Inspired by "Its a Small World"

Inspired by "It's a Small World" these designs were for a theme park in the Middle East. I drew a color script to help me see how the colors would flow from one part of th world to the next. Part of the fun was to have the boat sail around blind corners so the guests would never know what is coming up next. Sometimes I gave the guests the opportunity to see whats "down the river" a ways so they can enjoy the ride as they approach it.

STAR WARS ROSE PARADE FLOATS

The route of design for the Star Wars Floats for the Pasadena Rose Parade.

CHINA PARADE, SOMEWHERE OVER THERE!

The floats above were some of the most fun to design! I think this parade is still in the planning stage now. Hopefully it will get the green light soon. It's very "Disney-like" but that was the brief. No argument from me, Disney parades wrote the book on what a theme park parade should be. I have had the greatest pleasure to call some of the original producers from old time Disney parades as my friends and co-creators in many of the parades I've done in Japan and Korea. Peter Bloustein (P.E.B. & Associates) is one producer who I have worked with for years. Many of the parade images you'll be seeing in the following posts were produced by Peter.

The yokohama park that never was

The name of the "Themed shopping area" was called "B.O.W", Bow of Whale or something like that. I design the theme of what the shopping center could be with a made up story of how this shopping area came to be. If I remember, it was a Sailor that followed a mystical whale and he was going to harpoon it. Captivated by the beauty of the whale, he decided to save it from death and the whale lead them to Yokohama where the shopping center would have stood. Here are some images from that presentation. I designed the costumes for employees, themed planters and the layouts for images that were to be created around the shopping center to tell the story.

CHILDREN'S THEATER, KURASHIKI TIVOLI PARK

Many years ago I designed the stage and costumes for Tivoli Park in Kurashiki, Japan. It was a great time in Japan for working. I was back and forth many times as many theme parks were being built all over Japan. You can see where my designs were followed really well in the final costumes. The story was very very simple and very very happy! Even the villain in the story had a happy ending. If I find more pics, I'll add them here. I hadn't entered the computer age at this time so I was still using really smelly markers and Fedexing to Japan (while losing almost a week of time so Fedex can deliver!) Thank god for email!

YES 89 cart

This was one of the prop carts, made from a babybuggy, it was pushed down the street as part of the parade showing Yokohama's early days.

FIRST BLOG

"First Float"
I will attempt in this blog to add images of my theme park design experience. As well as my animation experience too. Many of my friends have their blogs so I figured I'd add my page! Back in 1989, I designed the "Yokohama 89" parade. It was one of my first. You'll see the float was not much but it celebrated the history of Yokohama as well as how Yokohama is connected to the world. I designed all the floats, props and costumes.