Sunday, December 09, 2012

The Canary Yellow Gypsy Cart



As veteran Disney merchandise designers, one of the things Jody and I enjoy doing each year is making one-of-a-kind toys for our friends. Often these feature favorite characters that rarely (if ever) appear on regular merchandise. And, naturally, that's part of the fun!

When Disney's D23 invited us to submit artwork for a special "23 Days of Disney Christmas"  advent calendar, we decided on creating "antique" holiday cards featuring wooden toys that we made from scratch.

My card shows a stylized, toy version of the Mr. Toad's "canary yellow gypsy cart" from the animated film "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad"(1949). When the cart rolls across a flat surface, Toad's horse Cyril pivots back and forth as if he were galloping through the English countryside. It's like one of those classic Fisher-Price pull toys. I made both the cart and horse out of wood and painted everything by hand.

Jody's "toy card" will be revealed on December 15.

3 comments:

Major Pepperidge said...

Wow, neat! I hope whoever received this knows how awesome it is.

Ben Churchill said...

I sure envy your talent. The things that both of you come up with and create are amazing. Sure, the wooden gypsy cart looks simple, but the attention to detail is perfect. I always have projects like this that I want to make, but don't have the skills to meet my "perfectionist" ideas.

David said...

Spectacular! Love the stuff you and Jody create. Magical!