Book Review: Warcraft: Behind the Dark Portal

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No matter what you think of the movie, this is a wonderful artbook on its own.

This hardcover artbook is actually split into two parts and there are two covers, one for The Alliance and when you turn to the back and upside down, there's one for The Horde. In the book, as you reach the halfway point, the content appears upside down, so you have to turn the book upside down and read from the next cover.

This is a nice artbook companion to the film in the sense that there is a lot of character designs for the humans and the orcs, environment art, props and photos from the actors shooting on set. The artworks are painted in detail. There are also some sketches and the rendered stills from the film to let you see the final version.

There is plenty to read as well. Blizzard staff talks about the designs, the places, the characters and the filming process.

Warcraft character art has its own style and those that you see in the book still retains that look and feel to a certain extent. Character art from earlier Warcraft artbooks have that cartoony and fun nature. For the film, they have made all the orcs and humans look more serious and now they are a bit difficult to differentiate from other films that also feature orcs. I actually like the more cartoony style but to use that style for the movie would be turn it totally into something else.

Overall, I think it's a terrific book for Warcraft fans and those who like fantasy art. As a concept artbook, it has provided a good visualisation of the Warcraft world.

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

Warcraft: Behind the Dark Portal is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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

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

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