August 3rd, 2009
When naming the founding fathers of Finnish education and civilization, there's one character that might not come to mind right away. With over one millon Finns reading Donald Duck comics every week, it's only fair to say that he's a big player in teaching Finnish literacy skills. Art Director Jaakko Kastari of BOB Helsinki wanted to put Donald right where he belongs, alongside Anders Chydenius and Mikael Agricola in the academic hall of fame.
"With custom sculpted marble statues being the case, we knew right away who we want to bring into the project.", says Rami Riihijärvi. "We had previously worked with Sami Sorjonen in the Gatorade project and knew he was the right man for the job of sculpting the statues."
The two historical fellows have some statues made of them and it was only natural to follow the same look with our sculpting. Donald then again has a lot more interpretations of his anatomy and we had to pick the one that suited our goals best. "Mikko Vormala is - how should I put it - quite an enthusiastic roots-Disney kind of guy.", says Rami. "I know he wouldn't have been very happy with a modern version of Donald. Luckily the classic Carl Barks version was by far the best choice for the picture and some donrosa didn't get to ruin Mikko's mood this time."
Mikko started by sketching Donald's pose for the picture and supervised Sami's sculpting work with all three of the statues. Tuomas designed the classic university-like hall the statues would be put on display. "The old 'well planned is half done' really describes this project well.", says Tuomas. "With clear design sketches and Jerry Ylilammi taking care of the 3D-modeling and putting the scene together, finishing and retouch was a straightforward task. And the picture came out great, too."
Credits
Client: Aku AnkkaAgency: BOB Helsinki
Creatives: Jaakko Kastari, Antti Einiö
Project Manager: Laura Lähdesmäki, Minna Läntinen
All Donald Duck Character Sketches and Renderings ©Copyright Disney.
All Rights Reserved.