There’s been some hoopla over the Cars paper models lately. I finally removed Webdude’s models, because it looked like his website had vanished from the Internet for good, despite rumors that it would be back soon. A few days later, I found links to his models on a file sharing site, so the models were re-added. Well, the one item that they didn’t have was Webdude’s Lightning McQueen.

Fortunately, Julius Perdana (Paper Replika) has designed two! He has also expressed interest in designing other Cars characters.

On a related Pixar note, the templates for the super-detailed mini Up house have gone A.W.O.L.

As an artist, the highlight of the D23 event had to be the Buena Vista Street preview panel, hosted by Lisa Girolami, Ray Spencer, and Coulter Winn. It’s a very fascinating look at the architecture, color design, and layout of the new area. Read More

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the D23 weekend. I know I did. I still am, really. There are more YouTube videos to watch, articles to read, and Imagineering concept art to drool over (where’s my bucket). The only bit of new news (for me) is the upcoming Fantasy Faire, which will replace the Carnations Plaza Gardens at Disneyland. Read More

I was saving these wallpapers for a later date, but with the news of some upcoming unique coins, I thought I’d release them now. On November 1, the New Zealand Mint will release two different sets of Star Wars coins. Read More

This is the third installment of the Walt Disney World tickets.

I know that some cultures have complex rites and rituals, but I didn’t know that some of them have gone high-tech!

Check out edsel12′s Disneyland photos for behind-the-scenes images of some of your favorite attractions. They’re pretty neat, and very revealing (spoiler alert!). Boy, I wish I could kick back in the Pirates of the Caribbean control tower for a day. I’ll bet the view from there is awesome.

On Friday, August 19, the United States Postal Service will release a new set of First-Class stamps based on five Disney·Pixar animated features. They will be released as Forever stamps, which will always be worth the most current value of First-Class Mail one-ounce postage.

You can pre-order these stamps online at the Postal Store.

There have been enough guests building awesome sculptures and models that they could be combined to create a new Disney theme park or two.

Sounds like an Indiana Jones flick, doesn’t it?

Kidding aside, if you’ve been nosing around on the Flickr account looking for the paper model photos, you will not find them. I recently discovered that the yearly upgrade ($24.95 for Flickr Pro) has expired and is due for renewal (ya think I would have gotten an email about that). Unfortunately, the funds do not exist to upgrade just yet. If you’d like to help out, pitch in a buck or two (any amount, really).

If you’d rather save up for next month’s giveaway, that’s fine, too. And, we’re going to change it up a bit to make it more fun. The minimum $2 donation will be lowered to $1, and every dollar that you donate counts as a separate entry! The more dollar amounts that you donate throughout the month, the better chance you have of winning one of the prizes.

What will these fabulous prizes be? You’ll have to wait until September 1. There will be two prizes for U.S. donations, donated by the sponsor. We’ve discussed it, and they really want the winners to get their prizes in time for both parties and Halloween (international shipping takes way too long). But, I was able to dig up a special prize for one lucky international donator as well!

Stay tuned.

Thanks to Becky’s suggestion, you can now build the Skyway Bucket paper model in all five colors. The original model file contains the orange bucket; the modification file contains parts for blue, red, turquoise, and yellow buckets.