Dan spent more than twenty hours working on “The Fairytale Watch”, which included more than twenty characters. In addition to his primary school job, he was a freelance painter for a year. The fictional version of De Nachtwacht was a hobby project for him. “I often draw copies of existing boards to practice,” Dan tells EditieNL.

The painter himself is a big fan of Efteling. “Being able to give an example of such a development now and then is a guilty pleasure for me,” Dunn says. “My dream is to one day work at Efteling.”

puzzle

Between assignments, Dan worked on his own version of the iconic painting. He used a replica of the Night’s Watch by Julius Rooymans and Hans Ubbink as inspiration, because he saw people so well in it. “Because I liked it so much, I figured it out in a few days. The composition was already done by Rembrandt and the characters were really designed. All I had to do was put these two things together.”

Although this was a fine job. “I started putting text about the dolls on a diagram to determine who should be where they should be. Sometimes it’s hard for one of the characters in Rembrandt’s version to be a human, and the Efteling doll is twice as small. You have to do it in proportion. Stay together.” So adjust and measure. “It was a fun puzzle, I really enjoyed working on it.”

Stretch out ass

The Efteling fan wanted to keep the illustration as realistic as possible. “I really liked that if you press your eyes, you’ll think: Is this The Night Watch? That’s why the human characters are more in the foreground.” These are Captain Willem van der Decken of the De Vliegende Hollander attraction and Healer of Fata Morgana, between them at Holle Bolle Gijs.

The longer you look at the illustration, the more details you’ll notice. He loves Daan Ezeltje Stretch Je the most. “The donkey stands instead of the dog. That was the hardest place.”