Comparing Home Releases Cover Arts

[Vlad]

And finally, Ursula. She's the absolute worst. Her face is godawful.


Sorry to have made three posts about this, but apparently, I'm not allowed to post more than three images

[Farerb]

I agree with everything you said. I guess these were very initial, though we already know that they can release awful covers.

It's weird that you have this restriction.

[Disney's Divinity]

I always wondered why Ursula looked so bad on that release. Now I realize they just transplanted that picture from a mock-up that had bad artwork all-around. I’d never seen or heard of that mock-up before, thank you for posting. For that release, I wish they’d just taken the image of Ursula from the same poster that they took the image of Ariel they ended up using from, and simply shrunk it down to fit above the logo. That would’ve been better than how Ursula looked on the finished cover.

[D82]

Thank you so much for posting the mock-up cover for The Little Mermaid, Sicoe Vlad! As I imagined, I hadn't seen it before. The artwork is clearly inspired in the theatrical poster, but I appreciate that they tried to change it a bit. I like the addition of Eric's castle in the background, but not that he's holding a sword. Had the drawing been improved, it could've made for a decent cover.

[Disney Duster]

Thanks Sicoe Vlad! I actually think if Eric wasn't holding a sword and the whole thing was drawn better, it would be a great cover.

[Jules]

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This drawing is indeed REALLY odd.

Ariel's features appear improperly distributed on her face. Her mouth seems to veer too much to the right, and along with her eyes doesn't seem to match the perspective as dictated by the angle of her head. Her overly voluminous hair as well as the odd placement of the decorative flower gives the impression that she has an abnormally long cranium.

Her scrunched shoulders seem exaggerated to me and suggest tension and anxiety rather than bliss. The breastbone indentation also looks weird as it doesn't line up with the centre of her neck.

Again, is it just me, or is perspective completely off in this image? Her seashell bra does not look correct either.

Finally, whatever happened to one of her fins!? It's protruding from a point further up her body!

If Marce is reading this I am sure he can either confirm what I have observed or correct me if I have made a mistake.

I suspect this mock-up is essentially a digital collage of pre-existing Ariel drawings which should account for the wonky look. I'd be very surprised to learn that this was drawn from scratch without making use of earlier clipart.

This was up for auction at Heritage? How much did it sell for!? Also, this is clearly a digital image so what was Heritage selling exactly? A printout of it? Or maybe the original PSD file?

[Farerb]

I agree Jules, she's practically deformed. I can't wait to read Marce82's thoughts on these.

[Farerb]

My Ratatouille ranking:

3D Blu-ray - I love it! Really captures the Parisian atmosphere and Remy with his longing to be a part of something pose.

Blu-ray 1 - I think this cover is great, you see the characters, the kitchen, Paris and they all fit together nicely.

DVD (Japan) - good. Showing Remy and Linguini's relationship and Paris.

Blu-ray 2 - I didn't much care for these with all the covers. The title doesn't need that much space. Same with the Australian DVD.

4K UHD - it's a weird choice of color and the Paris background isn't as clear as it should be.

4K Steelbook - Remy controlling Linguini was my least favorite part of the film so not a fan of this.

Future Shop Exclusive Steelbook - should have been more like Japan. Don't like that it's zoomed in.

Zavvi Steelbook - this works better as a soundtrack cover.

DVD (France) - don't care much for Emile. Linguini's much more important than him.

Fnac Steelbook - I know it's a theatrical poster but it doesn't really represent the film.

Blu-ray 3 - another mugshot.

[rodis]

Hey Vlad, is there a better version of this Little Mermaid ad? I'm dying to read the sales stats for Aladdin and Beauty and what the red bar says about Mermaid.

[Vlad]

I will try to look for it, but I only found it with the watermark.

I also found this drawing they did of Ariel for the 1998 VHS release. It's so beautiful.

Here is the complete character art


I can't understand how a colored version of the drawing could look worse than the actual drawing. In the drawing she looks like herself in the movie. The final character art, while a good one, looks nothing like Ariel in the movie.

[Disney's Divinity]

The drawing on the left is very pretty. I wonder if that was made by an actual animator and then the right drawing was whoever did the cover art's attempt at a re-creation. The character was really lost in translation from drawing to drawing to the color fill-in.

[Vlad]

This was up for auction at Heritage? How much did it sell for!? Also, this is clearly a digital image so what was Heritage selling exactly? A printout of it? Or maybe the original PSD file?

Here is the original link. According to the description, these are hand-painted.

[Disney Duster]

Well the drawings are slightly different from the colored art. Especially take a close look at the eyes.

[D82]

The artist who did all those drawings of Ariel is Chris Dellorco, as it says on the link you provided, Sicoe Vlad, and here.

I agree with everything you said about that artwork, Jules. It's terrible. I think kids draw better than this. Surprisingly, Dellorco can draw really well too if he wants to, as his paintings featured in this article prove.

According to the same article, he illustrated the movie posters for Conan the Barbarian or Coming to America and many home video covers for Disney, including the cover for the first VHS release of The Lion King.

Here are some of his works for Disney. All the covers on that link may not have been done by him, though. I did a bit of research and here he says that he had several people working for him on them.

