Book Review: The Art of Ferdinand

This is a lovely companion artbook for Blue Sky Studio's latest animated film Ferdinand.

The concept art consists of sketches, coloured illustrations, paintings of the characters and environments, and 3D renders of the animals. It's fun looking at the different styles that's used to draw the same character. Each style has such a different feel even when it's the same character.

The bulk of character designs are for the animals, such as Ferdinand, Valiente, Bones, Guapo, Angus and the many other little animals that appear, e.g. chicken, birds, dogs, hedgehogs. There are of course human characters as well. The designs look great. There are text explaining the designs and why they work. For example, the text may talk about designing a strong recognisable silhouette for the characters and you can look at the accompanying artworks and see just how well that design idea is carried out.

The environment artworks are beautiful as well. We get to see the village of Ronda, the countryside, Casa del Toro, Madrid and the Arena. The world is well conceived and just looks lovely, charming. The overall air direction is just fantastic. The mood and atmosphere are well captured. You can almost feel the light and the air.

It's a wonderful artbook. Well worth the money.

The Art of Ferdinand is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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