Contest: What are your favourite art books from 2014?

It has been a great year in book release, there have been so many good ones and sometimes it was hard to decide which one to get ( Especially when money is tight) and before I list my three favorite books of 2014, let me wish you all a very happy Christmas and a Happy New Year ^___^

1. The Hobbit: The Battle of the five armies chronicles: Art & Design

Being an artist I love this book, its just wonderful and very inspirational to me. It is full of amazing concept art, beautiful pencil sketches by John Howe and Alan Lee who are masters at what they do. It has all in it from locations and sets, and development art from other artists of characters, creatures, costumes, weapons, armor, environments, props to miscellaneous art like scenes and effects. It shows you all of the hard and exceptional work that made this movie something you will remember forever. This book has a special place on my shelf.

2. The Art of the Boxtrolls:

Stop motion is fascinating to me, and the process of these movies take such a long time and much hard work goes into it. The book is interesting to see what makes this movie and the thought process behind it. The art is beautiful and vibrant, my favorite part are the costumes of the characters and how each character get build. Its very different from the others things that are out there and that's also why I liked it so much.

3. The Art of Film Magic: 20 years of Weta:

I know this book isn't that much about art (illustrations) but it is very interesting to see what goes on behind the scene and the vigorous process of film magic. The books present the world of weta beautifully to us. Reading it makes you understand how hard the work is but as an artist it made me more jealous because I see also all the fun and greatness this process includes and I wished I would be part of this.

2014 was a great Artbook year !
My favorits are :
-1 The Art of Film Magic : 20 Years of Weta
This artbook is awesome, we can see how Weta is working with Making Of, they re many many interesting things that i didn't know
This Artbook is really gorgeous !
-2 The Art of Dreamworks
I was waiting for many years to have an artbook with ALL Dreamworks's production the illustration are wonderful (and numerous), thank you Dreamworks for this artbook !
-3 The Art of Blue Sky Studios
I love Blue sky's productions and this artbook looks really incredible
Illustration are colorfull like their movies, so nice :)

My top 3 of this year:

1. Genius, Animated: The Cartoon Art of Alex Toth
Great character designs by Alex Toth, most of whom I grew up watching on Cartoon Network as a kid. His art is hard to come by online, so if you're a fan of his work or fan of 60s style cartoon designs, you won't regret buying this book.

2. 75 Years of Marvel Comics: From the Golden Age to the Silver Screen
Great book about the evolution of Marvel heroes with classic comic book art. For those that love this kind of art and want to know where their heroes from the big screen came from definitely recommended.

3. The Art of Alien: Isolation
Great art book to supplement a great game. If your fan of the movie(s) this book is a must buy. You can find some pre-production art done by the artist Calum Watt on his blog.

First: Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo

Pendleton Ward is a strange dude, and his oddity (and those who help his vision come to life) are incredibly present in this book. Great, stange, and wonderful art fills it, plus a huge amount of info on their hiring process, storyboarding, and art process. Definitely my favorite this year.

Second: The Art of Castlevania - Lords of Shadow

Unlike a lot of other Castlevania art books, this one was written by the Spanish studio who worked on the game. A great and distinct art style places this in the #2 spot for me.

Third: Dark Souls: Design Works

Feels like a bit of a cop-out since I already had the Japanese version, but I loved the translation and work that udon put into this edition.

The Art of Ian Miller.
Love him Awe-inspiring pen and ink art

Guillermo del Toro Cabinet of Curiosities.
Wonderful insight into the working mind of a director and eclectic collector.

Alien the Archive: The Ultimate Guide to the Classic Movies
Highly recommended to the fans

My favorite art books this year have been:

The Art of Guardians of the Galaxy - I love science fiction concept art. The pieces shown in this book are fantastic, and I really appreciated the additional descriptions they added describing the creative process that lead to their design decisions.

The Art of Alien: Isolation - What made this one unique to me is that their concept had to stem off of the existing designs from the film series. It was really interesting to see how they managed to create a design that fit so well into the universe that's been created prior to the game, and still bringing their own ideas and designs.

Dishonored: The Dunwall Archives - I have been waiting a long time for Dishonored to receive an art book. And while this is not a typical design for an art book, it is still a great companion piece that features much of the great art from this game. The lore that is also included is a nice bonus.

The art of how to train your dragon 2
Loved the first art book and movie and the second one didn't dissapoint.

the art of blue sky studios
I dont have this book but saw it ion your site and i'm very surprised about the artwork. Looking forward to buying it next year.

the art of the book of life
just a beautiful book, with lots of great art work. Not your usual making of book. For me the best book of 2014

1. Spectrum 21: I began collecting these with volume 18 and although it is really nice every year, some years are of course better than others in my own conception because of personal preference. This year I found the annual compilation especially great, at least as good as 18 maybe even the best out of all four I own, although the series switched from Underwood Books to Flesk Publishing and the layout for the cover also slightly changed, the overall format, quality and price stayed the same. I felt that in volume 21, the art had almost no images which content I would consider rather... 'generic', lots of darker stuff instead. I loved it.

