The Art of How to Train Your Dragon [Hardcover]

Tracey Miller-Zameke (Author), Cressida Cowell (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 2, 2010

This official illustrated tie-in book showcases over 350 spectacular images from the DreamWorks Animation feature film, based on Cressida Cowell's popular children's book.

How to Train Your Dragon is the story of a scrawny teenaged Viking, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, who lives on the island of Berk in the North Sea. Hiccup is a member of a Viking tribe and wants to make his father, the chief, proud of him. Entering dragon training, Hiccup has a chance to prove his worthiness to his tribe and father. But then, in a world where Dragons and Vikings do not coexist peacefully, Hiccup encounters and ultimately befriends an injured dragon, at which point his world is turned upside down.

The Art of How to Train Your Dragon is a spectacularly designed, full-color insider's guide to the creative process that went into turning Cressida Cowell's popular book into a feature-length, animated film. Featuring more than 350 pieces of development artwork, including early character designs, story sketches, and concept paintings never before released by the studio, the book provides an in-depth look at the process involved in bringing mythical Dragon and Viking worlds to life.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tracey Miller-Zarneke is the former Production Department Manager for Walt Disney Feature Animation and author of The Art of Kung Fu Panda, The Art of Meet The Robinsons, and The Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Newmarket Press (March 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557048630
• ISBN-13: 978-1557048639
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 11.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Movies

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful art from amazing artists February 12, 2010

By Parka TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Length: 0:35 Mins

I can't believe my eyes when I saw this books on the shelf at a local bookshop, two months earlier than its scheduled release date.

Flipped a few pages, and saw the unique style of Nicolas Marlet, flipped back to the cover and found that Tracy Miller-Zarneke is the author and the movie's from Dreamworks. Those three names instantly reminded me of quality art book The Art of Kung Fu Panda. I'm glad to say that this book is as good and fun. By the way, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois are the famed directors here.

Inside the book are more than 350 development artwork, including early character designs, story sketches, and concept paintings. The books is divided into three parts, the dragons, vikings and the environment with stuff like props and houses. Discarded art and characters are also included, like Hiccup's mother - who can cook a mean dish with dragon meat. Accompanying the art are plenty of interesting quotes and commentary from the production staff.

Nicolas Marlet and Simon Otto seem to be the lead character designers responsible for the concept art of the dragons and vikings, although a good amount of designs are actually from Nicolas Marlet. There's a wide range of wackiness and creativity to the drawings. The character digital paintings are great and the colours are really beautiful, kudos to Zhaoping Wei.

The environment paintings from Pierre-Olivier Vincent, art director, are beautiful. This guy really knows how to draw scenic yet precarious backgrounds like sloping hilltops, snow-capped sea arches and Dragon island which is like an ice-cream cone with molten lava as topping. Not only that, his tranquil pieces are also spectacular, National Geographic-spectacular.... He has created places you want to visit but probably not because one wrong step and you'll roll down the hill.

There are even a few illustrations from Dominique Louis, who did some pastel concept art for Pixar. His using digital pastels now and there's no difference from his traditional work, I'm glad to say. The fun and stylised houses, statues, weapons, boats and other props are from Kirsten Kawamura and Mel Zwyer.

It's a fantastic book showing the creative prowess of amazing artists. Highly recommended.

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By the way, if you missed the "About the Author" section above, I have to mention it here again because Tracey Miller-Zarneke has authored some really great art books that you should check out.
- The Art of Kung Fu Panda
- The Art of Meet the Robinsons
- The Art and Making of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

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(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.) Read more ›

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Book March 24, 2010

By GottaluvDrawing

Format:Hardcover

Full of sketches, paintings, and creative thought, The Art of How to Train Your Dragon is what every "Art of" book should be... full of astounding art and insight. This is particularly important in the worlds of both 3D and traditional animation. This book, alongside others such as The Art of Kung Fu Panda, The Art of Robots, The Art of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc. is a great example of what it truly takes to bring such a detailed cinematic work to life. It carefully sections out the designs of each species of dragon, the human Viking characters, the difference in the dragon's and viking's environments. There are wonderful excerpts from the artists and production designers about their thought processes. The only complaint I have is that I wish it had even MORE! But as a freelance illustrator that is always my complaint. The art is beautiful and the character designs hilarious... you'll get a kick out of the Dragons of myth section showing the designs they didn't use. If you love great animated film character and concept art... buy this book!

One quick note, I have noticed a disappointing style shift in the more recent Disney/Pixar Art of books and as a huge Disney fan I would say they could learn something from the variety of art and character design in this and other non Disney Art of books.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful June 13, 2010

By Alyssa M. Hoover

Format:Hardcover

I bought this book to change my art style. For years I've been drawing, and trying to break away from, anime.

When I saw this film, I was in love with the way it looked (and I'm not talking about the CGI - though that was certainly wonderful). I love how the characters were done in a unique style and I thought "I want to do be able to draw like that!" I spent hours (from 3 o'clock in the afternoon to midnight) drawing, tweaking, yelling at ink pens running out of ink, and trying not to get eyestrain under the light of a dying bulb and I can already see an improvement.

I have plenty of references to go off of; from Toothless to Astrid to Hiccup - they're all there. I even drew one of my (leaner) characters looking like Stoick the Vast and it's now push-pinned to my wall! If I wanted to draw props and atmosphere (I'll start later - too lazy right now) I could because this book gives me many a reference.

Needless to say, this book has proven to be quite helpful in my endeavour.
It's also stitched, not glued.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Artwork, poor edition and quality November 26, 2012

By Cit

Format:Hardcover

I was a little dissapointed with this book. The Artwork is fantastic, but the edition of the book is not as good.
First thing I saw was the quality of the paper,the weight is very poor compared to books like this, any other of "the art of" is quite better. It has 160 pages and is 1/3 slimmer than "The art of Up" for example.

And the edition: the order of the different sections, the composition of the images, the typography is a mess!. There are just a few sketches of night fury dragon, one of the main characters in the film, and it seems like they had to enlarge the images so much (one image per page) to fill all the space, really bad. And, I say again, it's really dissapointing to share on that way such fantastic Artwork.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Ranks up there with Art of Monsters Inc. February 26, 2011

By Stop Motion Maniac

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is one of my very favorite Art of titles...right up there with Art of Monsters Inc, and for the same reasons. The Art of How to Train Your Dragon is chock-full of concept artwork, and the only reproductions of movie stills are from a chapter appropriately titled Layout, Cinematography & 3D. So for those of you looking for concept work, this is the book for you. I would say it's as good as The Art of Monsters Inc., but the range of medium and style is not as broad in The Art of How to Train Your Dragon. An excellent title nonetheless.