Monkey King Park Concepts

These are some concepts for the Monkey King theme park Thinkwell just announced to be scheduled to open in 2014 just outside Beijing, China. So far this is all I could post. I hope to put more up as we develop the project.

Below are concepts for the master plan of the park, a dark ride experience, a 4D theater show and point of view of one of the lands of the park.

Fernbank Murals

I'm very excited to post some images of Fernbank Nature Quest. Thinkwell designed and produced this interactive children's exhibit for Atlanta's Fernbank Museum. I did the murals for the exhibit as well as some of the foliage panels for the trees. This was a big project for me lasting about four months.

The murals are digital printed on a kind of wallpaper material. Below, I posted a low-res panorama version of the digital file. The image has the illustrated elevation included to help inform scale and location.

Dont Forget! Click on the images to make them larger.

Fun with Sketchup

This is a concept for a park in the middle east. The center icon for the park was a Qatari castle. In this style, the large part is accomplished with sketchup and then finished off in photoshop.

Sinbad Mountain

This is a fun concept for a "Splash Mountain" style dark ride based on the Sinbad storys.
My friend Topper Helmers did the line work.

Sesame Street presents "Our Planet"

These are concepts for a children's traveling exhibit.

Star Wars Museum Concept

This was a great idea I had for a walk through exhibit featuring all the props, costumes, and models of the Star Wars films. There would be points of interaction along the way where guests could choose to follow the path of the dark or the light side of the force. The grand finally was a knighting ceremony in the Jedi Council chamber room where you are rewarded for your efforts either by the evil Emperor or Yoda.

How would you like your own backyard theme park?

I'm so excited! This is my first widely published piece of art. I had never heard of the Robb Report before this happened, but its a really cool buyers guide for the mega rich.

Thinkwell asked me to paint a mansion with a smaller theme park in the backyard. I said ok and didn't really ask what it was for. I finished it and the next thing I knew, I had a double page spread. I couldnt be happier!

Japanese theme park

This is a concept for the center icon in a theme park slash mall project. The idea was that you could enter into each of the four buildings nestled into the mountain. Each building represents one of the four seasons.

Kennedy Space Center

This is a concept for the look of one of the museum buildings showcasing a life size rocket.

Dino Land

These are concepts for a Dinosaur Theme park in China. These guys were a little crazy, wanting a dinosaur shaped space needle. The show that happens in the museum was a really cool idea. The real dig site would come to life using a "peppers ghost" effect. The tour guide gave information about the specific dino bones on the big screen.

Robotanica

This is a concept for a Robot theme park in Korea. The idea was that the plants and the robots are married into the landscape. Robot arms lift out of the ground using their trees to shade passing pedestrians.

Professor Pennypickle's Imagination Workshop

This is a project I art directed for a children's museum in Temecula California called The Imagination Workshop. It's a very small project no larger than the bed room I grew up in. None the less, it had a lot of heart and much like my Star Wars theater project, I learned a lot!

The focal point of the room is a very colorful gear wall. There are three points of interaction were kids can crank wheels or sit and spin and discover how physical science applys to gears. The concept sketch is an isometric of half of the room. This was used in our creative process to help the team understand the design and particularly how the room would look and feel. You can see how the design changed a little bit from the end product.

Below are some pictures of the space. For such a small room, we packed a lot of interactive "do" for the kids.

That's my beautiful wife and me

These are some early blue sky concepts of the project. We were toying around with the idea of making the space feel like a garage.

"Cirque" type show storyboards

These are storyboards for a show I worked on a few years ago for Thinkwell. Topper Helmers did the line work, I colored them in photoshop.

Thinkwell often produces art work in an assembly line fashion. I find myself designing, drawing line work, and coloring, or just working one step for each piece.

Observatory Attack

I've been trying to do some personal paintings which happens to be much harder than I anticipated. This represents that effort. Hopefully it wont be the only one that I've found time for.

Last year's figure drawing class

So last year at Thinkwell, I was lucky enough to participate in a weekly figure drawing class. We got to draw some great models with great costumes. I have compiled some of my favorites and put them together for your viewing pleasure.