2. Substrata: Originally a project inspired by the Art of Darksiders 2, this fictional videogame companion book with art to a video game that was never planned to be made, features some really great art if one is interested into fantasy in its slightly darker form. Great creature designs as well.

3. The Art of Dragon Age: Inquisition: This one came as a bit of a surprise to me, as I did not and still do not like the cover image a lot and have my prejudices against the third installment of the game series as well, however, the content shown inside the book, which I first got to know through Parka's helpful video, really convinced me. Nice fantasy art and a good mixture of character concepts, environmental art and ingame asset concepts.

Art of How To Train Your Dragon 2 - I loved the first film and art book and this was just another treat for me with gorgeous dragon designs and environments.

Lovely: Girls of Animation - An interesting book of 6 amazing Disney artists. I loved seeing their personal work which is a big contrast from their studio jobs.

3000 Moments: A Collection of Sketches by Pascal Campion - This was a book I personally backed on Kickstarter! I already have one of his other books but it was amazing to see even more of his works again.

First off, 1.) Art of Space: The History of Space Art, from the Earliest Visions to the Graphics of the Modern Era. Contained completely wonderful visions and in depth look into space. 2.) SUBSTRATA: Open World Dark Fantasy, I feel like this book has a great mix of sketches and paintings. 3.) Foundation 2: FZD School of Design Artbook was a shoe in for me. As a long time lover of Feng's work since seeing his old Gnomon videos, I have come to appreciate his and the work his students produce.

Thanks for your generosity! Just started following your blog this year and enjoy the great tips and stuff found here. Your videos and reviews helped in making decisions to purchase the products. Looking forward to more!

Here's the picks:
Sketch your world: essential tips for drawing on location.
New to urban sketching, so I'm enjoying the examples and tips provided.

Urban sketching: complete guide to techniques.
New to urban sketching, so I'm enjoying reading more about it. Congrats on being featured!

Sketchnote workbook by Mike Rohde:
Not exactly an art book but one one visual-sketch note-taking. It's Mike's second book to encourage ppl to use visuals to better share ideas.

3000 Moments by Pascal Campion - This guy is amazing. His art expresses so much, yet its simple and absolutely brilliant.

How to render by Scott Robertson - This is as good as instructional books can be. Tons of useful information. I love it.

Dragon Age: Inquisition artbook - Incredible concept art. I love the overall style.

Hey! Thanks so much for this blog -- I just found it very recently, and as a huge fan of art and artbooks, it's been really helpful and interesting!! I hope it's okay that two of my nominations aren't on your list anywhere -- in any case, I'd definitely recommend you check them out!!

1. Grass Labyrinth by Takato Yamamoto
I don't see any Takato Yamamoto anywhere in your blog, as far as I can tell, so here's a recommendation from me! One of my favorite artists of all time -- wonderfully intricate and macabre, and this book doesn't disappoint, either.

2. The Art of How to Train Your Dragon 2
I was so excited that one of my favorite movies ever managed to get a sequel that wasn't awful, and was in fact, just as amazing. The concept art behind it is just so gorgeous and I love looking at all the dragons.

3. ILLUSTRATION 2014
This is a really fantastic collection of a wide variety of Japanese artists! The styles tend to lean towards the colorful/vibrant, which is really fun to look through, and there are a lot of really amazing artists in there. The 2013 collection is also just as wonderful!!

Hard quest, but here are my best buys of the year:

SUBSTRATA: Open World Dark Fantasy: I only can say that I love this book, from first idea to make it, and the collaboration of all the great artist having totaly liberty creativity with one only rule: the dark VS the light. There are a ton of graphic styles and different views of the central idea: 2d, 3d, characters, backgrounds, menu design. And the best part, all the proceeds from the book will go to the charity organization Gamers For Good.

The Art of DreamWorks Animation: Celebrating 20 Years of Art: It's wonderful can have a great recopilation of the artworks of this studio with a lot of great films. It's a really good book for those who can't buy all the artbooks of each movie, you'll see a few pieces of each movie and you can choose if you want to buy the artbook of the movie that like most.

Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo: It's a great and big book, with a lot of art, earlier design of characters, turn around of the characters, variations. There are lot of backgrounds and even a little annotations and process from the storyboard to the animation. I love the art of this animation serie and I expected an art book less complete but It's one of the best book of the year with big amount of material.

Have a happy new year everybody!!

The Art of John Alvin
-Seeing this book I was surprised I didn't already know the artist. Drew Struzan is very publicized and has released many books, but Alvin has an equal share of
classics made, and I at least didn't know him.

The Art of Robert McGinnis
-I'm not usually interested in art that doesn't have some fantastic or futuristic element, but I've loved McGinnis' art since I first saw it some years ago. Great book.

Nothin' But Mech 2
-More sleek, shiny sci-fi machinery.

Just one thing, due to my procrastination I did this quite late and didn't consider the time differences. I hope this entry still counts because I'm a few hours west of Singapore?