Book Review: Local Fauna: The Art of Peter de Sève

Local Fauna: The Art of Peter de Sève is the second compilation of artworks from Peter de Sève, an American artist and character designer who has worked in the illustration and animation industry. The first artbook A Sketchy Past: The Art of Peter de Sève was released in 2009 and is already out of print, currently selling at over USD 500 on Amazon.

This large format hardcover has 288-pages. The paper used is thick low gloss and binding is good. Publisher for the first artbook is Editions Akileos and for this second book it's Cernunnos, an imprint of Abrams Books.

This book collects the artworks Peter has created for animation, books & editorials, The Duchess of Whimsy, covers for The New Yorker, posters and there are also sketches and personal works, and several pages of harpies sketches. The book starts with an introduction by Carter Goodrich, another rather well known artist in the same industry. The end has Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, interviewing Peter.

This new artbook does feature some artworks which were seen in the first artbook. Maybe 10-20% of the work is duplicated from the first book but there's still a lot of new work from 2011 onwards to 2023. So yes, the book is still worth buying even if you already have the first book.

There are many sketches and character designs he has created for animation. Character design what Peter de Sève is most well known for and it's easy to see why. His characters are fun, interesting and lively. It always feels like there's more story behind each character even if it's just a simple sketch of a pose. The covers created for The New Yorker shows that Peter has a sharp mind too when drawing for editorial. Good art makes you look. Great art makes you think. Peter de Sève makes great art, even if it's just a loose sketch. That's just how effective he is with drawing.

This book is obviously very inspiring. I can recommend the book easily to fans, character designers, artists and collectors. This should be one of the better artbooks from 2023.

You can see the latest artbook releases from Cernunnos Publishing on their Instagram page.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.com.au | Amazon.co.jp

This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook.