Vintage Ads for the Famous Artists School

Here's a classic advertisement for the Famous Artists School, the correspondence course headlined by 1950s illustrators like Norman Rockwell, Al Dorne, and Austin Briggs. (Link to YouTube)



The host, Jon Gnagy (1907-1981), introduces the course, and then draws a church using basic geometric forms. Gnagy was the first person to present art instruction on television.

Man with a Shovel Sequence, Robert Fawcett, gouache on board

The Norman Rockwell Museum is currently showing original artwork from the Famous Artists School at their exhibit: "Learning From The Masters: The Famous Artists School," which will be on view through November 19, 2017.



Here's another video advertising the school. (Archival video starts at 4:51)

The Museum's artist-instructor Patrick O'Donnell will be teaching workshops based on the FAC methods. The next one is August 17.

If you want a classic set of the original binders, I recommend the 1954 edition of the Famous Artists Course, Lessons 1-24. This edition has the best artwork and instruction from the original faculty. They cost more than $400, but they're worth it.

There's a new book: Drawing Lessons from the Famous Artists School: Classic Techniques and Expert Tips from the Golden Age of Illustration  with an introduction by curator Stephanie Plunkett and Magdalen Livesey of the FAS.

Thanks, Pedram Fazeldazeh • Video courtesy Norman Rockwell Museum Archives / Famous Artists School Collection. All rights reserved.

Famous artists paint Samson and Delilah

In 1949, ten members of the faculty of the Famous Artists School correspondence course were commissioned to paint their interpretation of Samson and Delilah, based on the 1949 Cecil B. DeMille production at Paramount.

The artists pictured include: (back row, from left to right) Harold von Schmidt, Norman Rockwell, Ben Stahl, Peter Helck, and Austin Briggs. (Front row): John Atherton, Al Parker, Al Dorne (on the ground, who apparently didn't contribute a painting), Steven Dohanos, Jon Whitcomb, and Robert Fawcett. 

Rockwell did a big painting of Samson pushing down the columns of the temple.

He shot reference of actor Victor Mature, and did the color study at right.

Austin Briggs showed Samson slaying a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.

Al Parker portrayed Delilah cutting the lock of Samson's hair, thus robbing him of power.

Austin Briggs (Edit: Jon Whitcomb) also showed a romantic scene, with Delilah looking the part of a regal but dangerous female.

Harold von Schmidt, known for his dramatic action illustrations, showed Samson wrestling with a lion.

Peter Helck illustrated Samson doing the ignoble work of grinding at the mill. To my knowledge this is the only one of the ten finished paintings that has surfaced. I wonder if anyone knows what became of the others.

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Read more

Famous Artists Course available on Amazon

Watch a YouTube clip of Victor Mature (and his stunt double) wrestling the lion.

Famous Artists School on Wikipedia

Samson on Wikipedia

1949 Samson and Delilah film

Previously on GurneyJourney:

Samson and Delilah by the old masters, with a blog reader poll for the favorite (hint: the winner was Solomon Solomon)

Images courtesy the Famous Artists' and Norman Rockwell Museum Digital Collection. All Rights Reserved.

Inside the Famous Artists School

The Famous Artists School, which was formed more than 70 years ago, was an early pioneer of remote learning. 

Some tantalizing glimpses of the correspondence course were featured in a half-hour TV program called "Operation Success." The Norman Rockwell Museum has posted the show on YouTube.

The school hired a team of professional instructors who in turn had studied with the master illustrators. It was the job of these F.A.S. instructors to read and respond to the student work and to keep their files up to date. 

The voiceover says that this instructor is creating a painted criticism, based on student efforts mailed to the school from thousands of miles away.

The instructor redraws the student's composition and paints a "better" version. The amount of care and labor that went into this process is impressive, and the company became very successful. 

But alas, it eventually fell victim to corruption and mismanagement, as David Apatoff recounts in his book on Al Dorne. 

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• Here are my previous blog posts about the Famous Artists School and its instructors. 

• It's still possible to find vintage sets of the Famous Artists Course. 

• The Norman Rockwell Museum produced a single book about the history of the Famous Artists School. 

• The other great source of instruction about mid-20th century illustration is Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis.

