Railroad fans of all ages descended on the Fullerton Transportation Center for Fullerton Railroad Days.
The artistry on display at Wondercon 2014 makes my words on this page pale by comparison.
The images drawn by all the artists’ hands constantly amaze me.
Steve Feicht, creator of “Tiny Nightmares,” characters that kids encounter in their dreams, with his daughters Katie, 11, (left) and Devon, 15, (right).
One of the artists there, Steve Feicht, I’ve known since 1977 when we both worked at the Riverbelle Terrace at Disneyland together. We went our separate ways, but have always stayed in touch.
Steve eventually went into toy design and went off to New York to work for several years. Walt Disney Imagineering, where I was working in the creative division, was on a hiring spree in the mid-1980s.
One day I heard a familiar voice in the hall, it was Steve. He’d been flown in with his portfolio for an interview with management, including my boss and Disney Legend, Randy Bright. Steve and I had a nice lunch together where he showed me his design portfolio.
Later that day Randy asked me about Steve, and I gave him a solid recommendation. I think it helped.
Anyway, Steve was soon hired into WDI. We worked on several projects together there.
Eventually both he and I left WDI for other things, he went back to the toy design industry and I went into the journalism business, but we’ve always stayed in touch.
Every year he sends our family a hand-drawn Christmas card. He even created my business logo.
Tiny Nightmares showed up at Wondercon 2014. Image courtesy: Tiny Nightmares & Steve Feicht.
Steve has designed some really fun toys and other things over the years, and now the father of two lovely girls has come up with a really fun concept – Tiny Nightmares.
It was a concept inspired by stories he would tell his daughters to help them sleep. Other friends, parents of small children, inundated him with requests for their own Tiny Nightmares creatures.
According to Steve: “The Tiny Nightmares are the gruesome gang that defends your dreams. They use their special powers to fight the nighttime nasties who spoil your slumber.”
Tiny Nightmares showed up at Wondercon 2014. Image courtesy: Tiny Nightmares & Steve Feicht.
He and his daughters had a booth at Wondercon 2014 where people could check out the characters he created.
It debuted in 2010 at the San Diego Comic-Con, and has been steadily growing as a business, and a wonderful concept.
Hopefully it will be an animated television show soon too. I urge you to check it out at the Tiny Nightmares website.
You can read about my overall impression of Wondercon 2014 here at a post on Inside the Magic.
If you’re into the Cosplay at Wondercon 2014, you can click here to find more photos.
Earlier I wrote about some of the writers I met up with at Wondercon 2014.
I also wrote about some of the other wonderful weird concepts I saw, and you can click here to read about them.
I’ve worked with a lot of very talented people over the years, and some of them helped out with this web page.
Susan Lustig is a former Imagineer. She was a show producer at Universal Creative and at Walt Disney Imagineering. Like many, she is now out working on the world wide web and designs web pages, among other things. She is the one responsible for the design of this web page. (I’ve actually known her husband, Bob Dahl, longer than I have Susan. Bob is a principal at September Entertainment.)
You can check out more of her work at Acme Digital Design.
She was terrific to work with, and answered a lot of question. A very patient woman, but also talented and knows how to deal with coding issues.
She instinctively knew what photos to pick for the initial launch, and the color scheme for things.
Having a background in theme parks, like me, probably helped a lot too.
Susan, thanks for your terrific work.
Another former Imagineer I have known for a long time is a gentleman by the name of Steve Feicht.
We first met at Disneyland, then went our separate ways. He was a toy designer based back east for a while.
We hooked up again when he showed up one day at Walt Disney Imagineering, interviewing for one of the many designer positions they were hiring for at the time. My boss, Randy Bright, a Disney legend, asked me what I thought. It was simple, I said, “Hire him.”
We worked on a few projects together there, and after leaving WDI, on a couple other projects.
Steve is designing toys again, but when I asked if he could help me out, he designed the logo for my website, markeades.com.
You can learn more about Steve at his website, tinynightmares.com. Don’t be scared off by the name, they’re a bunch of really cute characters he designed to help get his daughters to go to sleep.
Steve has a great sense of humor.
Steve, thanks for the logo design.