He also says something that I found interesting in this other interview. Apparently, he lost his job for Disney because they ultimately decided to have their own artists do the artwork instead of hiring his services as a freelance.

By the way, I hadn't seen this unused artwork by him or his team for the cover of the Platinum Edition of The Lion King before. It's quite nice, in my opinion.


Source: https://business.facebook.com/dellorcof ... 43/?type=3

[Disney Duster]

That Lion King Platinum cover is awesome!

[Atlantica]

You guys are amazing at finding all this stuff out ! Such hidden world all these cover art designers ... it's amazing you've found so much !

I'm not a massive fan of his style I have to say...His list of covers are some of the ones I really don't care for. I can appreciate them, just not my style.

The previously posted Snow White mock up one was beautiful !

[D82]

Here's my ranking of the Ratatouille covers:

1. 3D Blu-ray: This one's also my favorite. It's beautiful, has a great composition and represents the movie and Remy's longing to be a chef in Paris quite well. But are you sure this cover is official, farerb? Maybe it is, but I haven't found any image of a physical copy with this cover.

2. DVD (Japan): Like farerb, I like that it highlights the friendship between Remy and Linguini and features Paris in the background.

3. Future Shop Exclusive Steelbook 1 (Canada): I quite like this zoomed-in version of the previous cover too and I actually prefer Gusteau not being so prominent here since he's not that important of a character and personally I've never liked him much.

4. Blu-ray 1: It's true that all the important elements of the movie are included on this cover and the composition is not bad, but I have one issue with it which is the size of Remy. I know he would've been too small had they drawn him in his real size in relation to the rest of characters, and also that he's above the logo and it's not really part of the scene, but the fact that Linguini is looking at him makes it seem he's in the same space and therefore to me he looks like a giant rat. I wish they've found another way of including him on the cover, but it's not a big problem for me either.

5. 4K Steelbook: I can't believe I'm ranking a cover from this collection so high, but I find this drawing more interesting than previous ones that just looked like simple book illustrations, and it also shows an important element from the story.

6. Fnac Steelbook (France): I think the poster used for this cover is quite cool, but I agree with farerb that it doesn't represent the film too well. It doesn't really show what's original about this movie, which is a rat who wants to be a chef; it just seems the film's about a rat who steals food from a kitchen.

7. DVD (Australia): It's quite simple, but at least the poses are good, as well as the background. I prefer this over the next one, which is very similar, because the composition is slightly better, in my opinion, and at least the band on the right has some pattern.

8. Blu-ray 2

9. Collectible Tin: At least it shows Remy as a chef and the city in the background.

10. 3D Pop-Up Box (Germany): I think this one's probably the best Pop-Up cover so far. I really like how it shows the entire kitchen and they've paid more attention to the composition and the placement of each character this time. I also love the detail of Skinner being covered by that piece of furniture and that we can only see his eyes given that he's so short.

11. Future Shop Exclusive Steelbook 2 (Canada): Simple, but elegant.

12. Zavvi Steelbook (UK): It's not bad, but I agree with farerb that this artwork works better as a CD cover. By the way, here are images of a French Deluxe Box Set which also has this cover.

13. Collector's Box Set (Japan): A bit better than other Collector's Box Sets from Japan.

14. 4K UHD: I don't like the color of the background either; it looks as if the characters were inside a soup. And the top of the spoon is cut, so we it's not clear whether Remy's holding a spoon or just a simple stick.

15. DVD (France): It's not bad, but Emile is not that important to have such prominence on the cover.

16. DVD + Book (Taiwan)

17. Blu-ray 3

18. Heroes Cover (France)

19. Walmart Exclusive Bonus DVD

[Farerb]

I found the 3D here:
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Ratatoui ... ray/99538/

But you're probably right because I haven't seen it anywhere else and even there there's no link to any store. I'm guessing that's fan made.

[Marce82]

Hey Jules,


Thanks for the shoutout! And I agree with your assessment of those drawings of Ariel... but frankly, you didn't go far enough.

I'm actually baffled that Disney could release such poor artwork. Both color versions of Ariel are off: off model, off anatomically, off in perspective, off in visual logic, off in shading and texture. I won't dissect them line by line, cause it would take too long.

As far as the rough versions.... the first one is a little better, but there are still a lot of mistakes there. The second one looks like fan art from a semi skilled 12 yr old.

I guess I should say this is all "my opinion"... though anyone trained in animation/comicbook art would agree with me.

And I SERIOUSLY doubt those were hand painted. The line quality screams "digital art".

Sorry I haven't been around, I;ve been busy. I will try to do my Ratatouille ranking. I might skip Cars... I didn't like that movie anyway.

[Disney Duster]

Ok, the ones I like from Ratatouille:

1. Collectible Tin
2. 4K Steelbook
3. 3D Blu-ray
4. Blu-ray 1
5. DVD (Japan)
6. Fnac Steelbook (France)

Can anyone, especially Sicoe Vlad or D82, find me a high resolution image of either this whole cover or just the part where Cinderella is being transformed?!I would soooo appreciate it! I'm in love with it: