Here is a tribute to a great artist: John Horny is not only a fantastic painter but also has worked for Walt Disney Imagineering on many Disney theme parks projects including Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland, Westcot, and many more. We will have a look today at some of his works for Disneyland Paris, beginning by one of his most known painting, i.e the great Pirates of Caribbean artwork that you can see above. Note that the picture is posted here in the high-res file we used in the Disneyland Paris book so it might take some time to appear on the screen.
Among the other artworks that John did for DLP was a series of paintings for Frontierland or Adventureland which served as inspiration for WDI Imagineers who designed the lands. Let's begin by those for Frontierland which shows a series of Frontierland characters. The first one below is of course related to the Lucky Nugget Saloon.
...Just like this other artwork showing one of the girls of the saloon...
This next painting shows the blacksmith - you can see in Frontierland his workshop, located almost in front of Big Thunder Mountain entrance.
DLP fans will recognize on this next painting the architecture of the Fuente Del Oro and, yes, the character swashbuckling on the roof in the background is Zorro!
This Indian Navajo painting is related to the Indian teepees at the entrance but also to the area in the back of Frontierland, near the Cowboy Cookout Barbecue where there was a shop - now unfortunately closed - selling indian/mexican merchandise.
This last character painting shows a medecine man selling his "magical" potions.
For DLP Adventureland John Horny did also some brilliant artwork - and you'll find some of them in my book - but here are two less known paintings, the first one below showing of course a Jungle Cruise scene. I remind you that the Jungle cruise attraction was envisioned for DLP before WDI Imagineers changed their mind and decided to don't bring the Disneyland beloved attraction at DLP Adventureland.
This next rendering is even more rare as it shows what could have been built instead of the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Péril coaster ride. Back in the 1990's John was asked to create a rendering showing a coaster set in a Dinosaurs paleontological field. Finally, the Indy ride is the one which was built but we could have had this Dino coaster instead of the Temple of Peril.
Among others Disney theme parks John Horny also did some renderings for Westcot, like this one done for the Westcot Europe Bay area...
...or this one created when Hong Kong Disneyland was in its early stage. If you look well you'll see that a Lion King Pride rock might have been build in front of Tarzan's Trehouse, but also that a Big Thunder Mountain was envisioned as a "future attraction" - you can see its silhouette in the background.
Most of these images are coming from John Horny website on which you can see many more of his work whether it is for Disney or Landmark, including artwork for Disney theme parks that never were.
You can also find more renderings from John in my Disneyland Paris book in which you have the whole park in 320 pages with 750 photos including 250 WDI renderings. Copies of the book are still available but unfortunately there is now less than TEN copies of the Disneyland Paris From Sketch to Reality book available in its ENGLISH collector's edition - the FRENCH edition is also available - so if you don't own the book yet, it's really now or never!
And there is a special price right now with a $45 / 40€ discount on the normal price, so order your collector copy while there is still copies available as it's really the last english collector copies. You'll find below a one click Paypal button as well as a video showing the whole book. Also, you can have more infos about this gorgeous 320 pages book HERE.
Click on the image below to jump to the book presentation.
Pictures: copyright John Horny - Disney
1 comment:
Thanks so much for this great tribute and an especially big thanks for the amazing HQ image of DLP's pirate map!!
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