Domythic Bliss: Dawn Treader Concept Art!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Dawn Treader Concept Art!

Do you ever have a piece of trivia that just gets under your skin and rubs and chafes? Something you really want to know or remember, but no matter how hard you try, your Google-fu fails you and the answer is elusive? Well, that was my predicament after I watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We always meant to go see that movie in the theater, but wound up watching it for the first time on BluRay at home (which I think was an even better idea, as the movie *really* translates well to BluRay). When the Pevensies first come aboard the Dawn Treader, and Caspian takes them into his State Room, I was dizzy with admiration. I even did a blog post about it. But what I wanted to know most of all was...who did those gorgeous wall murals in the room?

Finally, almost a year to the day (BluRay was released April 8, 2011) after I asked myself the question, I got an answer. This morning in the library, I was pulling the book request list, and one of the items requested was a picture book from the movie Prince Caspian. The art in the book was beautiful, and I thought "let me just google this artist's name, just on the off chance that he's the mural artist I'm looking for." Well, he wasn't. But he has a wonderful blog where he shares tidbits of his work, and he was a conceptual designer on the Narnia films. He *did* design much of the State Room, including furniture and hardware, etc. And on his post about his work in that room, he mentions the answer to my elusive question.

The wall murals are painted by Min Yum.

Further exploration of his blog yielded many more conceptual drawings of details from Dawn Treader that might have gone unnoticed while watching the film. Especially since they never did do any sort of behind the scenes or art-of book for Dawn Treader, unlike the first two films.

Don't be surprised if I someday return to this film in a blog post, as the interior design in the film (the Dawn Treader, the Magician's island home, etc) are just sublimely Domythic. But here at least is a small tidbit to inspire.