The Art of Brave Hardcover – May 16, 2012

I loved the movie Brave and was so excited about this book. It did not disappoint. This book provided a detailed look at the production of the movie from assembling the team of artists that created it, to finalizing the story and art. There was so many gorgeous pieces of scenery, both of pictures the crew took while visiting Scotland and of concept art for the movie. One of my favorite parts was the art of the characters. Merida alone had eight pages of art showing different stages of her character development. This was my first "Art of..." book and I loved it. I will definetely be purchasing more in the future. It is a must have for anyone who enjoyed the movie and values the time and dedication that went into making it!

Pretty cool I have this one of my own now ; all of the concept art books are so fun to look at . I got this book used and to me that was perfectly fine and the book itself was fine too .:)

I have a ton of these books. I wanted to get this one because I loved the animation of the movie, and wanted to see the process. It was interesting to see the pre design character sketches of Merida. This book has a lot of character sketches, but only a few of each character. It has the background designs, and info about the process of the movie. It wasn't my favorite book of the art of Disney books, but it is still a good one. I just wish there was more sketches instead of digital drawings. Overall if you love the art of Disney books, are into drawing, loved the movie, or have a career in art then you would enjoy this book!

I went into "Brave" fairly skeptical. It didn't look like the kind of movie I would normally watch, but then it was made by Pixar so that made me curious. Then, my teenage son saw it with a friend and said he thought I would enjoy it. I went, and he was right!The visuals in the movie are stunning and the story is fantastic. As a family, we all appreciated the message about listening to each other.This book, then, is a wonderful companion as it shows the artwork of the movie and the pre-production artwork that was developed over the years that it took to make the movie. As a wanna-be artist myself, I like books like this anyway, but I especially appreciated how this book showed the interaction of how the art and the characters progressed. Characters grew and then the art would change accordingly, or the art would change and the character would grow to match.

First of all, let me state this is a fantastic book. All aspects of the film are covered, including backgrounds, major and minor characters, structures and creatures. Development of how these were brought about is gone over in depth.However, those of you who preorded the book (as I did) and don't want to know the plot of the movie need to be warned that there are major spoilers included. Most of the movie is story boarded in black and white and in color, and you will pretty much know the whole film if you page through the book in detail, as I tend to do with "art of" books. Again, if this is not a problem for you, its a great book and dig in. But if you want to stay surprised as too major plot points in the movie, I'd wait until after the film before opening up.

I bought a stack of "Art of" books for one of my design classes to share with my students. This one (with Tangled a close second) is by far the best in terms of the design process. Lots about the research, the preliminary design work, and the iterations of the process made it useful as well as lovely. So many of these books are just a collection of final concept art an stills from the movie. Nice, but not enlightening. This book goes much deeper into the process.

Here we go again, another PIXAR book out and up my PIXAR shelf. This one's a little thin compared to the others but it's still pretty cool and has all the aspects you come to expect in an Art of Book from this premier animation studio. Couple things stand out to me, the biggest one is the talented team of artists on the project. Steve Purcell, his pal Mike Mignola, Character design legends Carter Goodrich and Daniel Lopez Munoz, along with artists Steve Pilcher, Huy Nguyen and Noah Klocek, AND my favorite bits, sculpted foam and acrylic paint maquettes from long time PIXAR artist Tia Crater, among many others fill the volume. Ive never been to the old country but Im sure it looks quite a lot like this- Dark, Rich colors, and Cold.I saw Secret of Kells a number of years ago and seeing the Brave trailer I right away noticed quite a bit of similarities, but now that Ive seen the book and have a little bit of an idea of the film itself, Im a little bit more comfortable with realizing this is definitely a different movie.If you like art of books, I blog about the best of artbooks on The Last Outpost, so check it out if you're so inclined: en-b.blogspot dot com!

As a redhead of Scottish descent, Brave was always destined to be a favorite for me. The Art of Brave did not disappoint. I loved the sections that highlighted each of the character's development. I also loved the storyboard section that was included in the book. I have become such a fan of the animation process and can't wait to collect more of these books!