What book to buy?

[renske_b]

Hi there!

I'm looking for a nice gift for my boyfriend, who's a Disney movie fan. When we went do Disneyland, he was incredibly impressed by the concept art that was displayed. Is there any book that publishes this? Or another book you would suggest?

He doesn't really 'read', so there shouldn't be too much text in there. However, I also encountered a few books that simply display some images from the movies. So I'm looking for something different than that

 

[renske_b]

I already found two optional books: They drew as they pleased, and The Archive Series. Are these any good?

 

[BrianL]

If he was into the animation aspect then I would recommend The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. They were both members of the "Nine Old Men" - animators from the early days of Disney. The book does have a lot of text, but there are pictures on every page, some sketches and such. It's pretty in-depth and a great one for Disney fans.

 

[renske_b]

Nice, that one's definitely going on my list! Other suggestions are also welcome of course!

 

[AaronB]

I can recommend They Drew as They Pleased, which I think is up to 6 volumes now. It does have some text, but overall it is more images than text. It also has a lot of the concept art you are mentioning, rather than just images from the final films. Each volume focuses on a decade or two, so if he is interested in a particular era, you may want to get whatever volume corresponds to that interest.

There is also a one of books that start with “The Art of...” and it will be for a specific film. I have one, The Art of Wall-E, and that too has a lot of cool concept art. These are mostly for the more modern films and only cover one specific film per book, so may not be what you are looking for.

Finally, I’ll also recommend one called A Disney Sketchbook, which is nearly 100% images, but all sketches, and mostly sketches of characters. Still very interesting. I think all of these are on Amazon, which usually has a few preview pages so you get the idea of what the book has.