Some of you might not be aware that in 2019 Disney published a two book edition called: Marc Davis In His Own Words: Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks. By Pete Docter and Christopher Merrit.
Each volume has 750 pages. Combined they seem to show everything that Marc Davis ever drew for Imagineering. Absolutely incredible!!
After 101 Dalmatians Marc's (and Ken Anderson's) proposed animated project Chanticleer got cancelled in favor of The Sword in the Stone. Marc was crushed since he had produced a lot of stunning artwork for Chanticleer.
So Walt Disney offered Marc a brand new challenge away from Animation. According to him, Walt needed someone with his talent to add storytelling and humor to new as well as existing rides at Disneyland. And the rest is history. Milt Kahl was NOT happy to see Marc leave the Animation department, and when a few years later Walt asked Ken Anderson to help out at the park as well, Milt had a "spirited" conversation with the boss about draining the animation talent pool. Ken ended up doing some work for Imagineering, but in the end he remained full time with Animation.
Here are just a few samples of Marc's gorgeous work (scanned from the book) for the Jungle Cruise, which originally opened in 1955. But this attraction really came to life when Marc got involved later.
Get these two books at Amazon, if you want to study staging, solid drawing with flair, character development and much more:
