Book Review: The Ballad of Rango: The Art and Making of An Outlaw Film

I was enjoying the book when I felt something was off. The pages came off the spine. Now, they are hanging by the threads that hold the pages together. I don't know if it's just my copy or the printing batch.

Anyway, if you're getting this book in UK or Europe, it's distributed by Titan Books. The prices are slightly different. Not sure about the binding quality for that.

Luckily, the content is pretty good. The concept art are very beautiful. I think the artists really nailed the character designs. They look quirky and wacky, and have a great sense of personality, from their looks to posture to attire. The harsh desert environment sure is unkind to these characters. You can almost feel the dryness of their skin, or even sand in their hair. Most of the character designs are from production designer Crash McCreery.

Besides the town and buildings, there aren't a lot of other environment art. The other images included are some storyboards and film stills.

The film is made by Blind Wink Productions and Industrial Light & Magic. The book features a good amount of commentary on how the characters, design concepts and the experiences of working on a full length animation - a first for both the director Gore Verbinski's production studio and ILM.

The book is enjoyable with the great art and stories but the binding is a letdown.

Wonderful Rango sketch from Head of Story Jim Byrkit

The cast of desert critters

Adam Cramer working on the sculpts

More Rango sketches from Jim Byrkit and Crash McCreery

Roadkill (name of this character) is hilarious

They should make a video game out of these characters, something along the line of Red Dead Redemption.

Not much environment art except for the buildings.

The film stills look great.

Storyboards from Jim Brykit and Josh Davies

The unfortunately binding

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7 Comments

too bad about the binding....

Submitted by Rui on March 10, 2011 - 3:53pm

too bad about the binding.... I may have to wait until this is a Bargain buy.

wow, that binding is really

Submitted by Anonymous on March 10, 2011 - 6:15pm

wow, that binding is really bad-> they really should consider recallinng the book.
can´t imagine that´s the kind of quality standart they want to communicate.

Hi Parka, wasn't able to put

Submitted by Melody Kitn on March 10, 2011 - 10:37pm

Hi Parka, wasn't able to put up my part and probably won't till the weekend (darn work), but it looks like the content is the same. My binding looks reliable, but I'll have to double check on that one.

Nice! RANGO is now my

Submitted by FAUNA on March 11, 2011 - 6:10am

Nice! RANGO is now my favorite CGI film besides LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS & WALL-E. Everything about the movie is beyond exceptional, especially the art direction (with lots of incredibly artistic scenes that strike an emotional nerve, which is rare for an animation). I'll be adding this to my collection...

Hmm.. I do wonder how the

Submitted by Farron on March 12, 2011 - 9:13am

Hmm.. I do wonder how the Titan Books edition compares.

Anyway, with regards to the comment about them making a video game with the characters.. well they have! :) Here is one review of it already:

http://gamespot.com/xbox360/action/rangothevideogame/review.html

I've been informed by the

Submitted by Parka on March 12, 2011 - 11:28pm

I've been informed by the publicist from Insight Editions that the two editions are actually both published by Insight Editions. It's just that Titan Books are distributing it in UK and Europe.

The binding for the Titan Books one looks alright.

Mine could be an isolated case of a bad printing batch.

Hi, I just got the Titan

Submitted by Anonymous on March 30, 2011 - 12:26am

Hi,

I just got the Titan edition (Amazon.co.uk) and the binding is ok there, at least after three runs through the book.

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