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November 16, 2020 By Kayleen Padron Leave a Comment

How much would Disney Princess’ jewelry actually cost?

As kids, Disney fans probably dreamed of trying on their favorite Disney Princess’ crown jewels. But how much would these treasures cost in real life? Money.co.uk’s Joel Kempson and David Allen from Purely Diamonds worked together to find out how much these accessories would be worth.

disney princess
Photos courtesy of Money.co.uk
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Filed Under: Disney, Internet, Movies, Shopping, Walt Disney Studios Tagged With: anastasia, anna, Ariel, aurora, Belle, Cinderella, Disney, disney princess, elsa, elsa and anna, fox, Jasmine, Little Mermaid, merida, moana, mulan, pocahontas, princess, queen anna, queen elsa, Rapunzel, raya, raya and the last dragon, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Frog, tiana

October 19, 2020 By Kayleen Padron 1 Comment

Get cozy in these Disney Princess-inspired Blankie Tails

Because of the pandemic, more and more families are staying home to stay safe. What better way to spend quarantine than underneath a blanket that makes children look like their favorite Disney Princesses? Meet Blankie Tails.

blankie tails
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Filed Under: Disney, Merchandise Tagged With: Anna and Elsa Frozen 2, Belle, blanket, Blankie Tails, Cinderella, Disney, disney merchandise, disney princess, elsa, exclusive, frozen, Jasmine, olaf, princess, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, tiana

February 12, 2020 By Brittani Tuttle Leave a Comment

Disneyland shares new details for ‘Magic Happens’ parade

Disneyland has shared a preview of their upcoming daytime parade, “Magic Happens,” which will make its debut on Feb. 28.

magic happens
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Filed Under: Disneyland Resort, Slider, Theme Parks, Video Tagged With: Cinderella, coco, daytime parade, Disneyland, disneyland park, disneyland resort, featured, frozen 2, magic happens, Mickey Mouse, moana, new parade, parade, preview, Sleeping Beauty

August 25, 2019 By Brittani Tuttle Leave a Comment

All-new parade ‘Magic Happens’ coming to Disneyland park

The first announcement from today’s Disney Parks, Experiences and Products panel at D23 Expo 2019 has been revealed: an all-new parade called “Magic Happens,” coming to Disneyland park in spring 2020.

magic happens
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Filed Under: Disney, Disneyland Resort, Slider, Theme Parks Tagged With: coco, D23, D23 Expo, d23 expo 2019, daytime parade, disneyland park, featured, magic happens, Mickey Mouse, moana, Sleeping Beauty, todrick hall

August 22, 2019 By Brittani Tuttle Leave a Comment

‘Sleeping Beauty: Anniversary Edition’ joining Walt Disney Signature Collection

Disney has announced that the animated classic “Sleeping Beauty” will be the latest film added to the Walt Disney Signature Collection on Blu-ray, DVD, digital and Movies Anywhere.

sleeping beauty
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Filed Under: Disney, Movies, Slider Tagged With: Disney, featured, princess aurora, Sleeping Beauty, walt disney signature collection

May 24, 2019 By Brittani Tuttle Leave a Comment

Sleeping Beauty Castle reopens at Disneyland park with new enhancements

Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland park has officially reopened after a lengthy refurbishment as part of Project Stardust, and now features bright new colors, a new roof, and just a bit of extra pixie dust.

sleeping beauty castle
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Filed Under: Disneyland Resort, Slider, Theme Parks Tagged With: castle, disneyland park, featured, herb ryman, project stardust, reopening, Sleeping Beauty, sleeping beauty castle, Theme Parks

January 29, 2019 By Brittani Tuttle Leave a Comment

‘Sleeping Beauty’ brings 60 years of inspiration to Disney Parks castles

Sixty years ago today, one of the most famous Disney animated films was released in theaters: “Sleeping Beauty.”

sleeping beauty
After 60 years, the influence of “Sleeping Beauty” can be found in Disney Parks all over the world.

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Filed Under: Disney, Disneyland Paris, Disneyland Resort, Movies, Slider, Theme Parks Tagged With: 60 years, 60th anniversary, Disney, disney parks, Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, disneyland resort, featured, Hong Kong Disneyland, Movies, princess aurora, Sleeping Beauty, sleeping beauty castle, Theme Parks

January 25, 2019 By Brittani Tuttle Leave a Comment

Maleficent float returns to Disney’s Festival of Fantasy Parade at Walt Disney World Resort

Everyone’s favorite party-crashing dragon, Maleficent, is set to make her big return to Magic Kingdom park today to re-join the Festival of Fantasy Parade.

festival of fantasy
She’s back!

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Filed Under: Disney, Food, Magic Kingdom, Merchandise, Slider, Theme Parks, Walt Disney World Tagged With: Disney, disney parks, Disney World, featured, festival of fantasy, Festival of Fantasy Parade, Food, Magic Kingdom, Maleficent, maleficent dragon, maleficent fire, Merchandise, mk, parade, Sleeping Beauty, Walt Disney World, Walt Disney World Resort, wdw

August 2, 2018 By Brittani Tuttle Leave a Comment

‘Pirates’ ride art, Walt Disney Studios concept art featured in Fine Autographs and Artifacts auction

Rare and original Walt Disney Studios concept art is being auctioned off in the August Fine Autographs and Artifacts auction from RR Auction through Aug. 8.

auction
Original concept art for Pirates of the Caribbean will be up for auction, among other original Disney concept designs.