Helck Recalls the Famous Artists Course

The grandson of American illustrator Peter Helck (1893-1988) has published his grandfather's memoirs online. Helck was a founding member of the Famous Artists Course Lessons, and he recalls the formation of the school and his role in it:

"In 1948 that remarkably successful illustrator, AIbert Dorne, created the home study institution known as the Famous Artists School. It was flattering to be among the dozen chosen to be founding faculty members. Dorne and Fred Ludekens prepared the Basic Course, a 24 lesson textbook, intelligently organized and beautifully printed, which remains the foundation of the enterprise. For the Advanced Course the twelve of us wrote our own books of instruction, each designed to attract students believed to have personal interest in our particular and singular working methods. The best part of a year was given to writing and illustrating my course."



"The published courses won wide acclaim for their layout and typography quite aside from their merit as means of instruction. Enrollments in the Basic Course were immediately forthcoming on a level with Dorne's anticipation. However that brilliant fellow's judgment as to similar appeal for the Advanced Courses had been overly optimistic. Only Norman Rockwell and Al Parker had great numbers of starry-eyed student admirers. The egos of the rest of us were somewhat deflated by the modest enrollments for our Courses."



"For four or five years I corrected the work of my students. As this meant graphically-demonstrated means by which their works could be improved plus typed analysis and criticism, teaching via correspondence was time-consuming, on occasion six or seven hours on a single assignment, but also very enjoyable. In time the Advanced Course was merged with the Basic and the later Painting Course."



"At the time of the school's founding, teaching art by mail was viewed by many as suspect, and with cause. One nationally known school had not revised its course for 27 years. When our Basic Course Lesson No. 16 brought drop-outs and other evidence of fading student interest, Dorne concluded that this lesson, not the students, was the cause. No. 16 and others later were reorganized for improved clarity."

"Our humble beginning in a little cottage on Boston Post Road has become an institution having about 115,000 students in art, writing and photography. The School's instruction fostered the traditional art fundamentals: sound drawing, perspective, representations as offered by nature, most of which is scorned by the avant-garde."



"My personal work for exhibitions continued traditional and was thus recognized by one of the few remaining art bodies unaffected by the radical movements, the National Academy, to which I was elected in 1950. At the present there is slowly emerging a return to recognizable subject matter in painting. The astounding success of realist and traditionalist Andrew Wyeth may be viewed as significant."

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Online resources:

Read the rest of Peter Helck's memoirs
"75 Years with Palette, Paintbrush and Wheels, first published in the July-September 1981
Wikipedia on Peter Helck
Physical books:
You can still get original copies of the original Famous Artists Course Lessons
New book: Drawing Lessons from the Famous Artists School: Classic Techniques and Expert Tips from the Golden Age of Illustration
The Checkered Flag by Peter Helck
Great Auto Races, with illustrations by P.H.

Why Drawing Matters

In this ad for the Famous Artists Course, Norman Rockwell says, "If you can draw, your future is secure." You notice he didn't say "If you can paint, your future is secure."

Norman Rockwell The Handkerchief, 1940

Many students want to skip ahead to color and brushwork and revel in the juicy fun of painting.

But the foundation of any picture rests on the planning stages.

Dry media such as pencils and charcoal are perfect for exploring compositional decisions. You can draw quick thumbnail sketches, and you can erase elements and move things around. Because of the lack of color, you can easily see the bones of the picture.

In the Famous Artists Course, Norman Rockwell shared a preliminary drawing to show students how his thinking developed in this 1940 illustration. Before arriving at the final design of the old woman in the chair, he had the woman and the girl sitting on a settee with a low table in front of them.

Images courtesy Curtis Publishing and the Famous Artists School.

He says:

"I like the intricate shape of the old settee, particularly the flow and movement of the frame. It could actually act as a sort of an old-fashioned picture frame, holding the two figures in."

But he later had second thoughts. The table is too important, and the settee is too insistent. The active line of the settee's edge was too active, out of keeping with the quiet relationship between the lady and the girl.

Those second thoughts drove him to think the design afresh and to do a new set of drawings.

If Rockwell had those second thoughts after the picture was already committed to paint, it would have been very difficult to make the changes.
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On Amazon you can still get copies of the original instructional binders of Famous Artists Course.
There's a book version of Rockwell's teaching, republished in the '80s called Rockwell on Rockwell: How I Make a Picture

Top 10 Books on Animal Drawing and Painting

It's rare to find "Animal Painting" or "Animal Anatomy" listed in any art school curriculum, because the models are notoriously difficult to bring into the classroom and very few art schools have taxidermy mounts.

