The Art of Hercules: The Chaos of Creation (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The Disney studio returns to form with its take on that ancient superhero, Hercules. No Quasimodo (hero of last year's tepidly received Hunchback of Notre Dame), the Greek demigod is in the Disney mold: young, good lookin', a bit naive. Furthermore, his mythic story provides fantasy elements like those in Disney's most memorable films. Like the book tie-ins to other recent Disney animated features, this handsome coffee-tabler traces the new film's history and production with hundreds of color and black-and-white illustrations and commentary from its creators. The volume's highlight is a section of drawings by production designer Gerald Scarfe, best known for his work on the film of the rock group Pink Floyd's album The Wall. Scarfe's loopy, chaotic style is quite a departure from the usual, homogenized Disney approach, and if his distinctive character designs survive in the finished film, Hercules may go down in Disney annals for something other than truckloads of box-office proceeds. Gordon Flagg

Product Description

Similar to Disney's illustrated companion books to its other recent animated films, the companion to the movie Hercules contains the full range of art produced during the film's creation. 50,000 first printing. Movie tie-in."

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Disney Editions (June 19, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786862637
• ISBN-13: 978-0786862634
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 11.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #89,320 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Books > Children's Books > Popular Characters > Disney > Hercules
  #42 in	Books > Entertainment > Movies > Genre Films
  #49 in	Books > Arts & Photography > Design & Decorative Arts > Graphic Design > Animation

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Disney take on Greek Art!, March 11, 2003

By	Edward Juan "ghost" (Valencia, CA. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As an animation student, I just LOVE this book. It is full of colorful concept sketches, drawings, color thumbnails, and awesome storyboards. A really special part of the book is a collection of caricature sketches for the movie by Gerald Scarfe, an ink master of the century! If you like Hirshfeld, this is like Hirshfeld meets Disney.
There are few pages of storyboard, especially the beautiful color storyboard for the song "Zero to Hero". It is a true inspiration for any illustrator or animator. The character development sketches are really good too, though not as experimenting as the book "Art of Monsters Inc." (Pete Doctor, John Lasseter).
Overall, if you are a fan of Disney art, or animator, or even just an animation student like myself. GET THIS BOOK! Worth the decent cost. You wouldn't want to miss it!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Buy it for the art., January 29, 2000

By A Customer

I had wanted to get this book for a long time. I actually enjoyed 'Hercules' a lot. It isn't *meant* to be an accurate telling of the Hercules legend any more than 'Aladdin' is faithful to the Arabian Knights tale, but that did not detract from its entertainment for me. However, the book sadly falls into the trap of being one long back-patting session for Disney, as some of the artbooks had tended to do. At least by this stage they'd stopped 'dumbing down' the process of animation for people who really shouldn't be buying these books if they don't know how animation works. Unfortunately, I had to grade the book VERY low for the endless obsequious praise for directors Clements and Musker. I swear, there is a whole CHAPTER dedicated to nothing but grovelling from the staff. I also did not appreciate the 'narration' comments given by drawings of Phil, Herc and the Muses. Animation connoisseurs do not like being patronized, thank you, Disney. To their credit, 'The Art of Mulan' and 'Tarzan Chronicles' were excellent and intelligently written, so maybe they learned their lesson ;p However, this book does fulfil its purpose of showing exquisite production artwork, especially the contributions of Mr Scarfe.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Behind-the-Scene Book for the Whole Family, February 20, 1998

By A Customer

Though I work on Wall Street, I still hold on to my childhood dream of being a Disney animation artist. This book on Hercules (which BTW is my all-time favorite) is lighter on technical details than the similar books on Aladdin and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but still lots of fun.