Showing posts with label Art of. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art of. Show all posts

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Book Review: The Art of Big Hero 6


Hey everyone!  Today we'll be looking at The Art of Big Hero 6.  It's really a great book and my pictures/description just doesn't do it justice. 


When you take the dust jacket off, the hardcover is black with BH6 printed on it, like so. 


The concept art in the front of the book. 


It's laid out almost like a comic book with the text boxes and the text font used.  It's really neat!  They also include a list, not show here, of all the artists whose work is displayed in the book.  It's a long list.  Really super long. 




"The World of Big Hero 6" is a really big section in the book.  It covers the designs for SFIT, San Fransokyo, apartments, the Lucky Cat Cafe, Krei's buildings, so on and so forth.  There's a lot of structural/architectural things covered in the book. 


The page announcing the section "The Characters of Big Hero 6" displays the team with and without their superhero suits. 



...And they also include other concept ideas; a lot of them.  Almost all the characters are covered in the book.  All of the team characters, Tadashi, Aunt Cass, Krei and Callaghan, Baymax, bot-fighters, etc.  They have a lot of really, really neat information about how the tech in the movie works.  This includes Baymax and his charging station, Wasabi's lasers, Honey Lemon's purse, etc.  As a person who always asks "why" and "how", I loved these sections because they explained how fictional sci-fi stuff could work!  It's SO COOL. 


The "Cinematography" section covers a lot of different things such as color keys and mood with color, but it also includes information on an all-new technology that Disney used for the first time with Big Hero 6.  The program enables a photograph to be rendered into an animated movie; can have one light source listed and it will display a lighting key, etc.  I can't really explain it well, but it's fascinating and it's amazing how far animation has come! 


Examples of the parts in the book that describe how something works.  Wasabi's lasers, in this case.


Back concept art. 


Back of the book's dust jacket. 



I highly, highly recommend The Art of Big Hero 6.  It's very nicely done and has a plethora of information, be it how things work or different concept art.  A lot of the characters could have looked very different, so it's really interesting to see how the characters developed over time.  I have to give it a 10/10. 

Is anyone planning on getting The Art of Big Hero 6?  Has anyone read it already? 

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast book review


Hey guys! 
I've got a review for you all today - a review of the book "Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast" by Bob Thomas. 
A note here: I am SO sorry that almost all of these are sideways.  Blogger decided to load them up the wrong way and it's just plain not wanting to work today, so bear with me.  Sorry!


This book is very informative.  Now, if you're interested in any of the other Art of books, or Disney history, you'll most likely enjoy this book.  It includes information on the origins of Walt Disney's company, and about most of (if not all of) the animated features up to "Beauty and the Beast". 


Side note here: this is kind of a 2-in-1 deal here.  It also includes a second book, "The Making of Beauty and the Beast", also by Bob Thomas.  If I would have known this pre-purchase, I wouldn't have bought that book separately (review to come. :P) So in other words, don't pay $11 for The Making of Beauty and the Beast *AND* $5 for Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast when you could just get both for $5. 
Moving on.


The book is divided into several sections...


And includes a lot of interesting information on all of the movies Walt was involved in, especially Snow White.



Part of the table of contents. 
This book seriously has a wealth of information - I couldn't put it down!  It's not like it's riveting and full of action or anything, but I just find it really interesting xD


The side margins of the book has a lot of photos of the workers at the company, as well as captions.  The information in these are also kind of neat! 
The book also includes quite a bit of neat concept art, even including a two-page spread of the movie Fantasia

If you're interested in Disney history, this book would probably be an excellent thing to look into.  I bought it from Amazon.com used for about $5, so it's definitely a decent price for such a good book!

I will be posting the review for The Making of Beauty and the Beast book after this, and then will be posting reviews for the Big Hero 6 Junior Novelization, probably The Hunger Games trilogy (and the first two movies, I suppose), a movie review for Big Hero 6 (*muffled screaming* it was amazing), annnd probably a few other things I just can't think of right now :P