MARZETTE BONAR
THE HAUNTED MANSION
Creating the mural that comes to life in Disney's film was exciting; not only because of the content, but because I was able to tap into my traditional painting skills.
Using acrylics, I painted two scenes then tweaked them repeatedly in Photoshop to storyboard the main events:
- the stagnant mural
- the clouds becoming real
- they roll away revealing rays of light
- a tunnel of clouds forms through the roof
- and then it continues up to heaven!
To give detailed examples for the 3D artists to follow, I built matte paintings using photos of the Haunted Mansion's movie set and combined them with more refined CG renderings of the clouds and 'God rays.'
Watch the film clip below where the tunnel of clouds continues heavenward.
Pre-Vis Cocepts for the Crystal Ball
To create a variety of looks for the witch in the crystal ball, I painted several forms of electrical phenomena around pictures of the beautiful actress' face, Jennifer Tilly. Swirling her hair with green smoke, was the winning design, but it could easily look too scary for this family film, so it took several attempts before she was "ready for her closeup!"
Much thanks to Jay Redd, VFX Supervisor!