Monday, August 06, 2012

The Art and Making of ParaNorman


This book snuck up on me and instantly was a huge surprise. Hold on, no surprise. Ive heard some amazing reports from friends at Laika and have followed the company for a longtime, so its no surprise that this is a fantastic-ly creative place. I guess the pleasant surprise is found with-in the book, which has this really nice, compelling Craftsmanship angle twisted into it- along with the typical character designs and background art you find in "Art of" books.
There's something particularly special about a picture of someone building a set, animating a stop motion puppet, or fabricating props that isnt found in a picture of an animator animating on a computer, or an animation wheel, or a layout, color or concept artist drawing or painting, no matter how impressive the piece of art is. The cool thing about this art and making of book is how awesome the making aspect of it is; People building cars, climbing into sets, people sewing costumes, or making wigs! Sucha great documenting of many extremely specialized and rare jobs all coming together to make something.
Super inspiring to see!
Great job you guys!
As with quite a few art books this one is on nice glossy paper which is terrible to try and reproduce, but above are a handful of my favorite pictures- There's tons more of good ones though, all looking way better than these.
A really great book for someone who loves animation art and an even better one for someone who is fascinated with fine Craftsmanship.

The Art and making of ParaNorman
Jed Ager
Chronicle Books July 25th 2012
190 Pages HC
ISBN 978-1-4521-1092-9
11 x 9.5 x .7


pretty good deal for 26 bones on amazon

2 comments:

Carlos Fins said...

Hi, I just ordered the book on Amazon. I was wondering if it had any of the artwork that was featured in the end credits??

en_b said...

Hey Carlos!
I havent seen the movie yet- this week for sure!
Probably not before you get the book though- hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Thanks for commenting!