Art of Blue Sky Studios - Book Review

Blue Sky Studios began as a modest visual effects firm and has evolved into one of the largest film animation companies.  It is now a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, producing animated hits such as "Ice Age" and "Rio".  The Art of Blue Sky Studios collects the studio's work and provides context about the company's history, their animation process, and design and character details.

About half of the book is dedicated to the Ice Age franchise, which has proven to be quite lucrative for the studio and is one of the most well-know animated film brands outside of the Pixar realm.  Note: If you are primarily interested in just the Ice Age films, check out the new Art of Ice Age.

Other films included are "Robots", "Epic" and "Horton Hears a Who!".  At the end of the book (which was originally published in 2014) is a brief look at "The Peanuts Movie" (which has it's own separate art book).

This is a one of the largest art books I own, standing 13" tall and featuring over 300 pages of art.  It's a mix of full-page color artwork and smaller character sketches.  Throw in a few pages of color scripts and some digital layouts and there's quite a lot to chew on for those interested in animation. If you have kids who enjoy art, they will probably like seeing some of their favorite characters (including Scrat) on the page.

The book is similar to one published about Dreamworks Animation studios, although not quite as detailed.  When comparing the two, ultimately the Dreamworks book has the edge (in part because there is a greater variety of films).

Overall, I'd recommend this book for fans of Blue Sky's movies.  The design and animation in these films are distinct and high quality, and I'm happy to have the studio's cumulative work collected in this book.

On sale now at Amazon.com