The Art Of The Croods Review

• 18th Feb 2013

Author: Noela Hueso

I keep saying that these ‘Art of’ books keep getting better and better and this book is no exception. Totally devoted to the concept work that went into creating the characters, creatures and the environment, this book is utterly immersive and absolutely bursting with detail.

The Croods is DreamWorks new animated comedy-adventure film. The thing that sets this book apart from previous ‘Art of’ books that filmwerk.co.uk has reviewed, is that The Croods is set in prehistoric times.  This means that the artwork isn’t constrained by contemporary environments. The artists have gone wild creating fantastical creatures and settings. They’ve created a world that could easily have been set in a parallel universe, which means that the art is about as bold and imaginative as you can get.

It’s impossible to flip through this book, every page is so rich you’ll want to linger over it. Some pages are filled with tiny little sketches of creatures that are just so much fun, you’ll want to pick up a pencil and see what you come up with creatures like their Skunk-alligator of Shrimp-rat. For me the environments were the real stand out feature of this book and if they pack all of that gorgeous detail into the films, I’ll have a hard time paying attention to the screen, I’ll just want to look at the backgrounds.

The book contains a running commentary of the film, so at this stage (I haven’t seen the film) I tried my best not to read too much, but it’s very detailed. The book also attributes most of the drawings to their creator, which is great if you want to find out more about a particular artist online.

I would recommend the book to any prospective fans of the film, young fans will find so much to interest and absorb them in the books and find it as inspiring as I did. You’ll feel compelled to create your own world after delving into The Art of The Croods. Illustrators, designers, animators will want the book for it’s encyclopaedic value of natural environments. Last but not least, Nicholas Cage himself does the introduction for the book – need I say more? An absolute must have.

Maliha Basak