Looking back at the list and seeing how much we had this year was a lot of fun! There are quite a few books there that I am yet to purchase and would have had a shot at my top 3 if I already owned them, but since there are so many books out there I will focus on the ones I've actually already purchased. Although there's one book in particular which I am sure would have made the list if I already had it - and that's the latest Hobbit Chronicles. The other Design and Art books from the Chronicle series are among my all time favorites and this would have been too. Alas, I ordered the signed version directly from Weta, and it won't be here until early 2015.
Which frees up room for other books, so why not. I decided that my favorite 3 books this year actually also appropriately represent new discoveries for me. After many years of focusing solely on books that cover only live action films, only this year I really got back into watching animation, which I have not done in years - and as a result also started catching up on the animation books, and an even bigger discovery for me, not being a gamer, was the beautiful art that is involved in many games. Initially I had intended to only buy books of things I am emotionally invested in, because there's so much out there, but at the end of the day I gave up: if I love the art, I want to have it.
So without further ado:
1. The Art of Assassin's Creed: Unity - would you believe that my first gaming art book was actually a Limited Edition? But I feel in love with this as soon as I've seen it, partly because of my love for Paris, but mostly because the style of that particular franchise really appeals to me (and I am slowly catching up on previous art books as well). The Limited edition is so beautiful done I can even spend long minutes just staring at the slipcover.
2. The Art of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I love fantasy art, but more so, I love fantasy art when it shows me a whole universe. Because I don't play the game and only familiar with what I've read about it, the amount of information I got about this fictional world through the gorgeous art is even more impressive. Even without being very familiar with the context, you can see the pieces are not stand alone works of art, but how they all connect to one another.
3. The Art of DreamWorks Animation - as I started catching up on all the animation films I haven't watched since I was a kid, I realized that many of them belonged to DreamWorks, and from there the road to that book was very short. I still intend to get the individual books for some of my favorite movies on the list, but this massive book, even though it touches every film only a little, still manages to bring across the sheer volume of work that has been done by DreamWorks over the years, and the vast variation of styles and stories. Every spread in this book is a celebration of the imagination.
Looking back at the list and seeing how much we had this year was a lot of fun! There are quite a few books there that I am yet to purchase and would have had a shot at my top 3 if I already owned them, but since there are so many books out there I will focus on the ones I've actually already purchased. Although there's one book in particular which I am sure would have made the list if I already had it - and that's the latest Hobbit Chronicles. The other Design and Art books from the Chronicle series are among my all time favorites and this would have been too. Alas, I ordered the signed version directly from Weta, and it won't be here until early 2015.
Which frees up room for other books, so why not. I decided that my favorite 3 books this year actually also appropriately represent new discoveries for me. After many years of focusing solely on books that cover only live action films, only this year I really got back into watching animation, which I have not done in years - and as a result also started catching up on the animation books, and an even bigger discovery for me, not being a gamer, was the beautiful art that is involved in many games. Initially I had intended to only buy books of things I am emotionally invested in, because there's so much out there, but at the end of the day I gave up: if I love the art, I want to have it.
So without further ado:
1. The Art of Assassin's Creed: Unity - would you believe that my first gaming art book was actually a Limited Edition? But I feel in love with this as soon as I've seen it, partly because of my love for Paris, but mostly because the style of that particular franchise really appeals to me (and I am slowly catching up on previous art books as well). The Limited edition is so beautiful done I can even spend long minutes just staring at the slipcover.
2. The Art of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I love fantasy art, but more so, I love fantasy art when it shows me a whole universe. Because I don't play the game and only familiar with what I've read about it, the amount of information I got about this fictional world through the gorgeous art is even more impressive. Even without being very familiar with the context, you can see the pieces are not stand alone works of art, but how they all connect to one another.
3. The Art of DreamWorks Animation - as I started catching up on all the animation films I haven't watched since I was a kid, I realized that many of them belonged to DreamWorks, and from there the road to that book was very short. I still intend to get the individual books for some of my favorite movies on the list, but this massive book, even though it touches every film only a little, still manages to bring across the sheer volume of work that has been done by DreamWorks over the years, and the vast variation of styles and stories. Every spread in this book is a celebration of the imagination.