SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: The Theme Park Artwork of Brianna Garcia

This week the SATURDAY SIX Proudly Presents: The Theme Park Artwork of BRIANNA GARCIA! To coincide with Disney’s Festival of the Arts, each February the SAT SIX spotlights artists in the theme park community. Each of these Artist Spotlight features gives us a chance to appreciate an artist whose work incorporates characters, attractions, or any other part of the Disney or Universal theme parks.

We began this annual tradition in 2021 and have continued each year since (you can find all previous Artist Spotlight features by CLICKING HERE.) The class of 2026 begins with Brianna Garcia, an artist whose work has been featured on Disney Lorcana cards and even the cover of a comic book released by a major publisher. As a life long comic book fan, you can imagine how happy I was to finally have one of the only forms of art that originated in America be represented in our Artist Spotlight Series.

Reminder that clicking on any photo will bring up a full size version.

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So you’re saying I get to ramble on and on about theme parks and the way they inspire my work? Say LESS, I am so ready! I wanna thank Derek for this opportunity to talk about one of my favorite pastimes and how it influences my art.

A bit about me first, hi I’m Brianna! I was born and raised in Southern California, and I started drawing when I was five years old. I am gonna date myself with this little fact, but the first movie I can recall seeing in the theaters was The Little Mermaid in 1989. Being raised in SoCal, I was introduced to theme parks at a very early age, and while I didn’t appreciate them in my younger years, they captured my heart as I got older. In my early 20’s I got my first annual pass to Disneyland and I was over the moon. Having all the free time to roam the park was incredibly inspiring. I could go on slow strolls, admire the architecture, the theming, and of course the performers. I started to take my sketchbook to the park and draw what I saw around me.

As a young adult I attended the San Francisco Academy of Art, got my degree in animation (while minoring in illustration) and I went on to a lengthy list of creative jobs. Over the past couple decades I have freelanced for Disney, worked for Warner Bros Animation, and I’m grateful to have an established career in comics and consumer products. To this day I still love taking my sketchbook everywhere I go, including theme parks!

# 6 – Halloween Horror Nights

I want to dive right into my current hyperfixation, Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights. I first started attending HHN in 2010, but I didn’t take my sketchbook with me until 2021. I was actually encouraged to finally bring it by another artist featured here, Savannah Hamilton! She had been drawing scareactors for a while and recommended I give it a try, and WOW am I glad I did. I didn’t get into horror films until later in life, but I quickly became addicted to drawing the creepy and terrifying.

I am based in SoCal, and I learned that while there was an extensive fandom for HHN in Orlando, there wasn’t a similar community at Universal Studios Hollywood. Even though Hollywood’s HHN never had the elaborate backstory that Orlando had, I was determined to make something with the characters. The Chainsaw Brigade had been my favorite part of HHN for years, so my first encounter was with a Roadkill Ranger, who I affectionately dubbed Snout.

 

I found so much joy in drawing scareactors because HHN is one of my favorite events of the entire year. On the flip side, I’ve also seen how much abuse the scareactors take, both physically and emotionally. They work so incredibly hard each year, with long overnight hours and yet consistently give guests the best experience possible. I found that drawing them was my way of giving something back to show my appreciation. After that season I had so many scareactors reaching out to me, saying how much they enjoyed seeing their characters portrayed in my work, and that alone made it all worth it!

I was also lucky enough to visit HHN in Orlando for two consecutive years, and it was fascinating to see the differences (as well as the similarities.) The first Orlando icons I got to meet were SINIST3R and SURR3AL, so I immediately became obsessed with them. The drawing below was the kickoff to a series that took me several months to complete – HHN characters in the style of Alphonse Mucha – one of my favorite artists who was widely known for his Art Nouveau creations. For this series I used characters from both Orlando and Hollywood.

I also began an annual tradition of drawing lineups of the Hollywood Chainsaw Brigade, and I’m up to four consecutive years now! My hope is to create a new lineup each year, with 2025 next on my to-do list.

I also came to realize that unlike Orlando, Hollywood had little to no lore for its own characters. However, that also made them a blank slate that I could work with, and I began making short form comics with the characters.

 

This may be the most obscure thing to possibly reference, but one of my absolute favorite things at HHN Hollywood is the Chainsaw Wagon, where the Team Members store backup chainsaws during the Chainsaw Chaseout. It’s so darn cute! I also made stickers of the wagon and handed them out to all the tech crew who handled the chainsaws.

