Book Review: The Art of Iron Man

April 28, 2010 by Parka

This review is updated to include the paperback reprint. It features exactly similar content as the hardcover, right down to the paper stock.

This book contains concept art, photographs, paintings, storyboards, miniatures and live models. All are in high resolution and many printed satisfyingly huge.

For people who like mechanical stuff, you'll be glad that to know that plenty of Iron man designs are included. The drawings are detailed to the nuts and bolts. The evolution of Iron Man from concept to movie can be clearly seen from the first concept art right down to the life size cast created. The main artists involved were Ryan Meinerding and Phil Saunders.

3D modelers who are looking for blueprints won't find them in this book. However, there are renders of Iron Man Mark II and Iron Monger from the front and side view. They should be enough to build the blueprint from. There are also a couple of cool photos of the Iron maquette made by Stan Winston Studios.

Also included are the drawings for the environment, props and gadgets. That includes Tony Stark's house, his workshop and the Arc Reactor.

All the pictures in the book are well captioned and artists credited. Commentary explain clearly the production process and the effect they are trying to achieve, story development and challenges shooting the movie.

The only bad thing about the book is the paper stock. It's just my minor quibble. It is not thick enough. While black pages are cool, they become wavy after absorbing all the black ink. Luckily, it doesn't affect the visual quality of the images printed.

I still gave it a 5-star rating on Amazon — more to 4.5-star because of the paper stock.

The paperback reprint features exactly similar content as the hardcover. Even the paper stock is the same.

Ryan Meinerding's early concept art of Mark I.

Sketches of the armour by Phil Saunders.

Concept art from Ryan Meinerding (left page) and Phil Saunders (right page).

Final Mark III maquette from Stan Winston Studio.

On the left page are armour components from Stan Winston Studio, on the right are the movie stills.

Iron Monger concepts by Ryan Meinerding.

Suit Up Gantry movie stills.

Tony Stark's apartment.

Stark automobile concepts by Harald Belker.

Top row's the Iron Monger 3D model turntable. On the left is Iron Monger turnaround by Adi Granov.

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from any links on the blog, I get a little commission that helps me get more art books to feature.

Permalink

Comments

Good observation on the paper

d-brooks (not verified)
February 20, 2009,
1 year 28 weeks ago
Comment id: 16

Good observation on the paper stock! Makes a good detailed review as always :D

Very good review, very

Fernando Villagomez (not verified)
February 28, 2010,
27 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 1439

Very good review, very detailed. I had done research on the book, but this review actually helped me decide on buying the item. Thank you very much. I look forward to the one on Iron Man 2's