Book review: The Art of Toy Story 3

The Art of Toy Story 3

A glimpse of Toy Story 3 and Pixar’s Artwork

Date Published: 2010-05-26

List Price: $24.95
Price: $18.21

Summary:

The book is 176 pages long and is beautifully done. Most pages are in lush color and the design of the page is also great. The book begins with the first steps in the creation of the animation in 2008. This is when the first ideas for the movie begin to take shape and when Pixar decides to take the creation of the artwork.

Director Lee Unkrich and Toy Story 3

The animation is written and directed by Lee Unkrich, who was the editor of Toy Story 1 and co-director of Toy Story 2. The story follows the new adventure of Woody the cowboy, Jessie the cowgirl, Buzz Lightyear the space commander and all the other toys which Andy used to play with in this new 3D movie brought to you by Disney and Pixar.

The story

Andy has grown and has long forgotten his play friends. He is now preparing for college and it’s time to put the toys in the attic. But an accident will bring the toys not to the attic, but to Sunnyside Daycare. Here they think at first that they are in a wonderful land where they are going to be cared for and played with by little children. Unfortunately it is not so. The daycare is ruled by a pink bear which smells of strawberries named Lotso. He does not permit any toy to enter the Butterfly room and keeps all the new toys in the Caterpillar room to ensure that he will never be forgotten.
You will see how Woody and the gang escape from the Daycare and find a new home, saying goodbye to Andy.

The book

You will find in the book the graphics used for the animation of the old characters as well as the ones. The sketches present all the characters in detail, beginning with Lotso. You will discover various sculptured work as well as character modeling, surfacing and texturing.

The book also presents the storyboard and not only. You will find the beautiful sceneries of the Wild Wild West, under the title Playtime. The sceneries are done after real nature sceneries and are used in the beginning of the movie when Andy was playing sheriff and bandits with a runaway train.
Pixar also offers additional explanations for different scenes in the movie and why certain graphical details of the characters have changed in comparison with the previous movies.

Conclusion

This book is really well structured and you will see high quality 3D effects very well detailed. Also, the storyboard is really nicely presented. The visual quality is really good and you will see that the artists of Pixar care about the outmost details. This book is a definite purchase for any person who is interested in the study of 3D animation or just takes pleasure of understanding the art behind this great movie.