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Disney fan art

Amazing Disney Bento Boxes – Art You Can Eat!

18 April 2014 by Suzannah Otis Leave a Comment

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OMGiri Disney Bento
Orange Bird Bento!!

I certainly don’t have to tell any of you that the internet is an amazing place. Sometimes you stumble across something that just makes you happy and amazed and inspired all at once. Recently, someone added me on Instagram and their little avatar stood out to me so I clicked on their profile. Adorableness ensued and I knew I had to share their creations with you!

OMGiri (a play on onigiri or Japanese rice balls) aka Mike has made some edible works of art that some may say look TOO good to eat. I have always been fascinated by this art, but my creative ways do not extend to food art, so I just watched in wonder as I saw bento box art gain popularity over the years. Seeing this combination of Disney characters and bento boxes, seemed like the perfect mix.

Mike was kind enough to share photos of his work here today, and also the interesting story of how he got started making Disney character bento boxes and some background on the art itself. I thought it was best to let Mike speak in his own words:

My interest in food art in general took root after a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland. I was amazed by the adorable and creative food both resorts served. It was springtime and Tokyo Disney had sandwiches shaped like Donald Duck’s feet, melon buns shaped like Mike Wazowski, and sweet mochi chicks in Mickey egg cups. At Hong Kong Disneyland we ate at the Crystal Lotus, which is home to the most amazing character-shaped dining experience. They offer dim sum shaped like characters, including the Three Little Pigs, Chicken Little, Duffy the Bear, and the Little Green Men from Toy Story.

While in Japan I bought a couple bento boxes to motivate me to take my lunch to work. I had a bad habit of eating out of the vending machine, or worse, skipping lunch all together. A while later, I found a bento instruction book at a Japanese book store which contained a Stitch bento. I ended up buying the book and decided to try making a bento.

The first bento I ever tried to make was a Oswald. It was fun to make the bento, but what really got me hooked was how fun it was to have the character bento for lunch. In the beginning I just made whatever came to mind. I’d make all sorts of characters. I’d share them around our offices and on Facebook. Eventually I found other bento makers, or as I call them “bento boxers”, on Instagram and really started becoming part of a community. Over time my interest in Disney took over and now I find myself doing all Disney characters. The character bentos are also referred to as kyaraben or charaben. Funny, but I have made only one item out of the bento instruction book so far. And it wasn’t even the Stitch bento!

Disney Bento
Serious Maximus

While in Japan we also became obsessed with onigiri. Onigiri are normally triangle or round “rice ball” filled with fish or pickled ginger. They sell them in convenience stores like they sell sandwiches in the US. We ended up eating onigiri almost everyday for a quick snack on the go. The characters in my bentos are onigiri. They are balled up rice with a filling. I’ve changed it up a bit, avoiding raw fish. Instead I fill them with cooked tuna or salmon mixed with a little mayo and spice. My favorite filling is a crab and cream cheese. I also use leftovers for filling. Left over curries make perfect filling!>What I found was that I really needed a creative outlet in my life. I work in an IT office, which just wasn’t fulfilling  my creative side. Bentos are giving me a chance to activate my creative side before I go into the office each morning. Plus, it helps with my insatiable need for Disney in my life!

I am horrible at planning, so most of my bentos start with me looking up a picture of the character online. I normally start from a photo or two of the character. Then I just sort of play around. Some bento boxers sketch out their bentos ahead, but I truly just make it up as I go along.

As far as ideas, I like to work around themes. In the past I’ve done tied theme weeks to upcoming holidays, new movie releases, Star Wars May the 4th celebrations, and Disney events. Sometimes the idea comes from a post I saw the previous day. I also am really inspired by Disney artists like Jerrod Maruyama. I’ve made quite a few bentos based on his cute take on Disney characters. I love finding older Disney characters and forgotten friends, like Humphrey the Bear. I’m also lucky that Disney now includes Marvel and Star Wars, which opens up so many more characters for me to do. I’ve been a little neglectful of Pixar, but I hope to remedy that this summer. Lately, I started a series based on the Walt Disney Studios Animated release catalog I’ve dubbed “Movie Monday“. A friend and I have started watching all the films in the order of their original release. I will be doing a bento for each film. I also take requests. It a lot of fun to have someone request a character.

My favorites to make are always the characters with a lot of expression. I enjoy making fun facial expressions, like Olaf grabbing at his tiny carrot nose or the serious, disgruntled Maximus. The expressions tend to be extremely challenging, but when it works out they are the most interesting to look at. Villains are also a joy to do, because they have such interesting designs. And of course, any of the ones that are just super cute I love to do. If I had to pick my favorites to make, I loved creating Humphrey the Bear, DisNerd Minnie, Jafar, and the AquaDuck Donald the most.

