Absolutely Awesome
I loved the movie, and this book met my high expectations and then some. I've got a lot of "Art of" books from Disney and Pixar films, and this is one of the best. Lots of great concept art and incites. Lots of great info on building characters and designing/building worlds, and writing stories. Tops.
Lots of Different Style
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3LTRUKDAGKYD7 There's a lot of different artistic style in the book. When Brad Bird came to Pixar, he brought with him his team of artists, those that had worked with him on The Iron Giant.
Each artist produced concept art using different materials and style. There are collage, gouache, digital, marker, acrylic and pastel. Each drawing generates ideas and inspiration. You'll have no idea the movie was created for art so varied. There are no rendered stills from the movie.
The book touches mainly on character design and artistic direction of the movie.
If you want the process of creating The Incredibles, you'll want to grab the DVD instead. There are pretty comprehensive behind the scenes included in the DVD.
There are more pictures on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for my blog's link.
Somewhat disappointing
The Incredibles remains my favorite Pixar film to date. I was very excited to read this book and I very much looked forward to seeing the progression from rough ideas to finished product.
Sadly, this was not what the book delivered.
The art in the book is rough and garish. The few development drawings and maquettes that are included are overshadowed by the gaudy, cut-paper collage versions of the characters that are featured on almost every page. Of all the artists that worked on this film, only a paltry few were chosen to have their work featured in this title and after a few pages the "sameness" of the chosen work dulled any enthusiasm I might have had for it.
I must also agree that the art strikes me as very early pre-production work as it has very little visual relation to what wound up on the screen. There is almost no development or evolution of the characters or sets shown and little to no mention of how these rough versions became the final polished movie. It seems to me to be an illustration of one single moment in the movie's development rather than a comprehensive look at all the art and creativity that went into the film. And a rushed one at that.
This is an interesting coffee-table book, certainly something avid collectors would want in their library. But for those of us looking for an insight into the vast process of creative development in such a wonderful movie . . . I'm afraid we will have to look elsewhere.
Great book
I'm 13 and I want to make a story with a retro/modern theme. I closely watched the Incredibles and saw that was the theme! So I bought the book, very excited. It arrived. It was used, so it had a few tears and some markings, but thats ok. I read the book rather quickly, which I was upset about because I wish it was longer. It was good, but I felt I was expecting more. More pictures. I noticed there was a lot on Edna's house. I wish there were more pictures on the characters like Mirage, and there was text about creating the characters. Nevertheless, it was a great book and if you want a nice book of retro themed artwork, go ahead and buy this. I'm thinking of buying the postcards and framing them, or putting them in an album.
Beautiful & Fun Book!
I bought this book as a gift, but really enjoy it myself. Beautiful illustrations, high quality paper (with some fold-out pages), lots of info on the movie and its design. Great for fans of the film, or fans of this type of art in general!
