Sanjay's Super Team and Share the Magic

The Sanjay plush I designed for the upcoming Pixar short "Sanjay's Super Team" is now available online! I've been a fan of Sanjay Patel's for a long time, and it was so awesome to be given the opportunity to design this plush. I can't wait to see the short, huge congrats to Sanjay and the team!

I also designed these super cute tree ornaments for our Share the Magic program this year. I LOVE being able to do stylized plush, so although they are small, these guys were a lot of fun to design!

 Hope you enjoy!!

Sanjay and the Fab 5 ornaments are available online at The Disney Store!

Uromastyx

I looove me some Uromastyx lizards! I've always had lovely encounters with them.. but never anything as adorable as this video that inspired this page of sketches :) 

Diamondback Terrapins

I follow a page on Facebook called "ZooBorns", and every morning they post wonderful pictures of totally adorable baby animals. Today they posted pictures of newly hatched Diamondback Terrapins that were about the size of a quarter... and who am I to resist drawing something so ridiculously cute. It was a nice warmup this morning :)

Seriously. Look at their flappy little fat arms- Diamondback Terrapin Babies

Dinosaurs

A few dinosaurs..

...and a Desann doodle from a Star Wars Facebook drawing challenge. A friend gave me this character to draw, apparently he's from one of the old Star Wars video games. 

Summer Watermelon

I brought some watermelon out to the horses the other night. It was nice to forget the worries of my day, and relax in good company after doing barn chores. 

Nothing better than some cold watermelon on a hot summer night :) 

Daylight Savings

Here's a super flattering drawing of how the dog and I feel about daylight savings time.

Shrimpy

This is my petite cat, Shrimpy. I decided to adopt her based on a picture I saw on a bulletin board. She must have put on her best "adopt me, I'm so fun-loving and adorable" face the day of the picture, because as it turns out she is pure evil and birthed from the 7th level of hell.

Tyrannosaurus friday

Tyrannosaurus yayyayay friday :) 

Running horse

More speed drawing/coloring. 

Sloth bears

quick speed sketches/colors

Chaunessey

On May 5th, my horse went in for surgery to alleviate some pain he's been having due to a degenerative bone condition.

Thanks to my wonderful doctor, and his wonderful team of vet techs, the surgery went well! 

I wanted to make a card to thank them for all their hard work

.... I also asked if they could fit him for a robot leg next time. 

He's on stall rest for two weeks, BORIIING. but necessary for healing. So I've hidden little bits of apples into dog toys in hopes to keep him occupied. These next two weeks will test my "leg wrapping skills" and how closely I can match the vet's awesome wrap- seriously, how cool is this lightning bolt! 

Chaunessey, doing what he does best. 

 Onto a brighter, pain-free future! 

Minimus Plush

I always love it when I can blend my personal interests with my work, and this guy was a blast to work on. This is Minimus, from Sofia the First. He's a purple and pink Pegasus, pretty much every little girl's dream pet... okay, or maybe just mine ;) 

Here is a shot from the show-

Here's my redesign-

And I saw him on the shelves today at lunch!!

Small World Plush

I was SO fortunate to have been able to work on the newest line of Small World merchandise for the Disney Store, specifically- the animal plush!! I officially flipped my lid when I found out that not only was I going to be designing Mary Blair inspired animals, BUT I was also invited to go on the initial research trip to Disneyland to tour the ride at 5am! It was very much worth getting up at 3am, driving down to the park with my sleepy coworkers, and being able to climb and tunnel through the facades to take billions of pictures of the characters we were going to make. We went in with lists and cameras, and came out with memories that will undoubtedly last us a lifetime. I remember returning to my desk after the long drive back and thinking "I need to make Mary and Alice proud!"

On top of the ride tour, we were able to tour the Imagineering Archives and pull even more reference. We spent a morning in an air tight, freezing cold room going through all the original pieces of color swatches and sifting through books filled with chenille pipe cleaners and plastic jewels that were used on all of the animals. Talk about cool! We had mountains of reference, now all we had to do was make them. Here are some of my initial sketches and pics of the final product for the first set of animals.

We wanted to have the yellow jaguar carrying an umbrella, but we had to ditch it due to costing :C

The final product

The hippo was tough, but fun! I think this was the most challenging one as far as details go. There was initial talk of ditching the bird, but we fought for it and eventually won in the end :)

The panda was challenging as well, not really because of details, but because on the ride it is positioned just so, and it was difficult to translate into a 3D toy. I've never noticed how lop-sided he actually is on the ride, he's really a neat optical illusion!

This was the second to last sample. I didn't get a picture of the final sample with mauve eyes. We tried to keep the eyes the same color as the ride, but they ended up looking very red.. and evil o__o

Originally, we had the poodle standing up, like he is on the ride, but the sample looked really bad so we had to put him into a sitting position.

The final product

What an awesome experience!! I will never forget the day we toured the ride, or the time spent concepting these guys. I'm very grateful to have been a part of this. 

You can buy all of these dolls and plush at the Disney Store, and Disney Store Online

I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them!!

Frozen

Throughout the past year, I've been developing the plush line for Frozen, and I just found out today they're finally in stores! I think this was my second big project with the company, and I'm super stoked at how they turned out. *cough* especially Sven the reindeer because he was my BABY *cough*

Here is a little concept I did for a plush sleigh, with Olaf hanging off the back. Unfortunately, the idea got canned, but it would have been SO cute. 

The plush are available at http://www.disneystore.com and in stores, GO BUY THEM ALL!

Birthday Cards

A few of my favorite people have their birthdays in July, here are some cards I made for them :)

Kylie the cat for my boss-

Everyone's favorite breeding stock paint, Skippy! For my tack room buddy, and long time friend, Ron!

Yay!

Monsters University: Monsters Assembly

FINALLY, I can announce what I've been working so tirelessly on last year! I designed a line of monsters with different attachable eyes/arms/legs/fins/horns.. whathaveyou, for the Disney Store to coincide with the release of Pixar's release of Monsters University. Kind of like a Build-A-Bear.. ONLY SCARIER. They also double as hats! 

Here are the bodies/colors that were ultimately approved (that you can get in the Disney Store, omg!)

Here are some of the initial concepts I did for the different types of bodies and parts

I helped with these plush, too!

Here is the Monsters Assembly display in the store

Derp!

I was very fortunate that Pixar gave me such free reign on this project, I'm very happy with the results :)

Enjoy!! Please consider going to the Disney Store to purchase one!