Book Review: The Art of Disney's Dragons

The Art of Disney's Dragons is essentially a sketchbook that features character designs and sketches for dragons that you may have seen in Disney films.

These artworks were created traditionally, back in a time when digital painting was still in its infancy. I love the caricature style of the dragons, designed for animation. The pencil sketches are lovely and the coloured paintings look nice too. All the artworks are sort of like concept art so they aren't really what I would considered polished completed paintings but nevertheless they have a charm on their own.

The scan and colour reproduction is good. Most pieces are printed to the page edges.

For me, I only know Mushu from Mulan and was unable to identify all the other dragons in the book. The captions are consolidated at the back of the book so it's a bit inconvenient to refer to because you have to flip front and back. But I guess having the captions at the back allows the artworks to be presented properly without obstructions or distractions.

It's a nice book but I wished there were some sort of commentary talking about the designs and the dragons. The only text in this book are the forward by David Lowery and the introduction by author Tom Bancroft. The introduction is a good read because Tom Bancroft talks about dragons and his role at designing some, and that's the sort of commentary I was looking for but doesn't exist in this book.

The Art of Disney's Dragons (Disney Editions Deluxe) is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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