Glimpses of the Art of the Animated Series book
Got the news from rufftoon's Deviantart journal - you can now get glimpses of a number of pages inside the book!
From her journal -
Curious for a glimpse inside? Go to the Amazon product page (see link), click on search inside this book. If you click "surprise me", you'll get a few extra pages.
Oh man, this art of book is going to be awesome! So many great concept art, character references, cleanup animation, you name it!
There is even a full page of early character development for Zhao, ha ha!
There's a lot of text in there too, covering how the very idea of ATLA was born, and especially what Nickelodeon laid out as expectations for Mike and Bryan to meet. The creators take turns providing their thoughts. It's kind of hard to read, even when zoomed in, but I did make this out on page 10:
....Among the directions was 1) action and adventure, and 2) legends and lore. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter were the two biggest things going on in 2003, and Nickelodeon was in search to answer those franchises....
Page 12---
....Mike and I were big fans of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, yet we did not have any interest in creating yet another British-based, wizard-driven property. Instead we made the show out of everything we [word too blurry to decipher], pulling from our interests in Asian cultures and philosophies, traditional martial arts, yoga, anime, and Hong Kong cinema to create our own mythology...
The next page has the three images Mike, Bryan and Eric Coleman (exec producer of ATLA) pitched to Nickelodeon before the show was approved. The three words Eric used to describe the images: "Adventure, action, magic".
In Aang's bio, he's specifically described as being inspired from "Tibetan and Buddhist cultures... we saw a DVD of Shaolin - Wheel of Life performance, in which Shaolin monks performed kung fu. In it, there was an adorable kid about eleven or twelve years old doing the most insane acrobatics. We both looked at each other and said, "That's Aang!"
The contents page shows that there are three special spotlights included in each chapter. The South Korean Animation Studios, The Hybrid Animals and The Calligraphy of S. L. Lee.
The bad news: the end of the book features a forward by M. Night Shyamalan.
There goes all hope for zero hints of The Last Airbender movie in the Art of the long awaited Animated Series book...
EDIT: generic_geek29 's summary of MNight's one page forward (if you keep clicking "surprise me," you can view that page and more) :
Paragraph 1: Meaningless meaningful words on art, how it's pure and stuff. The most interesting comment is that it 'doesn't have an agenda,'
Paragraph 2: Talking about the Asian influences, he doesn't mention the calligraphy probably because that's not in his movie.
Paragraph 3: Is one sentence. "They held themselves to a higher standard and integrity and the world is forming a cult around it"
Paragraph 4: Says he and Bryke are buddies, and Avatar is a presence at his house. and Zuko, Sokka, Katara and Aang will attack you if you visit (no really)
Paragraph 5: Another one sentence thing, his family is devoted to Avatar and even though this is just a coffee table book don't spill coffee on it or you'll get yelled at.
From her journal -
Curious for a glimpse inside? Go to the Amazon product page (see link), click on search inside this book. If you click "surprise me", you'll get a few extra pages.
Oh man, this art of book is going to be awesome! So many great concept art, character references, cleanup animation, you name it!
There is even a full page of early character development for Zhao, ha ha!
There's a lot of text in there too, covering how the very idea of ATLA was born, and especially what Nickelodeon laid out as expectations for Mike and Bryan to meet. The creators take turns providing their thoughts. It's kind of hard to read, even when zoomed in, but I did make this out on page 10:
....Among the directions was 1) action and adventure, and 2) legends and lore. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter were the two biggest things going on in 2003, and Nickelodeon was in search to answer those franchises....
Page 12---
....Mike and I were big fans of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, yet we did not have any interest in creating yet another British-based, wizard-driven property. Instead we made the show out of everything we [word too blurry to decipher], pulling from our interests in Asian cultures and philosophies, traditional martial arts, yoga, anime, and Hong Kong cinema to create our own mythology...
The next page has the three images Mike, Bryan and Eric Coleman (exec producer of ATLA) pitched to Nickelodeon before the show was approved. The three words Eric used to describe the images: "Adventure, action, magic".
In Aang's bio, he's specifically described as being inspired from "Tibetan and Buddhist cultures... we saw a DVD of Shaolin - Wheel of Life performance, in which Shaolin monks performed kung fu. In it, there was an adorable kid about eleven or twelve years old doing the most insane acrobatics. We both looked at each other and said, "That's Aang!"
The contents page shows that there are three special spotlights included in each chapter. The South Korean Animation Studios, The Hybrid Animals and The Calligraphy of S. L. Lee.
The bad news: the end of the book features a forward by M. Night Shyamalan.
There goes all hope for zero hints of The Last Airbender movie in the Art of the long awaited Animated Series book...
EDIT: generic_geek29 's summary of MNight's one page forward (if you keep clicking "surprise me," you can view that page and more) :
Paragraph 1: Meaningless meaningful words on art, how it's pure and stuff. The most interesting comment is that it 'doesn't have an agenda,'
Paragraph 2: Talking about the Asian influences, he doesn't mention the calligraphy probably because that's not in his movie.
Paragraph 3: Is one sentence. "They held themselves to a higher standard and integrity and the world is forming a cult around it"
Paragraph 4: Says he and Bryke are buddies, and Avatar is a presence at his house. and Zuko, Sokka, Katara and Aang will attack you if you visit (no really)
Paragraph 5: Another one sentence thing, his family is devoted to Avatar and even though this is just a coffee table book don't spill coffee on it or you'll get yelled at.