I really enjoyed reading Mike’s story – and it’s even better to know that he’s making these all for his own lunch, that’s pretty amazing. I wonder if Mike would make a Figment bento box for me? {oops, looks like he’s already made Figment…well maybe he can add a Zanna toon to the mix hahaha 😉 } I love the detail, and the fact that he reaches beyond the most well-known characters to feature Panchito, Orange Bird, and even Humprey the Bear (my favorites along with AquaDuck Donald too!)

Here are some of his masterpieces – Click to enlarge – all photos ©OMGiri, used with permission:

OMGiri Disney Bento
Easter Bunny Mickey
OMGiri Disney Bento
DisNerd Minnie Mouse Bento
OMGiri Disney Bento
Thumper Bento
OMGiri Disney Bento
Love this AquaDuck Bento!
OMGiri Disney Bento
Jack and Sally Bento
OMGiri Disney Bento
It’s Art from Monster’s University in Bento form!
OMGiri Disney Bento
Jafar dares you to eat him!
OMGiri Disney Bento
Panchito Bento – genius!
OMGiri Disney Bento
Covering all bases, he even has the Duffy Bus as a Bento!
OMGiri Disney Bento
Oswald and Ortensia
OMGiri Disney Bento
And even Duffy IN a Sully costume, which my son has and loves. Perfect!
OMGiri Disney Bento
Humphrey the Bear!

You can find more of these wonderful edible creations at OMGiri’s Instagram and Facebook page. Stop by and let him know Zannaland sent you!

Think you’ll try your hand at these for your lunch? 

 

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Filed Under: Disney Dining, Fan Creations, Top Stories Tagged With: bento, bento boxes, charaben, disney bento boxes, Disney fan art, Disney fan creations, duffy the bear, edible art, fan creations, fanart, Humphrey the Bear, kyaraben, obento, OMGiri, onigiri, Orange Bird, Oswald, panchito, rice, rice art

Enter to Win an UNBirthday Button Designed by Keith Lapinig!

3 December 2013 by Suzannah Otis 30 Comments

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UnBirthday Button
(Sparkles not included, you make those on your own!)

When I first saw Keith Lapinig‘s Unbirthday Buttons on twitter, facebook and instagram, I fell in love. I also turned into Veruca Salt and wanted one NOW! Keith has held a few giveaways across his social media platforms but I know many many people (like me) didn’t win and were still hoping to get one of these beauties to wear in the parks, at the grocery store, to Starbucks – anywhere!

Well Keith came to the rescue and reached out to several Disney bloggers to share the unbirthday love and giveaway more buttons. I now have one button to giveaway to a lucky reader! So let’s get right to the unbirthday festivities.

Enter below using the Rafflecopter widget. It’s so easy to do, you don’t even have to leave this page to enter. There are quite a few optional entries as well to give you more options and chances to win!

A big thanks to Keith for being so generous with his time and creativity – let’s hope there’s much more to come! (If you haven’t checked out Keith’s YouTube videos, you are missing out – he is great and gets right to the core of what Disney fans want to see!) Click play below to see Keith giving the Mad Hatter and Alice some Unbirthday Buttons!

 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

UnBirthday Button
(Ears not included either) 😉
UnBirthday Button
Best of luck to all that enter!
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Filed Under: Fan Creations, Giveaways, Top Stories Tagged With: Disney, Disney Birthday button, Disney fan art, Disney fan creations, Disney giveaway, Disney YouTubers, Giveaway, Keith Lapinig, Unbirthday Button, Unbirthday Button giveaway, YouTubers

Disney Pixar’s Wall-E Custom Fan-Painted Shoes

11 August 2012 by Suzannah Otis Leave a Comment

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I know I’m not alone in thinking Wall-E and EVE are one of Disney’s greatest love stories. Somehow we can all identify with robots because of that film. Here’s another great pair of custom painted shoes from artist Taylor Litonjua on etsy:

Wall-E and EVE sneakers
Wall-E and EVE custom painted shoes
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Filed Under: Themed Merchandise Tagged With: art, custom painted shoes, Disney art, Disney fan art, Disney Pixar, EVE, EVE shoes, fan art, Pixar fan art, shoes, unofficial Disney, Wall-E, Wall-E fan art, Wall-E shoes

Adorable Disney Princess Cupcake Jewelry Pendants

10 August 2012 by Suzannah Otis Leave a Comment

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What better combination is there than Disney princesses AND cupcakes? Throw jewelry into the mix and you’re all set! I found these adorable fan-made creations on etsy from KTJennuary. The seller has them as a set or individual purchase – check them out:

Disney Princess Cupcake pendants
Click the link above for more photos!

