Toad's Fountain

 I wanted Toad Hall to have a fountain at it's entrance, to add a bit of water and motion to this area which would ultimately be queue area themed to a garden at the entrance to the house. As for what kind of fountain, a long Google search for "English Fountain" and "Tudor Fountain" yielded several results, a few of which I used for inspiration, especially the two on the right.

 

 

 

I debated a lot about how Toad should be depicted on the fountain. Of course, the natural idea is to show him as we remember him from the animated film. You can see him depicted on a fountain in the Disneyland attraction below.

 



 

 

I don't think I even realized that that was supposed to be a statue of Toad and Cyril when I was younger. I think I completely ignored their monochromatic color (maybe due to the low lighting) and just thought that in their revelry, Toad and Cyril had climbed into a fountain. Certainly it makes no sense to have a statue of  Toad and his horse in the middle of London, especially when we know that Cyril is new in the neighborhood, having been introduced to Rat and Mole at the beginning of the film.

 

I decided that it was best if this fountain appeared to have been in the family for some generations, so the Toad on my fountain is not our Toad, but just "a toad" perhaps one of J. Thaddeus' relatives, or more likely simply a beautiful statue made in the Toad image. He is of course striking a very Toad like pose, which I guess means that perhaps Toad's personality can trace itself back through the family line. Hopefully that doesn't muddy the believability of it as a generations old fountain, but I felt it should be a dynamic pose, and get you excited to enter the attraction. 

Gouache on Illustration Board

 

Perhaps in a future post I'll post some of the alternate poses I tried out. I added a bench seat running the perimeter of the fountain and four faces of toad on each face of the column that the larger Toad stands upon. And of course each divider between the seats bears a shield with a large T on it. And like the fountain with the obelisk in the lower right-hand reference photo, this fountain really should have lilly pads in it.