Book Review: The Art of Eric Guillon

Eric Guillon is the artist who designed Gru and the Minions from Despicable Me, the animals from The Secret Life of Pets, Sing and more. The Art of Eric Guillon is the huge 376-page hardcover artbook that collects the concept art he has created for animation studio Illumination and their films.

This artbook is packed with pre-production concept art and sketches. What I really like about this book is it shows the many designs that were not even used in the films. You'll get to see the many iterations of Gru and the Minions before they become the recognisable form we see on screen. There is a lot of exploration with the art, testing out concepts, designs, characters. There are also a good number of gags, visual as well as story telling gags. The artworks are very often humorous, e.g. dogs with dreams of sausage island where everything is made with sausage.

Eric's drawing style is loose and lovely, and there's always some story beneath. The looseness of the lines sometimes reminds me of Quentin Blake. There is also a good amount of text talking about the designs and characters.

This is a fantastic artbook and showcase of Eric Guillon's art. I feel like this should be one of 2022's best artbooks. There's a lot to see and read, and fun.

Note that this book is published by two publishers namely Insights Editions and Titan Books. Insights Editions list the book as having 384 pages, and Titan Books list 304 pages. The copy I have is published by Titan Books and has 376 pages. So the number of pages listed by both companies are wrong.

This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook.

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