Ahhhh... This was a pastel and acrylic color sketch I did as part of a bunch for a potential rides in Hong kong Disneyland. At the time, Disney had recently opened "Countdown to Extinction". There was a lot of money spent on the "carnotaurus" animatronic Dinosaur for that ride. I was asked to tinker with some thrill rides that could "re-purpose" the molds and already engineered dino in another Disney attraction as I recall..or at least "encouraged" to incorporate them if applicable. This sketch was a sort of "runaway excavation train" ride I came up with. It was part of a series of key art pieces describing a ride where it started off as a simple "dino dig" and of course, ended up in an out of control thrill ride through the whole cavernous excavation and such.
Brian Jowers was about two offices down from me. He is a good friend of mine..and we often critiqued each others work and had many many great laughs together at WDI. I am a concept guy, I always would tell Disney. I LOVE the part many are most frightened of...the "blank white paper" stage of a project where no one has any idea what the hell to do or imagine yet. This is the most thrilling to me...because a drawing or painting cannot be matched as to what it does to a group in a meeting. Eyes light up...and the "magic" is conceived a that moment. Even words or a script cannot compare to the first images made by an artist. It becomes..."real" at this moment.
I can say in my career, perhaps 2%-5% of what is concept ever makes it to "reality". So many factors can kill a great idea. I can tell you if we went through all the archives of the concepts I have drawn up at both Universal and Disney over the decades, it would fill 100 theme parks! ! lol. Budget, foreign taste and preferences...many things can prevent an idea from moving forward.
Too many to name all, but my two favorite Disney attractions I did in fairly detailed art were the "Under Sea Grand Prix" for Disney Seas. ( This eventually became "Storm Rider" when I left the project) and the ideas I worked on with Marshal Monroe (Special effects R& D guy at WDI) for replacing the "Submarine Voyage" at Disneyland.
You can see a lot of the art for "Undersea Grand Prix" on the "Disney and More" and other website forums. Internal Imagineering LOVED this ride. It was a wild idea I just conjured up and went nuts with it. However, what killed it was that Oriental Land Company, the partner with Disney for Disney Seas didn't like it. Why? Well, they said it had too much "humor" in it...and Japanese culture doesn't find "undersea creatures" funny! Oh..except an octopus...an octopus is funny in Japanese culture." LOL! So...this ride never made it to completion.
As for the Disneyland sub-ride. Long story short, the Disney animated feature "Atlantis" was in production at the time. Tony Baxter had myself and Brian Jowers and Bob Barnack working up concepts for taking the then closed, Disneyland sub ride and making it into a fantastic undersea adventure , based loosely off of "Atlantis". We came up with an absolutely stunning show. HIGHLY impacting and intense though!! Marshal Monroe was on this one, excited to test the new underwater projectors they were developing.
We did this entire mock up in Anaheim in the sub lagoon late at night. I was pushing, again for a "theater of the mind" thing...with sub woofer and directional induction sound, and the climax of the show was that the last thing you saw out the sub windows was the sweeping of giant Laviathan tentacles ...you heard them too...crushing the cabin of the sub. Lights went to just the low emergency power out red inside....as the giant octopus dragged you into the depths of the sea. We had rivets that appeared to pop out of the sub window frames and small spritzes of water...as though the sub was beginning to implode!! Then a glimpse of the HIGHLY realistic Laviathan eye peering into the porthole windows (high def underwater rear projection through bubble curtains).
The show, we did fro Michael Eisner and Paul Presler late one evening out in the submarine lagoon at Disneyland. It blew them away! HOWEVER....it was said...this was just WAY too intense for the mainstream Disney guest. We would have people peeing in their seats!! ...and so this concept was never to happen. "Finding Nemo" became the use of the underwater projectors and the replacement for the classic Disneyland sub ride of yesteryear.
Well there's a few things to feed your brain! lol Hope that answers your question.
