Book Review: The Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

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Note that there are two publishers for this book, Insights Editions and Titan Books. Mine's the Insight Editions one which is a hardcover edition that comes in a sturdy cardboard slipcase. Titan Books is just the hardcover with a dust jacket, and the price is lower.

I really enjoy the animation art books published by Insight Editions. The Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is another wonderful art book authored by Tracey Miller-Zarneke, who's also wrote the sold-out The Art of Kung Fu Panda.

There are over 180 pages of art instead of the 156 listed erroneously on Amazon.

Inside the book is filled with concept art on the characters, the town and buildings, the props, storyboards, beatboards and colour studies. What I really like about the book is the art is created with a wide variety of medium. We have pens, pencils, markers, watercolour as well as digital drawings. The artistic style is incredibly varied and really colourful. There are even photos from the studio's in-house "Most Creative Breadboat" competition.

The book also comes with a lot of removable goodies. When you pull out the book from the slipcase, you'll be greeted by the smell of strawberries. That comes from the sticker book of food art. Additionally, there are removable sketches of top secret inventions, a huge map of the town, a multi-fold of the school's ridiculously long chalkboard and a few mini-booklets containing more art. This makes the book really fun to read.

All the major characters in the animation has writeup on them. Many of the art work are accompanied by captions from the production team. There are many interesting stories on production, such as figuring out how to make burgers bounce, break apart, and still look appealing. And how much food was ate while the artists were drawing delicious food.

This is definitely one of the art books to get for this year.

Most highly recommended.

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What the Titan Books edition left out:

  • hard cardboard slipcase
  • food scent sticker book
  • multifold of the town map and chalkboard

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Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Places to get the one from Insights Editions:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn

Places to get the one from Titan Books:
Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp

Comments

This book looks great!

I did a storyboarding course with Kris Pearn, one of the storyboarders on the film. This is definitely going on my wish list. I'll probably wait till the movie has come out.

Thanks for the review.

@Jeremy Ley
Thanks!

@Eduardo Francisco
Well, the book won't be out until December. Plenty of time to think. I'm not of much help here.

hey Parka!
I live in Germany and I would like to buy this book but on amazon.de they only show the book published by Titan Books and "Welcome Books" but nowhere from Insight Books. What shall i do? I hope you can help me. Thanks :)

ok thank you, I will look if i buy it there.
Or do you know if amazon.de just made a mistake writing welcome books instead of insight editions? If you also know other adresses where i can buy the book from Germany and tell me these I would be very thankful.

In reply to by agerone (not verified)

@agerone
Not sure if Amazon.de put had the publisher wrong (but they sure had the page number wrong). The ISBN for that book matches the Insight Editions. It should be safe to follow the ISBN number.

I don't really know of any German sites to buy from.

i got the book yesterday and i must say it is gorgeous! the hard cover slipcase is really solid and there is plenty of sketches to the whole things that will appear in the movie. can't wait to see the movie though :)
thank you very much parka for the review that helped me to make the descicion to buy the book! :)

Fantastic review, thanks SO much for pointing out the differences between the two publishers. I shall definitely get this. Thanks again - great review and marvellous photos.

I bought this book - it is my first artbook and I must say: I is fantastic!

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