My wonderful colleague, aka rocketraygun on deviantART, has kindly passed me his copy of Hellboy The Art of the Movie, for review.The book starts with Guillermo del Toro (GdT) recounting how Hellboy went from being one of his favourite comic books to become a Hollywood movie he would direct.
Major characters in the book have their own biography pages, providing a little background for readers, like me, who didn't read the original comic book series. That's helpful.
Conceptual art is plentiful and accompanied by the movie script. Short captions by artists explained how the art was created to fit into the vision of GdT. This book's main subject is most probably artistic direction with function. From the captions, every thing drawn has form, function and purpose. Here's a little quote from GdT.
Let me make something abundantly clear --- in case you've been on Mars --- NO RED!!! --- Except for Hellboy or the atmospheres that are intimate/related to him: BROOM, LIZ, GRIGORY, and/or colors in WWII. - GdT
This book is heavy on character design, set design, movie story boards and props design. Movie frame stills were hard to find.
For Hellboy fans, getting this book is a no brainer.
Country-specific Amazon links for this book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.fr | Amazon.de
Check out other books I've reviewed also, with pictures:
Art book list | Design book list