Post by Mansion on Jun 10, 2009 21:21:35 GMT -5
So, my copy of the art book finally arrived today, and I have a few things (read: basically a whole review and critique) to say about it.
So, basically, art books are kind of marketed to film and animation students/buffs and hardcore collectors/fans. Not really the kind of thing you buy for you nine-year-old niece who loved the movie. So reviewers kind of cater to that subset, which leaves it hard to get an impression of how an average joe like you or me would like the book.
I'm not regretting the purchase by any means; it's a gorgeous volume and there's tons of fascinating stuff inside. But it's also not exactly what I was expecting or hoping for.
The main thing is this: It centers a lot on stylistic approaches and the process of coming up with the character and background designs. Emphasis on the background designs. It breaks down about like this:
60 pages for character art/design
64 pages of locations (just locations)
28 pages of props and SFX stuff
12 pages about dealing with 3D, textures, lighting, etc
9 pages of unused concepts and art
And of the character art, more than half of it is early designs. Depending on what you're interested in, this can be a good or bad thing. I bought the book hoping for a better idea of the characters in two dimensions, like with turnarounds and expression sheets and the such. There's almost none of that. If you're looking for 2D art reference, you're better off buying a coloring book or The M Files and backtracking from there.
But for a history and evolution of the characters, you couldn't ask for a better illustration of the process. It's incredibly interesting to see the flow as the artists figured out how to get the right balance of horror qualities and appeal for the monsters (Dr. Cockroach, B.O.B., Link, and Insecto all have early designs that are a damn sight more repulsive than their final cuddly forms), and how they had to work and work with Susan's design to get it to the final incarnation. And Gallaxhar has about eighty million scrapped concepts, which is kind of a kick.
Very few of the images are CG stills. Most are sketches, colored keys, and concept art. It's especially cool to see some of the rougher, earlier concepts done in a Mad Magazine or 'fifties black and white pen-and-ink pop illustration style. It drives home the nostalgia feel.
The text sections on the characters was one of the most fascinating things to me. It's kind of eye-opening to have the creators discuss in clear terms the motivation for the characters and lay out some very basic tenants of their personalities. Of course, this is coming from a fairly dedicated fanfiction author, so I'm used to taking the behavior of characters in the source material and backtracking through it to get to their motivations and inner workings. But in a standard-length movie with five main protagonists and a major antagonist along with a good handful of strong supporting characters, you only get so much screen time for each, which makes it a little tough. This was immensely helpful to me, and will definitely help me tweak my characterization a bit in any future fics I might write.
And there's a LOOOOOT of technical stuff. Basically, they had to design a whole world for the characters to live in with a specific style and proportion that would make everything mesh into a cohesive whole. So while it's slightly dry if you aren't super-into animation, it does give you a clear sense of all the work and thought that goes into an animated feature. Things like how they had to redesign every vehicle that they show in the film to fix the disproportionate style, or how the ship and the robots are so intensely planned, even when we only see them for glimpses and bit parts and never really get a cohesive sense of what they are. It really immerses you in the world they built, and I guarantee you'll appreciate the gorgeous, gorgeous backgrounds and textures in the film even more for having read it.
(Also, there are tons of little visual gags the artists tossed into the blueprints and things. Fun stuff.)
The unused concept section fell pretty flat to me, as it's short and there's not a whole lot of context to anything, but the art is pretty amazing, anyway.
All in all, I would recommend it to any serous adult fan of the movie.
So, basically, art books are kind of marketed to film and animation students/buffs and hardcore collectors/fans. Not really the kind of thing you buy for you nine-year-old niece who loved the movie. So reviewers kind of cater to that subset, which leaves it hard to get an impression of how an average joe like you or me would like the book.
I'm not regretting the purchase by any means; it's a gorgeous volume and there's tons of fascinating stuff inside. But it's also not exactly what I was expecting or hoping for.
The main thing is this: It centers a lot on stylistic approaches and the process of coming up with the character and background designs. Emphasis on the background designs. It breaks down about like this:
60 pages for character art/design
64 pages of locations (just locations)
28 pages of props and SFX stuff
12 pages about dealing with 3D, textures, lighting, etc
9 pages of unused concepts and art
And of the character art, more than half of it is early designs. Depending on what you're interested in, this can be a good or bad thing. I bought the book hoping for a better idea of the characters in two dimensions, like with turnarounds and expression sheets and the such. There's almost none of that. If you're looking for 2D art reference, you're better off buying a coloring book or The M Files and backtracking from there.
But for a history and evolution of the characters, you couldn't ask for a better illustration of the process. It's incredibly interesting to see the flow as the artists figured out how to get the right balance of horror qualities and appeal for the monsters (Dr. Cockroach, B.O.B., Link, and Insecto all have early designs that are a damn sight more repulsive than their final cuddly forms), and how they had to work and work with Susan's design to get it to the final incarnation. And Gallaxhar has about eighty million scrapped concepts, which is kind of a kick.
Very few of the images are CG stills. Most are sketches, colored keys, and concept art. It's especially cool to see some of the rougher, earlier concepts done in a Mad Magazine or 'fifties black and white pen-and-ink pop illustration style. It drives home the nostalgia feel.
The text sections on the characters was one of the most fascinating things to me. It's kind of eye-opening to have the creators discuss in clear terms the motivation for the characters and lay out some very basic tenants of their personalities. Of course, this is coming from a fairly dedicated fanfiction author, so I'm used to taking the behavior of characters in the source material and backtracking through it to get to their motivations and inner workings. But in a standard-length movie with five main protagonists and a major antagonist along with a good handful of strong supporting characters, you only get so much screen time for each, which makes it a little tough. This was immensely helpful to me, and will definitely help me tweak my characterization a bit in any future fics I might write.
And there's a LOOOOOT of technical stuff. Basically, they had to design a whole world for the characters to live in with a specific style and proportion that would make everything mesh into a cohesive whole. So while it's slightly dry if you aren't super-into animation, it does give you a clear sense of all the work and thought that goes into an animated feature. Things like how they had to redesign every vehicle that they show in the film to fix the disproportionate style, or how the ship and the robots are so intensely planned, even when we only see them for glimpses and bit parts and never really get a cohesive sense of what they are. It really immerses you in the world they built, and I guarantee you'll appreciate the gorgeous, gorgeous backgrounds and textures in the film even more for having read it.
(Also, there are tons of little visual gags the artists tossed into the blueprints and things. Fun stuff.)
The unused concept section fell pretty flat to me, as it's short and there's not a whole lot of context to anything, but the art is pretty amazing, anyway.
All in all, I would recommend it to any serous adult fan of the movie.
