By: Tracey Miller-Zarneke Publisher: Insight Editions Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Insight Editions Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 191 Publication Date: May 13, 2008 Release Date: May 13, 2008
Amazing from paper to pixels to the big screen. After seeing the movie I just knew I had to get the "Art of" book. Amazing. 5 stars easy.
Nice illustrations... The Art of Kung Fu Panda I purchased this as a birthday present for my niece who recently graduated with a degree in graphics design. She and her boyfriend, who is also a graphics designer, really liked the book.
A truely amazing book! First of all, a confenssion - Kung Fu Panda is probably my favorite movie of 2008. I ordered this book on a whim, thinking it would be a nice little book to look over and remember the movie. Boy was I wrong! This book is stuffed to the gills with the history of each and every character in the movie, as well as those that didn't make the final cut. It's awesome to read the different directions the characters took before they settled on what would appear in the movie. It's also cool to read some of the background of the characters that I didn't know, like Oogway being from the Galapagoes and traveling the world before settling in China. It only adds to the depth and richness of a great story of a great movie. And the art is beautiful to look at - I've taken hours just staring at the detail of all the pictures. To quote Master Oogway, "Yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery. Today's a gift - that's why they call it the present." Do yourself a favor and give yourself the present of this book - Today!!!
Nicolas Marlet's illustrations make this book, a beautiful book but I do miss the earlier 'Art of' editions.... Firstly, I really cannot stress enough how beautiful Nicolas Marlet's illustrations are, he creates wonderful characters and anyone who loves character art cannot help but enjoy the mans illustrative comic talent. I would have bought the book alone for his drawings and if Dreamworks had had the insight to print all his sketch books relating to Kung Fu Panda I would have bought that also. I love his work, free and inspirational and anyone who can make others laugh in a few simple lines has a gift. So I highly recommend this book to all you illustrators and animators, a beautiful drawing can say more about how a character is to be animated than any text and Marlet's work must have been very influential to the films evolution.
Ever since I was a kid, I'd buy an animation art book almost yearly. The Art of The Lion King was probably the first art book of this type I ever had given to me and it kindled my love of animation art all the more, finally in these pages were beautiful concept illustrations, story board art works, inspirational paintings and final prints from the film, all of which were bound up in beautifully presented cloth covered large scale folio editions (originally printed by Hyperion). Books like these emphasised the storytelling process the Disney studios believed in and presented imagery which spoke volumes above the text, since the key to all great artistic works be it in animation, illustration, theatre design or film is the artists ability to simply draw from life, observe it, relish it and understand it -- and from that process you have great storytelling, you need imagination naturally and that's the art part, how you see marks you out ........... these books just need to show us more art when the film was evolving as that is inspirational and they could be designed better.
This is a fine book but doesn't really live up to my expectations when compared to what came before. It is smaller, I can't see the point in printing images which are the size of postage stamps on these pages and I want to see more final, well chosen film prints and pencil, painterly, illustrations than any image which has a digital smooth feel, ultimately this lack texture and evokes little.
But buy the book for Nicolas Marlet's illustrations, they live up to the films impact!
Art of Kung Fu Pand is AWESOME I really love this book. I loved the art style of the move; the backgrounds, the character designs, everything. This book just gave me more to love about the movie. Definitely worth it if you loved the movie and the style.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
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