DUBAI // Step on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab and wave to cartoon planes as they swoop over the city.
As a promotion for Disney's animated 3D movie Planes, which opens on September 12, children and adults are posing for pictures in front of a three-dimensional artwork at Toy Store in Dubai Mall.
Tentatively standing on a circle that represents the Burj Al Arab's green and yellow observation deck, they look across at a canvas of Dubai's skyline packed with iconic structures such as the Burj Khalifa and Emirates Towers.
The 3D art illustrates a scene from the movie when Dusty, a crop duster plane afraid of heights, flies over the emirate in a round-the-world air-racing championship.
The chalk and acrylic painting will also be taken to the Mall of the Emirates and other stores in the region.
"I love the interactive element with people having loads of fun - children running on to different spots to try poses," Joe Hill, the British artist who created the painting, said as he added the finishing touches yesterday.
"People are kind of confused when they first see this and then, from toddlers to older people, their faces light up when they get it.
"I could paint a picture that sits in a gallery and few would see it, but here people want to chat about it and want to share the pictures they take."
Children waved, balanced and stood on their toes on the painting as they had a free picture taken against a blue sky with few clouds and a backdrop of Dusty, his Indian friend Ishani and a rival Ripslinger.
Denise Nathan, 6, tugged at her mother's arm and practised different poses.
"Will it look like I'm actually falling? Will it actually look like I'm sitting on the edge?" she asked.
In the movie, the round-the-world race scene also features India's Taj Mahal and other well-known sites in China, Germany, Iceland and the US.
Dubai is the first location to which Disney has brought the 3D art to publicise the film, which is a spin-off from the Cars franchise.