 

Painting a goat and sheep in the barn as a draft horse looks on.

So if you want to draw and paint animals, you almost have to be a non-traditional learner. Here are some resources that can help you on your way, especially if you combine them with sketching at the natural history museum, zoo, or farm. 

We discussed these books a little in the Draftsmen podcast interview yesterday, but here's some more info on the topic.

Books

1. The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws

    Animals, plants, insects are all covered by this uniquely knowledgeable artist.

2. How to Draw Animals by Jack Hamm

    Useful simplifications and mental models.

3. Animal Painting and Anatomy by Frank Calderon

    Calderon ran an art academy in England. Detailed anatomical analysis. 

4. Wildlife Artists at Work by Patricia van Gelder

    Studio visits with major 20th century wildlife artists, including Meltzoff,         Peterson, Carlson, and Bateman. Not useful for anatomy, but rather artistic approaches.

5. How to Draw Animals (Famous Artists School)

    Focused excerpts of a reliable mid-20th century teaching source.

6. Drawing and Painting Animals by Fritz Henning 

    Similar to the Famous Artists book above.

7. The Art of Animal Drawing by Ken Hultgren

    Disney animator shares examples of slight caricature of animal types.

8. Drawing Animals by Gary Geraths

    Instructor at Otis who draws from life.

9. Animal Drawing: Anatomy and Action for Artists by Charles Knight

    Artist who painted dinosaurs also knew his living mammals.

10. The Artist's Guide to Animal Anatomy by Gottfried Bammes

    Shows a variety of familiar animals in various levels of simplification, with lots of diagrams that are worth copying.

Teachers 

Marshall Vandruff has a good seminar on animal anatomy. 

Aaron Blaise is a former Disney animator with YouTube demos and courses

Gary Geraths takes students to sketch animals from life. 

My Videos

Animal Painting from Life (DVD) or streaming/download from Gumroad.

How I Paint Dinosaurs (DVD) or streaming/download from Gumroad.

Learning from the Famous Artists Course

The Norman Rockwell Museum produced this new video about the Famous Artists Course (Link to video)


The clips include color video of some of the faculty of 1950s American illustrators, along with Walt Reed, who was one of the faculty helpers, and Elwood Smith and Howard Cruz, who took the course.

Norman Rockwell in his Stockbridge, Massachusetts,
studio surrounded by his many studies for Art Critic. Bill Scovill 1955

Their exhibit "Learning from the Masters" will be on view through November 19.
You can still get secondhand copies of the Famous Artists Course.

What if my imagination lags behind my observation skills?

Photo courtesy Syn Studio and Concept Art Academy

Joe P. asks: 
"Hey James!

"I was reading through Imaginative Realism again a few days ago, and a question came up that I wanted to run by you. Its in reference to a comment you made about how when you were a student, you had a sketchbook that contained drawings from imagination and how it lagged so far behind your work from life and photos. This is something that I constantly struggle with, and it has me beating myself up and feeling like I will never make the slow jump from pure student to student/creative. 

"With my personal goals being illustration in the vein of the golden age illustrators as well as modern day imaginative realists as yourself, do you have any advice on making the jump from studies, to actually creating original work? Is it just a matter of doing it and accepting that your work is going to lag behind your studies greatly? Lately I feel like I have focused almost too much on my studies over the years, and although my eyes and hands are getting better.. my ability to create imaginative realism is almost non existent. 

"Do you have any tips on how to really start applying your academic studies to your end goals? I feel as though I am training to be a full on fine artist, and never really pivoting toward my true goal. Something tells me its just a matter of doing it, being terrible, fixing, and repeating. But I just have so much trouble making the jump from drawing a seated figure from life, to drawing some fantastic scene from my head."

Hi Joe,

Good question or questions. We all have seen videos of artists on the internet who are able to generate amazingly complete visions out of their heads. Behind that kind of virtuosity is considerable study and committing forms to memory.

For example, in this video, Kim Jung Gi explains what he's thinking about as he invents characters without reference. (Link you YouTube) Having a thorough understanding of perspective and anatomy is essential to this kind of drawing.

