Book Review: Mattias Unfiltered: The Sketchbook Art of Mattias Adolfsson

It's just another typical day in a town imagined by Mattias Adolfsson. On one street there's a car caught in a traffic of sheep herded by an old man, right at the junction there's a pink dinosaur. In the back alley is another dinosaur, this one with a hat and handbag. Up on the roof, a tractor is plowing soil. On a nearby roof, archers are practicing with their target boards.

What I've described above is just a small scene picked from the cover art of a town buzzing with activity. There are many more imaginative drawings inside this 128-page paperback book that's curiously made to look like a Moleskine sketchbook with its rounded page corners. I love looking at the sketches. There's so much detail in his whimsical scenes and idiosyncratic characters. This book collects his sketches from 2006 to 2012.

I also have his earlier sketchbook called The First In Line which is selling only on his blog. I would recommend getting that as well because of the hardcover, paper and printing quality that I think is better than Mattias Unfiltered. Not that the production quality of this book is bad, it's just that his first sketchbook is better. The colour printing for this book is slightly lighter, lacking the contrast and vibrancy compared to the first book. There isn't any duplicated work on either book.

It's a charming and inspiring sketchbook. I'll be going back to it regularly, it seems that each time I look at the sketches, I would see something new that I've missed out.

Highly recommended.

Mattias Unfiltered: The Sketchbook Art of Mattias Adolfsson is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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