Part of the problem may have been the sheer volume of recommendations I got for this little guy and to live up toI just wasn't impressed by this book.
Part of the problem may have been the sheer volume of recommendations I got for this little guy and to live up to those expectations it would basically have to cure cancer, so take that for what it is.
First of all, there were a couple of gold nuggets in the book. I rather liked the anecdote of an artist who took dancing for fun, excelled, then had to relearn how to dance for others when the chance arose for her to be part of a performance troop. It was just interesting that she had to relearn a skill she already had with a different motivation.
Unfortunately, other parts were very trite at times and didn't make a lot of sense at others. I think someone else mentioned that when discussing cave paintings, the authors said something like the cavemen were not intelligent enough to be self-aware which struck me as blatantly false.
As is common, it's loaded with adages about how art is made by people who make art, not people who stop and how hard work is hard to distinguish from talent, and that most artists feel like frauds, but none of that struck me as anything special. I've heard that many times before. Perhaps is it was new information in the early nineties, but now it's so readily available, it just seems like a giant yawn.
Finally I was really put off by the author's text in boxes. Basically from time to time, they'd have a small aside to "explain" something, but it really seemed more like snarking than anything else. For example:
Q: Aren't you ignoring the face that people differ radically in their abilities? A: No. Q: [...If each person made their best work, wouldn't] the more gifted make better work, and the less gifted, less? A: Yes. And wouldn't that be a nice planet to live on?
That's not addressing the issue!
I was also rather perturbed by the authors' description of entertainment as mass produced, clearly meant derisively. They barely reference commercial art and then rag on how there are very few paying opportunities for artists. It seems like they're missing something there.
Finally I didn't like their section on schooling. There is a lot of merit to learning how to draw the figure if nothing else, but they never address that school might give you the tools to address technical matters. Again, this may have been relevant at the time of publishing, but I can tell you that there are schools that prepare you for commerical arts for sure.
So basically, it had a few gold nuggets that got it a second star, but it really wasn't a great read. It had the virtue of at least being super short....more
Any Disney artbook is going to be a good one. I enjoyed this one, but it simply wasn't what I was hoping it would be. I was hoping for another The ArtAny Disney artbook is going to be a good one. I enjoyed this one, but it simply wasn't what I was hoping it would be. I was hoping for another The Art of Tangled and this was lacking.
The Snow Queen started out as a traditionally animated feature so I was looking forward to a ton of concept art from that. I had seen some online so I couldn't wait for a book featuring that. Unfortunately there are very few illustrations in pencil period, let alone these early character designs.
Instead this book focuses more on the Mary Blair/cutout style artwork (as seen on the cover). It's really fun to look at and shows a big change while the film's being developed, but again, I wanted more pencil drawings.
That being said, the book is excellent for storyboards and environments in the film. It has storyboards for a lot of the major scenes. There is a major costume section going into embellishment, shape language, etc. which is very useful. I also appreciate their discussion of the ice and snow effects. The problem is that while one "chapter" is sufficient for how they handled ice and snow, one chapter is not enough to go over seven or eight character designs.
As I said, it wasn't what I was looking for, but if you like costuming or storyboard this is your book....more
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