Game Night - An Homage To Donald Duck
Game Night: An Homage to the Number 1 Duck
Hello , thanks for watching along on Brush of Magic. My name is Ronn Stern and this painting is a fan favorite piece, created to celebrate the very best of Donald Duck’s nature. The painting in this video is based on the The Wonderful World of Micky Mouse episode entitled Game Night. In the episode Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck, and Donal Duck get tother for their weekly game night but this time Mickey has built a life sized version of a game for the two couples. However, the life-sized version is a tad bit dangerous and the game pieces turn-on the friends using dessert pies as weapons. During the episode, Donald dreams of being the one who comes out the winner for a change, because it is always Mickey Mouse who comes in first. But as the pie-danger increases Donald realizes that he must sacrifice his winning dream, and his own body to the pies for the sake of the gang. And so the number one duck steps in front of the pie projectiles, offering himself up to be smashed and allowing Mickey to win and rescue the friends.
In order to capture the spirit of Donald and the episode I watched and rewatched it. I wonder what the Disney+ algorithms think of my watching habits after this. I sketched out the rough composition ideas for the painting and then started laying in the rough geometric shapes. Donald, like a lot of the Mickey Mouse friends, is based on circles and oblongs, with very flexible limbs (kinda like tubes). Donald’s duck bill adds an interesting group of curves to his design as do his feathers for fingers. Those are a lot of fun to draw and paint.
Although Donald and the gang are depicted in traditional animation style ink and color, I made sure to paint the background elements in the style of the television show. I used a really rough wide brush to lay in the colors and to mix them on the digital canvas. For a painting like this I used lot of different layers in the painting app. Each scene of the composition was worked in its own set of layers, which allows me to easily move or resize them if needed.
Pies
One of the really fun parts of creating this painting was being able to paint all the pies! As a matter of fact, my wife’s homemade pies are some of my very favorite desserts. I should have asked her to bake all the ones in the painting as reference material! Man, a missed opportunity.
Pig
The creators of the cartoon made a really fun villain out of the giant mechanical pigs that shoot pies out of their mouth. I bet that was in honor of the hit show Squid Game and the giant dolls that shoot.
Donald getting it in the face
The painting shows poor Donald really taking it in the face repeatedly with pies. I think this really personifies what happens so often to our favorite duck. He really gets picked on alot. Many times he responds in anger, but I think his very best nature is shown when he responds with love, like he does in this painting.
And of course, the main image of the painting is Donald, in an imagined scene, crossing the finish line and breaking the red ribbon signifying his victory. He is so happy in this image, finally winning and coming in first. But it is his sacrifice in giving up that first-place dream that his true character really shines through. And it’s why we love Donald Duck. Thank you for coming alongside me for the painting Game Night.
