The Art of Pixar website is a fan-curated gallery of images and artwork from Pixar’s animated films. In an effort to avoid too much copyright hassle, the site maintains that its content is made up of “images (often publicity stills) made available by Pixar for promotional purposes, and already posted elsewhere on the internet.” Legalities aside, it’s a well-designed site with some lovely content for those who can’t afford the beautiful Pixar Art Of books.
Upon the release of every Pixar movie, I look forward to the subsequent Art of book. I am eagerly awaiting the release of Wall-E (robots!) and was equally excited for its own book of production art.
The Art of Wall-E seems, to me at least, a bit of a departure from previous Pixar Art of books. Those books were filled with all sorts of different character designs in wildly varying illustration styles. Perhaps I shouldn’t expect the same from a film that is centered around a lone robot inhabitant on a desolate planet, but apart from a few notes about how the character was inspired by R2-D2 and a pair of binoculars, the book features nearly zero preliminary character designs for the titular droid. It’s as if the character was invented fully formed.
The book still features plenty of storyboard sequences, lush concept paintings, and the colour studies you’ve come to expect from these books, but I could have used more robots! Robots!
For robot art, I’ll have to turn to the tie-in book, Lots of Bots. The always-stellar Grain Edit recently posted an interview with illustrator Ben Butcher, who shared some behind-the-scenes looks at his insane cut-n-paste working process:
Check out the trailer for the film here, or watch the following wonderful short doc with the filmmakers about the “dark life” involved animating a stop-motion film for five years. They also give notes about how they achieved some of the eery lighting in the film with smashed sideview mirrors they found in the street.
This is awesome! We’ve blogged about this film before and blogged about James’ quirky line-art illustrations, so it’s wonderful to see these guys get this level of recognition. I Met the Walrus is a surreal animated interview with John Lennon. Sadly, I still haven’t seen this film, which is making the festival rounds right now, so keep an eye out.
I’ve finally finished my interview with TWICE UPON A TIME’s (see previous) art director, Harley Jessup. He’s currently working at Pixar as production designer, having just wrapped up work on RATATOUILLE, but got his start in the animation biz working at Korty Films. He did several Sesame Street shorts (The Adventures of Thelma Thumb) before being assigned to work on John Korty’s upcoming audacious project: TWICE UPON A TIME. The film was a flop in the theaters, but that didn’t stop it from garnering a cult film status throughout the years, having spurred the imagination of many gen-x’ers, who were still kids at the time of its release (1983).
Read about how SE7EN and FIGHT CLUB director David Fincher was holed up in Harley’s apartment for 5 weeks, working on a 3D model shot of a train trestle for a sequence in the beginning of the film, how space was so limited in Korty’s house (where they produced the film) that a bathroom was converted into another camera room, and how some of the backgrounds ended up being over 7 feet long. Production shots and model sheets by Harley himself are also featured. Check it out.
Interview with writer and historian Taylor Jessen: Part 1. Interview with art director Harley Jessup: Part 2.
If, like me, you still can’t get enough of Pixar’s Ratatouille, you’ll love these Quicktime VR virtual tours of some of the film’s set pieces. Created by Tim Petros, and featuring Patton Oswalt voiceovers, these interactive pieces give you a chance to really study the detail and craftsmanship of the movie’s environments. I love, for example, how the kitchen’s floor tiles are all slightly uneven. (Previous Ratatouille links)
I saw Ratatouille last weekend and I have to say it’s my favourite Pixar film yet. Packed full of engaging story, surprising turns and delicious characters. I’m going to schedule a second viewing in the theater – which is something I haven’t done for a film in a long time.
Our friends at Frames Per Second Magazine have two great contests running right now. They’re giving away two full passes for next week’s Platform International Animation Festival and two copies of the recently-reviewed Pixar book The Art of Ratatouille. Visit this FPS blog entry for the details.
The more I see of Pixar’s Ratatouille the more excited I am to see it. Perhaps I’m still suffering from withdrawal symptoms from not giving a rat’s ass (pardon the pun) about Cars. Yeah, I know, Pixar’s the king of story-telling and strong characters, but still — talking cars.
Every time a new animated feature is released, you can bet there’ll be the ubiquitous “Art of” book along with it. I regularly gobble these books up, because even when the movie isn’t great, a nice heavy book of glossy concept art just can’t be beat (heck, I even bought the one for Robots).
What’s particularly great about Pixar’s books is that they clearly demonstrate the amount of thought, detail, and stylistic cohesiveness that go into establishing the films’ looks from the earliest stages. The Art of Ratatouille may be my favourite yet.
It wasn’t long ago that human skin, delicate foods, and other things that require the most subtle and translucent interactions with light were difficult if not impossible to render convincingly. Now that Pixar no longer has to worry about whether they can render certain things, they are clearly spending their time making things look as lush and beautiful as possible. The book is loaded with some of the most stunningly warm, glowing concept art I’ve seen by the likes of Dan Lee, Nate Wragg, Peter DeSeve, Carter Goodrich, and many more. And if you watch the 9-minute sneak preview of the film, it’s clear they were able to translate that lushness from paper to screen. All this plus Patton Oswalt? June 29th can’t come soon enough.
Sounds like Brad Bird’s doing a lot one of the voices for this one, too. Very exciting. I just watched The Incredibles again, and Brad’s voice-acting on Edna Mode still makes for some of the funniest moments in the film.
Now here’s something I can’t wait to get my hands on: The Ancient Book of Myth and War is an 80 page, full-color, hardcover volume of original works, following the loose themes of myth and war, both factual and fictitious. The book features artwork by Pixar artists Lou Romano (THE INCREDIBLES), Don Shank (THE INCREDIBLES), Nate Wragg (RATATOUILLE), and Scott Morse (RATATOUILLE).
At US$15.56, the book’s a steal over at Amazon right now, but diehard fans might want to hold out for the limited edition; 50 copies will be available in May at $50 and will each contain an original painting.
The guys also have a gallery show planned at Gallery Nucleus in L.A. to launch the book on March 24th, featuring originals from and inspired by the book for sale, as well as a Q&A/workshop at Nucleus the following day, March 25th.
Our friends at Frames Per Second Magazine have two great contests running right now. They’re giving away two full passes for next week’s Platform International Animation Festival and two copies of the 
The more I see of Pixar’s Ratatouille the more excited I am to see it. Perhaps I’m still suffering from withdrawal symptoms from not giving a rat’s ass (pardon the pun) about Cars. Yeah, I know, Pixar’s the king of story-telling and strong characters, but still — talking cars.