# 5 – Carnival of Carnage

In 2025, HHN had one of their best years in ages by debuting Art the Clown on both coasts, and I instantly fell in love with the character. To match the vibe of Art, Hollywood went all out and created the Carnival of Carnage scare zone with a massive cast of clown characters for Art to interact with. Art even became a proverbial ‘master of ceremonies’ at the Chainsaw Chase Out, leading the brigade of Chainsaw Clownz.

Even though I didn’t get to see much of Art in person in Orlando, I definitely saw all the TikTok videos of his antics and was inspired to sketch Art based on all the performers. Back at home in Hollywood I had a Frequent Fear Pass and the best part of going twice a week was seeing Art the Clown so often, it helped me overcome any underlying fears I had of clowns. It also got me to watch all the Terrifier movies, which I ended up enjoying a lot more than I thought I would!

The best part of Hollywood’s HHN was that I felt like I was watching an exclusive movie where Art would interact with the rest of the evil clowns, almost like his demonic found family. For example, Art would constantly bully another clown named Dimples, threatening to maim and dismember him for nearly two months. They had a hilarious enemies-to-friends arc where, by the last night of HHN, they had become bff’s and were teaming up to attack people. Dimples and Art became my favorite duo that season and it was all because the scareactors wanted to do something fun with their characters.

 

The clowns all got up to crazy shenanigans during the run of HHN 2025, which is why I love the scareactors so much. Almost everything I drew was based on their performances, and even now – long after HHN ended – there’s still so much I want to draw!

# 4 – Grinchmas

Another one of my favorite events at Universal Studios Hollywood is Grinchmas. The Grinch himself needs no introduction as he goes viral every year. I love taking my sketchbook to the park to not only draw the Grinch, but also the citizens of Whoville.

Obviously I’m a big fan of Martha May, and my favorite project that came out of the 2025 season was an idea that came to me while talking to Martha at the park. It’s a popular headcanon online that Martha is a monster lover, and we asked her if she enjoyed that certain genre of romance novels. She got very excited and asked if we had any book recommendations! I felt that Martha deserved her own romance novel cover, so I quickly got to work.

I also love drawing the citizens of Whoville because I always have so much fun talking to them in the park.

Even Mayor Maywho was delighted when I did a sketch of him.

As always, the best part was giving the sketches to the performers as gifts. Again, just to show my appreciation of all the hard work they do.

# 3 – Shanghai Disneyland

Being raised on Disney, I always dreamed of illustrating for the company in some capacity, and it became a lifelong ambition to have them on my resume. I worked at Disneyland as a sketch artist for a few years, but what came after that was my crowning achievement. In 2013 I was approached by Walt Disney Imagineering to do mural designs for the Disneyland Hotel in Shanghai, which was scheduled to open in 2015. It was an incredible experience when I got to visit the Imagineering offices in Burbank and see all the amazing things that they had planned for the upcoming park.

I was given blueprints and asked to design four murals for Lumiere’s Kitchen, the main restaurant inside the hotel. The results were a mural of Lumiere and company at the red curtain, waiting to welcome guests inside, the surrounding murals of the castle staff performing “Be Our Guest”, and the centerpiece of Belle and Beast at their dining table.

In 2018 I was incredibly lucky enough to travel to Shanghai with my mom to see the murals in person, and you better believe I cried (my mom cried too lol). After that Shanghai became my favorite Disney Park, since I’m biased now and can say it’s the only resort where my art is featured!

# 2 – Disney Lorcana

While freelancing for Disney over the years, my recent project with them would be creating artwork for Disney Lorcana, their trading card game developed by Ravensburger. I’ve had SO much fun with this project, because Disney allows for a ton of freedom when it comes to designing the cards. I’ve gotten to create several new costume designs, as well as new fantasy backdrops in which the characters reside.

Designing for Lorcana is the best kind of challenge because we create art that has us focused on specific themes for the cards. For example, the Queen of Hearts is an Amber Ink card, so everything from the carriage, to the costume, to the color of the sky had to reflect those design elements.

The best part is seeing your designs out in the wild. Disney never tells us which works will be used for promotions, so you have to keep your eyes peeled. Out of all the cards I’ve designed my Baymax has been the most popular, appearing on box sets and even on gaming posters in Japan!

The work we do behind the scenes is meant to be super top-secret, so while I can never say what I’m working on at the moment, I can certainly tell you to look for more in the future!

