The Art of Bolt

by Mark Cotta Vaz, John Lasseter (Foreword), Chris Williams (Introduction)

Meet Bolt: dashing super-dog, loyal companion, star of a hit television show. This heartfelt Disney computer-animated film follows Bolt on a cross country journey as he learns his entire life has been fake and discovers he doesn’t need super powers to be a hero.

The Art of Bolt is a beautiful collection of more than 250 pieces of concept art created for the film, including storyboards, sketches, color scripts, full-color illustrations, as well as material from the fabled Disney archives. Quotes by the director, producer, and artists contextualize the art, and thoughtful essays explore Disney’s past, present, and future in animation.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

159 pages, Hardcover

First published October 29, 2008

About the author

Mark Cotta Vaz is the author of over twenty-one books, including four New York Times bestsellers. His recent works include Mythic Vision: The Making of Eragon, The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion, and the biography Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong, which was a Los Angeles Times bestseller.

Reviews

[Elevetha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was quite pleasantly surprised by this Art Of book. I went into it with not very high expectations, most likely because straight-up fantasy art, the more epic the better, speaks to me more. However, the renderings of small town, big city, and cross-country America were beautiful. They also did a fantastic job of talking about the movie and certain aspects of its making without overdoing it. A nice blend of art and text.

Oh, and it does help that I adore Bolt. It's such an underrated movie.

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

Bolt is one of the movies John Lasseter supervises in Disney, after coming over from Pixar. He starts to book off with a foreword that explains the artistic style Disney is trying to achieve — 2-D painted backgrounds. Throughout the book, there are snippets on the way John has helped the team.

In this book are character designs, storyboards, digital paintings, sculptures and colour studies. The captions from the staff explain the challenges faced when creating the movie. It helps readers understand why certain buildings are modeled that way and why certain scenes are composed and shot in another way.

I like the production design, and how the movie looks. It's somewhat similar to how Open Season do their backgrounds, but this time applied to the urban landscape.

The number of character designs are limited mainly to Bolt, Penny, Mittens and Rhino. Not a lot of experimentation character sketches are shown. Did they get the correct design that fast? It's not a bad point. They do include many varying poses and sketches for the final character designs. Anyway, the only art books I've read that screams character designs straightaway are The Art of Kung Fu Panda and The Art of Bee Movie.

The environment paintings are beautiful. Captions for them always relate back to the story. The level of detail just goes to show how much research was done — as recommended by John Lasseter.

There's not a lot of film stills and 3D talk. This book is more on the art, how the art is created generally, and why they are created that way.

I'll say it's almost as good as the other Pixar art books I have. Nice.

This review was first published on parkablogs.com. There are more pictures and videos on my blog.

[Ann-Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has beautiful examples of the level of craftmanship and skill that went into the visual aspect of this animated film. The backgrounds are gorgeous, but as with many 3D animated films, the charm and spice of the 2D preproduction characters design aren't quite continued through to the finished versions, which seem too softened and fluffy.
I could spend ages looking at the painterly details of the backgrounds and set-ups, feeling both deflated and inspired by what the artists achieved.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thick, glossy pages filled with lush artwork - concept sketches, digital art, storyboards - from Disney's Bolt alongside commentary from the people who brought it to our screens. Nearly every page saw me emit an involuntary squeal at the cuteness of Bolt, Rhino and Mittens.

I'll be happy if I never have to see the word 'painterly' again, though.

[Violetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute and informative, with good artwork, but very little text (what little there is, is quite informative though).

[xXQueenofHeartsXx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the movie so i had to read the art book.

[Miss Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of lovely sketches, digital paintings, etc.