The Lost Disney Art -- Part 2

More LOST DISNEY ART. (Brush Pen Ink and Watercolor 1994)

I know... the title is a little "click-baity". Technically this work is not lost -- I'm sure the originals are buried somewhere in the vaults at Imagineering, but these drawings haven't been seen in nearly 30 years.

It was before the digital age, so hard copies of these drawings remained in my flat file tucked away inside a manilla folder mis-labelled "Tokyo roughs". I found them by chance while going through my files looking for theme park work for my website, www.vignalistudio.com

The Big Idea 

Legendary Imagineer Eddie Sotto had come up with an idea called Pirate's Island where we were going to revamp Tom Sawyer Island (TSI) at Disneyland and turn it into a pirate island. This was back in 1994, way before the Pirates of the Caribbean movies... so the idea was truly ahead of its time.

At the center, Eddie imagined there would be a large cavern where the pirates had brought their booty, and in there was built a bar where guests could dine. Eddie had asked me to come up with some ideas for things to put in the bar, I sketched out several things, and that's when I thought of these lovely ship's figureheads. I worked them out in color so we could add this to our pitch.

I even remember I had roughed out the entire bar and was planning to do one of those large drawings of the interior... unfortunately soon afterwards the project was scrapped. Eddie's Pirate's Island was a great idea that was short lived... but the big idea was so strong that when the Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out this idea resurfaced and TSI was turned into Pirate's Lair.