There are some early stocks for The Art of The Rise of the Guardians at Basheer Graphic bookstore and I borrowed one for this review.

When I first saw the cover, I found it puzzling that an animated movie artbook would have a cover with this much white space. Covers for such books are usually filled with strong colours.

Featured in this 156-page hardcover are gorgeous concept art for the DreamWorks animated film. Rise of the Guardians is based on the children book series The Guardians of Childhood, written by William Joyce, who's also the film's executive producer.

Just printed behind the covers are huge detailed 3D portraits of the six main characters. They are North, Bunny, Tooth, Sandy, Jack Frost and Pitch. The art revolve around them.

Animated films with mythical characters are pretty common but it's always fun to see different interpretation. The character designs are wonderful. All the six are given a slight twist. North, aka Santa Claus, wields two swords and looks more like a warrior. And Bunny looks quite cool with the serious demeanor. My favourites are probably the designs for Sandy and Tooth. There's also much to read with the lengthy commentary on the characters.

Beside character art, there are many beautiful paintings of the magical worlds they live in. Some of the ones I like are from Max Boas, Tim Lamb, Jayee Borcar, Peter Maynez, Felix Yoon, Patrick Hanenberger and Woonyoung Jung. They create much of the environment art of which many are printed big and nice.

Overall, the artbook packs plenty of things to see and read. It's fantastic and highly recommended.

It seems there are two publishers for this book, Titan Books and Insight Editions. Prices for the books might differ depending on where the books are sold.

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From publisher Insight Editions:
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From publisher Titan Books:
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This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook or visit their website.