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Filed Under: Disney, Disneyland Resort, Movies, Slider, Theme Parks Tagged With: animation, auction, Cinderella, concept art, Disney, Disneyland, featured, lady and the tramp, Movies, nine old men, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sleeping Beauty, Theme Parks

December 29, 2009 By 1 Comment

From stamps to Sleeping Beauty: Q&A with a former Disney animation artist

ron-pic-oct-2007Ron Dias is an animation artist who worked for Disney Studios more than 50 years. He has also done extensive work for most of the other big Hollywood studios. The world first took note of Dias when, as a 19-year-old student, his work was chosen for a special children’s stamp by the U.S. Post Office. Today Dias, 72, lives south of San Francisco.

Orlando Attractions Magazine writer Mike Reilley interviewed Dias for the Winter 2010 issue. Below are some Questions and Answers that didn’t make it in print.

When was the first time you thought to yourself, “This is what I want to do with my life?”
It’s hard to say because my mom always said, “You were either born to surf, to sing or to have a pencil in your hand.” And I figured we already had all the Elvises and Perry Comos that we needed, so let’s stick to the artwork. Well, surfing and swimming are fine, but surfboarding, and being born and raised in Hawaii, you’d think that would be great. But I had three of my friends almost vanish; almost die on me while surfing. But with a pencil in my hand, my mom said I was always drawing.

Where did you get your talents?
I get it from my papa’s side. My dad could have been any of three things. He was a really good artist. I get all my talent from him. He was a tremendous carpenter – from the old school. He could build anything. But he chose being an electrician with an Hawaiian electric company because he made more money in order to raise a family. But that’s where I get my talent from, so it was kind of around me. And he liked the Tarzan, Prince Valiant kind of things and was always doing sketches and drawings. So I kind of sopped it up.

dias1
Tell us about winning the postage stamp contest?
The stamp was my last senior project, but I never thought, with the thousands of students from around the country entering this, plus all the possessions; Puerto Rico and Hawaii, that I would ever have a chance of winning that thing.

When you started at Disney, were the other artists helpful?
Eyvind Earle (1916-2000) was one of my early mentors. He spent time with me and I’ll never be more appreciative. So did Claude Coats (1913-1992), who was a “daddy” to me. A new kid, wet behind the ears, and I was walking on exceptionally green grass, needs a helping hand like that. But I don’t think they did that with many of the kids but they could see I was very serious about this and this was really what I wanted to do. And it wasn’t just the animation part of it because I was trained more as a painter. I love to work with color and value and texture, theatrical stage and light of subject, which is exactly what they like to do at Disney. I started in 1956 and by the latter part of 1960 I was already painting backgrounds. Doing the beautiful scenery that the characters work on is as important as the characters.

What can you tell us about a movie called “Back to Neverland” at Disney-MGM Studios? You were listed as the art director.
This was at their animation walk-through. You would sit in a theater and see this wonderful, Back to Neverland, not to be confused with Peter Pan 2, which was Return to Neverland. The movie had a lot of Disney in it, including Peter Pan, Captain Hook and even Tinker Bell. They used it as a vehicle to tell the story of how really beautifully Disney quality animation is done, what made it different and special. It played in Florida forever. It’s a beautiful film and to this day I’m still trying to get a hold of a copy of that damn thing.

How have things changed?
I’ve become the mentor. Kids, students and fans come to me to ask questions and find out about things. And when I started I thought to myself how I’m just a young kid and I’m working with all these fine artists and these old men. Old men? They were only in their 40s! But even though 50 years have gone by, I still sometimes feel like I’m the young kid on the block. I can’t even fathom to put myself on a level with someone like Marc Davis (1913-2000), who was my animator.

What are you telling young artists?
I talk to the students a lot. I go to the schools. I try to give them a cross section and what I take is not only the animation stuff, I take a lot of the publicity, marketing and merchandising stuff with me. This is because my latter years, say the past nine years, have not been working on animation. My last few things have been for Disneyland and Disney Publications. It started out with Disney Art Editions, which is now Disney Classics. And if you see that wall in the Disney stores, I was the art director who put all that stuff together. I call it the Memorable or Magical Moments of Disney.

What do you talk about when you’re making a presentation about your work?
dias3I recently gave a really neat talk about the making of Sleeping Beauty. I’ve collected a whole portfolio of all kinds of artwork and photos; not only the artwork, but behind the scenes; all the layout men, the background men and so when I put on a show, I tell everything about the film. I even show a lot of the parts that were left out or were pre-production concepts that never made it to the screen and how this film would have been a completely different film if it had.

A lot of what we see today on screen comes to us through computers, right?
It came to a point when I started conceding the computer generation stuff overtaking everything. The wildebeest sequence in The Lion King was going to be half the size it was but would not work unless it was the length that it is and so that’s where computer generation started to come in, to make the thousands of wildebeests that we needed. So I could see all of it (computers) happening and beautiful downtown Burbank wasn’t so beautiful anymore and so I was purposely moving over to marketing and doing things for Disney Stores.

What would you be doing if you hadn’t had this talent?
Oh, I don’t know. I’d probably be selling my body on Waikiki Beach. I don’t know. I’d be working for the city or county in Hawaii and I’d have a wonderful tan and I’d probably be the most unhappy creature on Earth.

You can read more of our interview with animation artist Ron Dias, including his thoughts on the Magic Kingdom Fantasyland expansion, in the Winter 2010 issue of Orlando Attractions Magazine.

Filed Under: Disney, Magazine, Movies, Television Tagged With: animation, Back to Neverland, Claude Coats, Disney, Eyvind Earle, Ron Dias, Sleeping Beauty, Studios, Walt Disney

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