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Filed Under: Themed Merchandise Tagged With: Alice in Wonderland, ariel, art, Aurora, Belle, cupcake jewelry, cupcakes, Disney art, Disney fan art, Disney princess jewelry, Disney princesses, fan art, jasmine, Princess cupcakes, princess jewelry, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Tiana, tinker bell, unofficial Disney

Amazing Rapunzel “I See The Light” Cake

9 August 2012 by Suzannah Otis 2 Comments

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The part in Tangled when Rapunzel and Flynn sing “I See The Light” is without a doubt, my favorite scene in any Disney animated film, and it has been beautifully created in cake form below. I do not know who Isabella is, but she sure was a lucky girl to get this amazing Tangled cake.

Tangled Rapunzel cake
The detail and accuracy is just beautiful!

 

More photos at the cake artist’s flickr page – Little “Miss” OC’s Kitchen.

 

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Filed Under: Fan Creations Tagged With: amazing cakes, amazing Disney cakes, cakes, Disney cakes, Disney fan art, Flynn Rider, I See The Light cake, Maximus, Rapunzel, Rapunzel cake, Tangled cake, Tangled I See The Light

Disney Pixar’s “UP” Custom Fan-Painted Tom’s Shoes

8 August 2012 by Suzannah Otis 1 Comment

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There are quite a few custom-painted shoes out there, but I thought these were particularly well done. Check out the artist Taylor Litonjua on etsy:

Disney Pixar UP Custom Painted Tom's Shoes
Disney Pixar UP Custom Painted Tom’s Shoes

 

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Filed Under: Themed Merchandise Tagged With: art, custom painted shoes, custom painted Tom's shoes, Disney art, Disney fan art, Disney Pixar, Disney Pixar's UP, fan art, Pixar fan art, shoes, Tom's shoes, unofficial Disney, Up, UP fan art

Amazing Artist Tribute to Oswald-A Must Watch!

16 March 2012 by Suzannah Otis 1 Comment

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While we all like to try our hand at drawing a Disney classic like Mickey Mouse or other favorite character, every now and then I stumble across some “fan art” which really elevates that moniker to a new level. This video is perhaps the greatest of all I have seen. I’ve been chatting back and forth with Morgan Ditta on twitter and seen her talk about doing live drawings on uStream but I hadn’t seen her work personally until last night. When I watched this video, I knew instantly I wanted to share it with as many people as possible. Thankfully, Morgan gave me the okay to share it here with you folks, and hopefully you will in turn pass it along to even more people. She’s already gotten over 30,000 views on YouTube!

Morgan is a recent grad of Montclair State, with an Animation/Illustration major. She’s been obsessed with Disney for most of her life and has been influenced artistically by it for years. She is quite fond of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit because he has actually proven himself to be a ‘good luck’ charm for her on several occasions. Without further ado, please enjoy Oswald’s Story:

 

 
Wasn’t that beautiful? The music really imbues the story with emotion as well. If you liked this, leave Morgan a comment here, follow her on twitter at @SillyWhims and check out her online portfolio of work here. You can also follow along her spectacular senior project – Project D40, which showcases 6 parade floats and 28 costumes she created herself, to celebrate Walt Disney World’s 40th Anniversary. Simply stunning! Just as this video is a must-watch, so is Morgan Ditta. I cannot wait to see where the future takes her!  

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Filed Under: Walt Disney World Tagged With: Disney fan art, Disney fan creations, Disney fan videos, fan art, Morgan Ditta, Oswald, Oswald animation, Oswald art, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Oswald's Story, SillyWhims

Walt’s Diner – Amazing Fan Art Homage to Disney and Edward Hopper

6 August 2011 by Suzannah Otis 3 Comments

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My friend and fellow Disney fan sent me this image and I knew I had to share it here. I love coming across incredible fan-art like this which shows the effect Mr. Disney has had on people far and wide, decades after his passing.

Edward Hopper Disney tribute
Fashioned after Edward Hopper's famous "Nighthawks" painting

 

I’d love to see this done with other non-Princess characters too, say some of the original animators or Imagineers? Endless possibilities. Head over to this talented fan’s flickr page to see more of his work. He’s done some super fun things with Photoshop and park characters. Enjoy!

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Filed Under: Walt Disney World Tagged With: Disney characters, Disney fan art, Disney princesses, Edward Hopper, fan art, Walt's Diner

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