The Art of Brave

I went into "Brave" fairly skeptical. It didn't look like the kind of movie I would normally watch, but then it was made by Pixar so that made me curious. Then, my teenage son saw it with a friend and said he thought I would enjoy it. I went, and he was right! The visuals in the movie are stunning and the story is fantastic. As a family, we all appreciated the message about listening to each other. This book, then, is a wonderful companion as it shows the artwork of the movie and the pre-production artwork that was developed over the years that it took to make the movie. As a wanna-be artist myself, I like books like this anyway, but I especially appreciated how this book showed the interaction of how the art and the characters progressed. Characters grew and then the art would change accordingly, or the art would change and the character would grow to match.

I have a ton of these books. I wanted to get this one because I loved the animation of the movie, and wanted to see the process. It was interesting to see the pre design character sketches of Merida. This book has a lot of character sketches, but only a few of each character. It has the background designs, and info about the process of the movie. It wasn't my favorite book of the art of Disney books, but it is still a good one. I just wish there was more sketches instead of digital drawings. Overall if you love the art of Disney books, are into drawing, loved the movie, or have a career in art then you would enjoy this book!

I bought a stack of "Art of" books for one of my design classes to share with my students. This one (with Tangled a close second) is by far the best in terms of the design process. Lots about the research, the preliminary design work, and the iterations of the process made it useful as well as lovely. So many of these books are just a collection of final concept art an stills from the movie. Nice, but not enlightening. This book goes much deeper into the process.

Just like the movie, the book's color scheme is pretty dark which is a great contrast to the other 'Art of' books that I own (Moana, Big Hero 6). I'm really satisfied with the stunning quality and resolution of the art. There's a ton of really interesting facts about the movie and making of too!!

Gave it to my daughter for her 13th birthday because she is a huge Merida fan. She loves looking and see all beautiful inspiration behind her favorite movie

Absolutely LOVE this book! Seeing the sketches from the research trip to Scotland and character designs and everything in between is truly amazing. This book definitely shows how Brave developed and has many hand drawings and raw sketches, very neat to see how those are translated to 3D animation.

Here we go again, another PIXAR book out and up my PIXAR shelf. This one's a little thin compared to the others but it's still pretty cool and has all the aspects you come to expect in an Art of Book from this premier animation studio. Couple things stand out to me, the biggest one is the talented team of artists on the project. Steve Purcell, his pal Mike Mignola, Character design legends Carter Goodrich and Daniel Lopez Munoz, along with artists Steve Pilcher, Huy Nguyen and Noah Klocek, AND my favorite bits, sculpted foam and acrylic paint maquettes from long time PIXAR artist Tia Crater, among many others fill the volume. Ive never been to the old country but Im sure it looks quite a lot like this- Dark, Rich colors, and Cold. I saw Secret of Kells a number of years ago and seeing the Brave trailer I right away noticed quite a bit of similarities, but now that Ive seen the book and have a little bit of an idea of the film itself, Im a little bit more comfortable with realizing this is definitely a different movie. If you like art of books, I blog about the best of artbooks on The Last Outpost, so check it out if you're so inclined: en-b.blogspot dot com!

I loved the movie Brave and was so excited about this book. It did not disappoint. This book provided a detailed look at the production of the movie from assembling the team of artists that created it, to finalizing the story and art. There was so many gorgeous pieces of scenery, both of pictures the crew took while visiting Scotland and of concept art for the movie. One of my favorite parts was the art of the characters. Merida alone had eight pages of art showing different stages of her character development. This was my first "Art of..." book and I loved it. I will definetely be purchasing more in the future. It is a must have for anyone who enjoyed the movie and values the time and dedication that went into making it!