The Art of How to Train Your Dragon

Love it!

Looking into starting buying art books due to a great interest in animation and this was the first addition to (what i hope will become) my collection. One of my all time favourite movies, seeing the concepts to final designs, seeing how the plot came to be and reading about the production was an awesome insight into it. Super worth it!

Beautiful book with tones of illustrations from the first film, definitely recommend for any fan of the films.

I was in awe when I first watched this film in the cinema. So when I finally got a chance to purchase this book, I couldn't wait to see all the concept art - for the dragons in particular :) The art work and the stories and other tid-bits about the process of making this wonderful film was fascinating.

It was a present for my granddaughter and she loves it. It arrived quickly and is a beautiful book.

It's a fantastic book. It makes a really great gift for 'How to Train your Dragon' fans. The illustrations/artwork are absolutley fantastic. It came in great condition and came withing afew days of ordering.

I am extremely pleased with this book. My only gripes with it is that it is a little thin and (me being really into character design) would have wished to have seen some more character designs and experimental sketches of faces and expressions. However, the art book is still of extremely high quality. I guess the reason why there aren't many sketches is because they less than a year to make the film. Great book, just wish there was more of it and more character art.

Great book, inspirational, full of information and the art is fantastic. Altho I would say it is one of the few times i liked the film more than the book :S

really is beautiful!! abit bigger than expected but I loved it!! the art is amazing and authentic. the shipping was quick too since i ordered it a day before. definitely recommend!!

With the completion of the trilogy and, now, a live action movie, I can speak with great confidence that HTTYD is truly one of the best creative piece ever!

I can't believe my eyes when I saw this books on the shelf at a local bookshop, two months earlier than its scheduled release date. Flipped a few pages, and saw the unique style of Nicolas Marlet, flipped back to the cover and found that Tracy Miller-Zarneke is the author and the movie's from Dreamworks. Those three names instantly reminded me of quality art book The Art of Kung Fu Panda. I'm glad to say that this book is as good and fun. By the way, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois are the famed directors here. Inside the book are more than 350 development artwork, including early character designs, story sketches, and concept paintings. The books is divided into three parts, the dragons, vikings and the environment with stuff like props and houses. Discarded art and characters are also included, like Hiccup's mother - who can cook a mean dish with dragon meat. Accompanying the art are plenty of interesting quotes and commentary from the production staff. Nicolas Marlet and Simon Otto seem to be the lead character designers responsible for the concept art of the dragons and vikings, although a good amount of designs are actually from Nicolas Marlet. There's a wide range of wackiness and creativity to the drawings. The character digital paintings are great and the colours are really beautiful, kudos to Zhaoping Wei. The environment paintings from Pierre-Olivier Vincent, art director, are beautiful. This guy really knows how to draw scenic yet precarious backgrounds like sloping hilltops, snow-capped sea arches and Dragon island which is like an ice-cream cone with molten lava as topping. Not only that, his tranquil pieces are also spectacular, National Geographic-spectacular. He has created places you want to visit but probably not because one wrong step and you'll roll down the hill. There are even a few illustrations from Dominique Louis, who did some pastel concept art for Pixar. His using digital pastels now and there's no difference from his traditional work, I'm glad to say. The fun and stylised houses, statues, weapons, boats and other props are from Kirsten Kawamura and Mel Zwyer. It's a fantastic book showing the creative prowess of amazing artists. Highly recommended. - By the way, if you missed the "About the Author" section above, I have to mention it here again because Tracey Miller-Zarneke has authored some really great art books that you should check out. - The Art of Kung Fu Panda - The Art of Meet the Robinsons - The Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - (More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Muy buen libro, me encanta como esta estructurado en cuanto al espacio para ilustración y texto, es el que más me gusta de los 2 y puedo decir que no te arrepentiras de tenerlo, muy buen material así como calidad y llego en perfectas condiciones.

Als recht Junger Angänger in diese Welt gefällt mir das ArtBook außerordentlich gut. Ich habe viele Kontakte zu Leuten, die sich mit der Materie sehr gut auskennen und auch ArtBooks von Jagdfieber oder KungFu Panda zu Hause haben, welche sehr teuer sind - aufgrund ihrer Qualität. Daher ist auch How To Train Your Dragon nicht gerade das günstigste. Wer noch keine Artbooks kennt sollte sich über viel Kunst freuen und viel über dne Schaffensprozess eines Animationsfilm - was beachtet werden muss - und vieles mehr. Für mich ist grundsätzlich jedes ArtBook sein Geld wert, denn man bekommt einblicke in die Materie, einer Industrie, die sich auf keinen Standard festlegen kann, und wo Inspiration immer aus unerwarteten Quellen kommt. Dieses ArtBook begeistert durch die schöne Atmosphäre. Die Drachen faszinieren mich zusätzlich und für Fans des Films ist es sicherlich ein zusätzliches Extra. Da man auch ArtBooks für 20€ (z.B. Tangled) bekommt, ist dieses schon etwas teurer und ist aber für mich trotzdem den Preis Wert.