New Artwork for Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog”

The Princess and the Frog is Disney’s return to traditional hand-drawn-style animation. Over at DisneyAnimation.com, there is a gallery of “visual development” images that give us more of the background depicting 1920s New Orleans and its vicinity. The artwork is beautiful and really got me excited about the movie. However, we all have to wait until Christmas 2009 to see this one.

In regards to the look and feel of the movie, Disney says:

The world that the visual development team created is that of 1920’s New Orleans. A lush, vibrant environment with rich background and breathtaking scenery. The fresh, engaging look of the characters bring humor and warmth to this classic fairytale.

The Princess and the Frog is a jazzy musical fairy tale based on the classic story “The Frog Princess” and features the first ever African American Disney princess (voiced by Anika Noni Rose). Other characters include a trumpet-playing alligator and a love-sick Cajun firefly. And clearly, from what these new images show us, it’s set in New Orleans’ French Quarter, as well as the Garden District (or maybe the mansion in the image is further outside the city) and on the bayou, where apparently someone lives in a shipwrecked boat, Swiss Family Robison style. Hopefully, since the story takes place during Prohibition, we’ll get to see some swamp-set bootlegging going on.