Book Review: The Art of Pocahontas

The Art of Pocahontas is an oversized art book with huge image prints and large typesetting fonts.

The content is split into the following categories: Preproduction and Concept Art, Story, Charater Development and Animation, Layouts and Backgrounds, Effects and Colors.

Pocahontas is actually a Native American woman who married an Englishman John Rolfe way back in 1595. You can read more on the real Pocahontas on wikipedia.

Much of the challenge in making this movie is the balancing of the story, myth and legend. There's great writeup in this book on how scenes were adjusted to best convey themes while entertaining audiences.

There are over 400 colour and black-and-white illustrations in the book. Most of the scenes and characters are captioned by the story artists, examining the character motivations and story arcs. These are incredibly detailed and is what breathes life into the characters. Reading those captions is my favourite part of the book.

In the layout and background section, the descriptions explain how compositions work in the scenes to complement stories. It's educational, with timeless principles applied and explained.

This book really gives a good sense of the incredible amount of work done behind the scenes to create the animated movie. It's a very interesting as well as an enlightening read.

The Art of Pocahontas - 01

The Art of Pocahontas - 02

The Art of Pocahontas - 03

The Art of Pocahontas - 04

The Art of Pocahontas - 05

The Art of Pocahontas - 06

The Art of Pocahontas - 07

The Art of Pocahontas - 08

The Art of Pocahontas - 09

The Art of Pocahontas - 10

The Art of Pocahontas - 11

The Art of Pocahontas - 12

The Art of Pocahontas - 13

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Places to get The Art of Pocahontas:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.fr | Amazon.de | Amazon.co.jp

Tags: 

9 Comments

I'm just curious, is the

I'm just curious, is the first picture shown where it says "Walt Disney's Pocahontas" really a picture of Pocahontas. The looks and manner of the girl are identical to those of Tiger Lilly from Peter Pan.

I actually bought this book

I actually bought this book in 1999 still shrink wrapped for the stunning price of $10. I'm not sure it has held it's value well at all. Still, I treasure it and don't think I'll ever depart with it.

Add new comment