Holt
who’s company does all of Disney’s ride animatronics now, ride concept artist Larry Nikolai, Chef Mayhem of DoomBuggies.com, and many more.
First off a painting from 2003: (click for bigger image)
and some of the artwork I did for the fan podcast “Story of the Haunted Mansion” that was created by Patrick Hurd. The work below is only about half of what I contributed.
I am pleased to share with you a fan project that I had a small part in as part of Patrick Hurd’s “the Show with Patrick” video podcast.
Here is the official press:
The Story of the Haunted Mansion.
You’ll learn how the wish of one man to provide a loving home for his family, became the nightmare that destroyed one generation after the next.
The 32 minute story is visualized through the art work of over 40 talented artists.
Nearly 300 original pieces of artwork were created exclusively for the story!
The short films voice cast includes actor Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser MD, How I Met Your Mother), Corey Burton (The Haunted Mansion Holiday’s Ghost Host), Peter Renaday (The Ghost Host from the classic 1969 Haunted Mansion LP), and voice guy extraordinaire Brian Sommer!
Find out how your favorite characters came to live and die inside Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion…and the surprising way their stories intertwine.
So you think you know all about the Haunted Mansion…You don’t know half the story!
The Story of the Haunted Mansion is a fan-fiction based on one of the great theme park attractions. The story is a 38:46 minute history of the famous house that now resides in Disneyland, Anaheim CA and contains the pictures of 40 artists. Mr. Hurd tapped the voices of Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser MD, How I Met Your Mother), Corey Burton (The Haunted Mansion Holiday’s Ghost Host, lots and lots of voices in all sorts of places), Peter Renaday (The Ghost Host from the classic 1969 Haunted Mansion LP, Henry from the Bear Country Jamboree), and Brian Sommer! The rest of the voice cast is made of fans of the attraction.
The story is based on the website Haunted Mansion Ghost Gallery Stories and fleshes out all our favorite spirits of the Haunted Mansion. Most the characters that appear in the animatronics, art, and effects from the ride are brought together to help give us a detailed history. The production is very slick with the music and voices along with the art. Fans of the ride will thoroughly enjoy the tale while some casual viewers might find it a bit long in detail, but inspiring by the spirit and energy that went into making it.
The art comes in multiple styles from artist who are also fans themselves and with ages that run from small children to grown adults. I am quite pleased with most of my work I produced, with the exception of a few pieces. Once in a while there will be descrpency in the work due to us not fully knowing how the art fit into the story (my drawings of Mary make her much older then the ones that came before it).
Congratulations to Patrick and everyone who worked on the project. I wonder what other fan projects might be inspired from this story.
Before the video podcast was ready, I made my own video of artwork to use last weekend at the Fremont Teen Comic and Anime Expo and have posted it on YouTube since it contains some art that was not used in Patrick’s production.
Here are some of my favorite art I donated to the project, but you have to watch the video to see it all.
- 7:55 Ronald overlooking the river (one of my favorites)
- 10:29 Ronald goes mad.
- 13:35 Mary knows that her husband is cheating on her.
