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Walt Disney Storybooks - Finding Nemo - Tank Gang
Pixar
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The Story
Separated from his father by a marine life-loving dentist, Nemo the little clown fish finds himself in the strangest of surroundings—the dentist's office aquarium. The newcomer is immediately welcomed by the friendly inhabitants of this all-too artificial fish habitat - Gill, the scarred moorish idol leader of the tank gang who takes Nemo under his fin - the insightful starfish, Peach - Bloat, a blowfish with a tendency for emotional as well as literal blow-ups - Bubbles, the bubble obsessed yellow tang - Deb a reflective humbug damsel fish with an identity crisis - Gurgle, a royal gramma whose fear of germs makes him a royal pain - and Jacques, a fastidious cleaner shrimp. Together, this warm-hearted community is determined to help Nemo, and themselves, escape to the freedom of the ocean.
The Artwork
This limited-edition artwork is available in paper and canvas versions, both capturing a scene from Disney/Pixar's Finding Nemo (2003). One of the film's origins was director/writer Andrew Stanton's childhood memories of a fish tank in his family dentist's office. He recalls looking forward to going to the dentist just so he could look at the fish. Stanton remembers thinking, "What a weird place for fish from the ocean to end up. Don't these fish miss their home. Would these fish try to escape and go back to the ocean."
To imagine the special world of the fish tank, the designers started with a dry tank outfitted with potential props and shot with a tiny camera. "We went shopping for some aquarium stuff and it was funny how cheap and poorly made everything was," observes artist Peter Sohn. "Production designer Ralph Eggleston really liked that quality of the paint slapped on and these cheesy tank toys, like a shark on a surfboard. We wanted all those funny details." "Artist Nelson Bohol did a drawing of a plastic volcano that would have bubbles projecting light through these glass beads, making them glow like lava," continues Ralph Eggleston. "Andrew had also been saying that it'd be great to have a shipwreck motif, which gets your mind thinking - South Seas...island volcanoes - Tiki. Basically, Andrew wanted us to create the kind of cool fish tank we'd all want-with an added cheese factor, of course." Andrew Stanton credits that creative-yet-kitschy look for helping define the tank gang's lovable but dysfunctional personalities.
The fine art printing process of color reproduction known as giclee was used to create this scene. Using original digital files from Finding Nemo, a first-generation "print" is created from the digital source—the same way the digital source is used to output to motion picture film. In this process, the image from a computer-based digital file is printed by spraying millions of pixel-sized drops of ink per second onto premium-quality, acid-free paper and canvas with an enhanced printer, specially modified for fine art reproduction.
In addition, for the paper edition, a reproduction of the original story sketch that was used to create this moment from the tank gang's welcome to newbie Nemo is included, along with the official Finding Nemo logo.
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