The Art of DreamWorks Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

The Art of DreamWorks Puss in Boots #2

by Ramin Zahed, Antonio Banderas (Foreword), Margie Cohn (Afterword)

The Art of DreamWorks’ Puss in The Last Wish celebrates the triumphant return of the fairy-tale hero with a look at the artistry and creativity behind the animated adventure.

Foreword by Antonio Banderas
Afterword by DreamWorks Animation president Margie Cohn

DreamWorks Animation brings Puss in Boots back to the big screen, following the daring outlaw as he risks his last life to find the fabled Wishing Star, which holds the power to restore his nine lives.

The Art of DreamWorks’ Puss in The Last Wish honors the studio’s latest installment from the Shrek universe, presenting hundreds of character designs and concept art from the making of the movie, along with exclusive interviews from the writers, artists, and filmmakers who brought this story to life. Animation Magazine ’s editor in chief, Ramin Zahed, offers an insider’s guide that provides a glimpse into the creative process and celebrates everyone’s favorite leche-loving, swashbuckling, fear-defying feline.

Includes Color Illustrations

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

184 pages, Hardcover

Published February 21, 2023

About the author

Ramin Zahed is the Editor-in-Chief of the Los Angeles-based monthly publication, Animation magazine. He has been covering the animation and visual effects world for over 15 years. Before joining Animag, he was a senior editor at Daily variety. His articles have also appeared in Variety, Hollywood reporter, The Los Angeles times and The Christian science monitor.

Reviews

[Tamara]

Some 'art of' books are simply just better than others, and this is one that certainly is. Each page not only gives an excellent selection of artwork, but the writing accompanying it is filled with heart and intention. This was a movie made with love and with care, and it shows in every page of this book. It's such a pleasure to see the craft of animated films displayed clearly and with passion.

[Leo]

Beautiful book, I loved seeing the different artistic views and the silly sketches. It also made me realize that it takes a LOT of people to make animated movies, it’s crazy. I wish there would have been more lore about the movie and certain things, for example they show an image of the star crater with 12 rings around it but they don’t explain what it is, I would have loved to know. Still, pretty amazing art book!

[Libraty]

The movie is absolutely stunning on a visual level, and the artbook definitely lives up to that standard. It’s packed with gorgeous concept art, especially when it comes to color palettes, vegetation, and environment design. The use of color in particular is incredible, they used such a big, varied, bright palette to convey the different moods and atmosphere.

I also really appreciated the written passages. They were informative, not too general, and not overly simplified. I liked that they weren’t afraid to use technical terms without over-explaining them. It made the commentary genuinely insightful. That said, I do wish there had been more of it. Many pages only included a short paragraph, which felt like a missed opportunity. I would have loved to get deeper insight from the artists behind the film.

And this is a rare critique from me, but I actually wish they had included more frames from the finished movie. In several instances, they describe in text adjustments to the lighting or specific tweaks made during the rendering process to achieve the final look, but then they only show concept art instead of giving you an actual example from the finsished film :I Show me what you were talking about book!

[Valerio Pastore]

Vabbè, ma di che parliamo?!?
"L'ultimo desiderio" è stato IL film DreamWorks -e ancora, per ora, non ha trovato un degno erede. Una storia completa, stratificata e matura, un cast azzeccato senza sbavature, comparse comprese, eroi eroici ma umanissimi, e avversari di prima classe; il tutto graziato da uno stato dell'arte come mai in casa DW s'era visto.
E' solo giusto avere in casa una copia di questo libro che presenta le bozze, gli studi, le scene scartate, il tutto nella stessa sequenza in cui procede il film per poter rivivere quelle fantastiche emozioni.
Raccomandato ai veri fan, ma raccomandatissimo anche per chi il film ancora non l'ha visto.

[Edward Zeauskas]

Sort of reads like a commercial feels. A lot of information, a lot of self-aggrandizing, but also, a lot of art. My favorite is page 51, and not having seen the movie yet, the bit about "The Ethical Bug," was wonderful.

[James Aspden]

This film is amazing, the artwork is beautiful!

Unfortunately I felt like the words were just repetitions of the same themes and things, initially really cool and insightful but eventually I was like, they've already said this 3 times

[D.T. Henderson]

I absolutely loved the movie, and I enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look. This book has a great balance of pictures with adequate explanations dispersed throughout. The text here is engaging as we see the creative’s thought process.

The gold foil lettering is a nice touch too!

[brianna]

it was very fun to read how they came up with the new look by incorporating that Spiderverse style and also returning with a great story to tell about Puss In Boots

[Shannon]

Beautiful

[Jordanka]

Really good art book

[ツツ]

I had a huge crush on puss as a tween.

Snack read 23 of 2025

[Tara Carey]

If you’re someone who enjoys art books just for the art, this is a beautiful one!

However, if you’re into reading about said art in an art book, I would potentially steer clear. It seemed that this book’s captions and descriptions were written as if they were, well, never intended to be read? Maybe just flipped through from a coffee table. A lot of it was just reiterating the film’s plot and any interesting facts were just repeated over and over again. There were few times the author truly went into depth about any production processes, design choices, etc. Plus, as a picky bonus complaint, the numbers that drew back from caption to artwork were so tiny, it was hard to find them and find out which artist created which work.

But still overall a cool and beautiful book! 🤩