# 1 – Dark Universe

Of course I was obsessed with Epic Universe, how could I not be?! I haven’t gotten to experience a brand new theme park since Disney California Adventure opened in 2001! I was incredibly lucky enough to make it to the park twice in its opening year, which I felt was quite the achievement while living in SoCal.

Like many theme park fans, Ygor captured my heart. I was already sold on the idea of an entire land dedicated to the classic Universal monsters, and then I started seeing all the videos of his interactions with guests. He was so funny and his improv skills were off the charts. I was also enthralled with the story of Victoria Frankenstein, and her mission to continue the legacy of her ancestor Henry Frankenstein.

I also had to imagine my two favorite characters from my trips in 2025, Ygor and Art, and what would happen if they ever met. Oh the possibilities!

I can’t wait to go back to Epic Universe, next time I plan to draw the Vikings of Berk. So many characters, so little time!

HONORABLE MENTION – Archie Meets Jay & Silent Bob

One of the recent projects I was so excited to do was creating a variant cover for Archie Comics, for their issue “Archie Meets Jay & Silent Bob.” The idea was to create unique variant covers across the country with different retailers for fans to collect. A local comic shop in SoCal called Knowhere Games and Comics reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in collaborating with them, and I jumped on to the project!

The shop owner pitched the idea of an homage to Giant Size X-Men #1. Since I had done a ton of Marvel fan art in the past, and with Marvel in such close proximity to Disney, it just made sense to me. I was happy to discover that mine was one of the only covers to feature the character Milly, Jay’s daughter. During a livestream auction with Kevin Smith, he even held up my cover, saying how much he loved seeing Milly.

The cover to Giant-Size X-Men #1 was drawn by artist Gil Kane and is one of the more iconic covers in the history of Marvel Comics. The issue itself turned the X-Men around from characters whose interest in the comic book world was waning to the point of the book becoming bi-monthly reprints of old material to the worldwide juggernaut that we know them as today.

 

 

Thank you again to Derek for this amazing opportunity to share my work! If you’d like to check out my portfolio, you can find it at https://www.briannacherrygarcia.com/. You can see even more of my theme park sketches on Instagram and Tikok. Feel free to chat with me anytime over on Bluesky.

So there you have it: The Theme Park Artwork of Brianna Garcia! See you next weekend for the latest installment of the SATURDAY SIX, where we’ll look at something fun from the world of Disney and Universal. If you enjoyed yourself, be sure to check out the THEME PARK ENJOYMENT INDEX, giving a monthly recap of all the theme park news you need to know (and a lot more you don’t need to know, but we’re gonna tell you anyway). You can also follow Your Humble Author on BlueSky (@derekburgan).

If you enjoyed this, you’ll surely enjoy the following:

Artist Spotlight Class of 2021: SonderQuest | Sam Carter | Brian Cooper | Sterling Decker

Artist Spotlight Class of 2022: Rob Yeo | Ava Buric | Jess Siswick | Hayden Evans

Artist Spotlight Class of 2023: Marie Catano | Savannah Hamilton | Bunny Wars

Artist Spotlight Class of 2024: Jaime S. | Jess Feldman | Bryan Bindman

Artist Spotlight Class of 2025: Brandon Starr | Kristi O | Henry Taylor

Artist Spotlight Class of 2026: Brianna Garcia | Derek Collier | Andres Orellana

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: Derek Burgan

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: Brian Gweon

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: Phillip Weatherford (AKA The Horizoneer)

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: Charlie MacWilliams

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: Stephen Christ

SATURDAY SIX Presents: Artists Inspired by Universal’s VELOCICOASTER

SATURDAY SIX Presents: Artists Inspired by Universal’s EPIC UNIVERSE

SATURDAY SIX Presents: Artists Inspired by Universal’s HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS

SATURDAY SIX Artists Inspired by HHN Series: Declan O’mara

BONUS! My Little Terrifer

The funniest part of my job in comics was illustrating for My Little Pony while being a huge fan of horror. The juxtaposition of Art the Clown as a pony was too good to pass up, so I had fun turning him into a character you could maybe see in the comics, while still being just a little unnerving.

It was all done as fanart, nothing official. Anytime I shared them on my socials, I always had to make sure people knew I wasn’t trying to sneak Art into the comics. I don’t think IDW Publishing would have approved it, haha! But I do have a feeling that Art and Pinkie Pie might get along pretty well. And of course I love the idea that you can be a fan of both the adorable and the grotesque at the same time.