1. The Art of Marvel's the Avengers - I've seen the book many times. Great art, great concepts! A huge fan of how Marvel create and execute their works :)

2. Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book - always been a fan of Feng Zhu Art. I really love his style of digital painting. Inspiring art.

3. The Art and Making of ParaNorman - I've seen the movie, and it was great! The animation of Paranorman's stop motion style really amazed me. I want to see how it was done so if ever chosen, I want to have the book :)

Art of Mass Effect Universe: I know the games very well and the book is a great way for me to return to the world of Mass Effect without having to play through all the games. Great balance of art illustration and orthographic archival of weapons etc.

Art of Assassin's Creed 3: Loved the appropriate painting style for the period - a kind of contemporary watercolour aesthetic.

Blast: A book which delivers on both rough conceptual sketches and the more polished painted pieces.

^ I would not have been interested in the last two if it wasn't for this blog. Thanks!

1) The Art of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Improves what we saw in the original trilogy artbooks. It's a breathtaking weta stuff!!

2) The Art of Mass Effect Trilogy
Massive character desings & superb drawing style, simply outstanding!!

3) The Art of Halo 4: Awakening
The 343 studio concept artist have had a hard work in expanding the Halo universe
and they've done it extremely well!

I probably have choosen them because of being a fan of the franchises, but overall
it has been an amazing year for artbooks: Gears of War 3, Assassins 3, FZD, Massive
Black 2, Expose 10... really epic!!

My favourite artbooks of this year :

A Disney Sketchbook : Beautiful, just beautiful, make by masters.

Artbook Cromwell: Quelque Part : Discovered Cromwell by the review on Parka Blog. I bought it immediately. I love it. Characters with lots of personality : Wild, Punk, Rock... Fun.

Mattias Unfiltered : I already have this first artbook, The First In Line (with an original drawing). Very imaginative, poetic and inspiring.

My favorite books of 2012 are:
-"Expose 10: The Finest Digital Art in the Known Universe" - as with the other books in the "Expose" series it pictures a wonderful execution of details in the artworks. My favorites are the portrait- and the steam-punk sections.
-"Brian Froud's Trolls" - I simply love the art of Brian Fround - be it fairies, goblins or trolls.
-"Drawing and Sketching Secrets - 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way" - the book explores lots of different styles and methods and the wonderful examples of all the artists inspire to draw for yourself.

This is such a nice opportunity you are giving to people like me who can't always afford art books although I crave it !
I had the chance to borrow art books from friends or read in libraries so here are my top 3 in no particular order:

- The Art of Rise of The Guardians : I think this is a beautiful art book that covers the whole process of the animated film and the thought behind each scenes. I love the character designs in these kind of animation with mystical and well known character, I get see how they interpreted these common figures that we usually see but with a great twist ! The best fart is that the book is rich in not only colors and line but in words too! We earn a lot of knowledge and understand the movie in depth.

- The Art of Assassin's Creed III : I haven't yet played this game but I've seen a lot of short animation from the game and fanarts. I've always loved the design of the main characters: how the hood give so much mystery and give us the urge to know more! This art book is filled with beautiful landscape too, with stunning composition and lights. Something that I can learn a lot from. We can also find breathtaking work from William Wu too!

- Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book : FZD... one of the school I would like to attend the most! And Feng Zhu is such a great teacher although I only learned from him on youtube, I think he taught me too much for no gain. And for that I would like to repay him. In this art book, we see the stunning work of the students at the school and I think it's a great motivation for the readers to work harder!

My favorite art books of 2012

-The Art of Journey. The explanation into their thought processes regarding the game is fantastic. Every piece of art book is beautiful, and there is a lot of emotion behind everything they made.

-The Art of Wreck It Ralph. It's amazing to see how this films story developed, and how very different it was going to be. Excellent view of character development through visuals.

-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles: Art & Design. It was great seeing the thought process of film. From the costumes to the environments.

First, The Art of Rise of the Guardians because it’s filled with wonderful and colorful pictures (little, medium and full pages). The author explains the choices made to shape the characters and the landscapes. There is also an arborescence which shows the links between people for the creation of a critical sequence in the movie, that’s really interesting.

My second choice is The Art of Paranorman. Every chapter covers a department. The author is I literally guiding us through the place. And he describes the work of everyone of them by interviewing the head of the department. That’s amazing to discover that the cape of a ghost needed armatures (like the skeleton of the puppet) in order to give it a natural movement. We learn a crazy amount of stuff and there are great photos of workshop and tools that’s exactly what I wanted to see.

My third choice is The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy. I’m a fan of the trilogy and I was frustrated by the bonus in the DVD…And this artbook comply with my expectancies! We learn a lot about the shooting and preparation (material for the costume, building of the sets, etc..)
For example, in Batman Begins the scene on a frozen lake when Bruce Wayne and Heni Ducard are training was shot in one day even though the ice wasn’t really thick because they knew that the ice might not be there anymore the next day.

My favorite artbooks for 2012 were :

1.The Art Of Brave, this Disney Pixar book gave a lot of insights to the Scotland scenes.And coined the word legend in a new meaning. Love the drawings and beautiful characters.
2. The Art of Wreck it Ralph- I love the concepts and the characters and the idea from video game. Your nice review made me purchase this book.

3. The Art Of John Carter- even though the movie was a big flop, I still went to buy this book and very expensive indeed. But I am a fan of Andrew Stanton thats why I like it.

The Art of Journey - A great mix of style, atmosphere and minimalist approach.

Awakening: The Art of Halo 4 - 343 Did a fantastic job relaunching Halo and building an amazing team of artists

Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book - Feng Zhu is an amazing tutor. Inspiring, dedicated and always sharing.

1) Naughty and Nice: The Good Girl Art of Bruce Timm - Amazing book that showcases Bruce Timm's unique simplistic but very expressive style. I was lucky to grab a hardcover but I'm contemplating picking up the pocket edition to have around that I can look through more easily. Highly recommended.

2) Dark Souls Design Works - Incredible monster design and world building. The designs of the monsters are highly imaginative and are downright terrifying. (Especially if you plan on playing the game).

3) The Art of the Mass Effect Universe - I'm not too into the games but I will admit to it having a really great sci-fi aesthetic. Very distinct and varied alien races and amazing locales.

Thank you for this opportunity!

1- Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book-Because we all love concept art.
2-The Art of Rise of the Guardians
3-The Art of Wreck-It Ralph