In contemporary ateliers, the emphasis is mainly on observational drawing and painting, but some of them are starting to offer imagination and memory training, such as Darren Rousar's book Memory Drawing: Perceptual Training and Recall. Most ateliers underestimate how important this skill set was for 19th century artists. Golden Age illustrators and painters spent a lot of time doing imaginative sketching games, cartoons, and doodles, such as Howard Pyle's weekly imaginative drawing sessions. Winning the Prix de Rome competition required that they could generate a convincing fantastic scene out of their heads.

The best place to find people who can teach this knowledge is in the field of comics and storyboarding, such as the classic books How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way or Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers, and the books by Loomis, Bridgman, and the Famous Artists Course.

In my case, when I am faced with a blank piece of paper, I sometimes feel limited in what I can generate with no references if I compare myself to some of the virtuosos of impromptu drawing. My initial thumbnails are usually very rough and tentative. I'm also typically thinking about lighting and color, which requires visualization, too.

What happens for me is that the extremely rough thumbnail stage gets refined by degrees as I begin to bring on more reference. 

In the early stages of developing an idea, I might glance at art books by a few artists I admire, but I try to limit looking at other artists because I want the solution to be my own. I don't want it to look derivative of someone else's style. If I'm researching a dinosaur painting, I probably won't look at any paleo artists, but instead I might look at bird artists or landscape painters.

Or better yet, I might flip through books of wildlife photos if I'm doing a dinosaur painting. Then I might turn to my photo reference clip file, looking for ideas for backgrounds or lighting or color schemes. If I'm painting an exotic city scene, I have folders of photos of crowded marketplaces and street scenes, and lots of photos of architectural styles.

With that lateral inspiration, I do another round of thumbnails, perhaps this time in gouache at a slightly larger size, with multiple variations in color, lighting, and arrangement. Or I might build a rough maquette that opens up new possibilities, making the pose clearer or offering ideas for overlapping or lighting that I never would have dreamed up. After that journey of iteration after iteration, the final stage is ready. It might involve a photo shoot of a model in costume, or just a quick charcoal mirror study. But even as I bombard myself with all this reference, I find it's important to trust the sketches that I did purely out of my head, naïve as they might be, and to let them guide the process. 

All this iteration and reference gathering doesn't need to take as long as it sounds. It might take only three or four days, but what a difference it makes!

20 Best Art-of-Animation Books

Most animated films come to market with a lavish art book that sneaks a peek at the creative work that went into making them.

These books can be inspiring references for artists and illustrators, not only for the artwork they contain, but also for the way they tell the story of the collaborative journey.

Here's a selection of the 20 Best Art-of-Animation Books from studios such as Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, and Sony Animation.

The Art of Disney Pixar Inside Out 
Translating the abstract emotions of a young girl into characters that also have feelings and motivations was a big design challenge. In his introduction, director Pete Docter explains that he wanted the book to take us through the same experience the crew went through in developing the film, starting with rough concepts, design refinements, animation thumbnails, and lighting studies. The art mostly speaks for itself, but it is credited by name and medium, and there are occasional captions to explain context. 176 pages, $40.00 retail. Currently $23.21 on Amazon.

The Art of Finding Dory
Pixar's 2016 feature returns to similar undersea worlds that we saw in Finding Nemo, but this time with a new technological and creative toolset. The key creatives chime in with detailed captions to share the challenges they faced throughout the production. The book includes a rich sampling of storyboards, character models, and set designs, and they even show some of the many photos they took during research trips. Artists and art media are credited. 176 pages, $40.00 retail. Currently $14.55 on Amazon.

Art of Puss in Boots
DreamWorks Animation developed a richly atmospheric backstory world for Puss in Boots, who was spun off from the Shrek series. The book introduces the characters first, and then presents the various locations. The final section takes a single sequence of the film, the "Cat Cantina," and examines it from the perspective of all the departments along the pipeline. Captions credit artists (sometimes multiple contributors to a single image), along with the medium used, and there are captions interspersed to explain the thinking behind the art. 152 pages, $39.95. Currently $54.00 on Amazon.

The Art of The Boxtrolls
To prepare for their 2014 stop-motion animation feature "Boxtrolls," Laika Animation hired artists to draw, paint, and sculpt the quirky world of Cheesebridge, with the expressive characters that live above and below its cobblestone streets. The book includes a variety of concept art: set design, character silhouettes, puppet builds, and prop crafting. The book is divided by the various realms of the story. There's lots of inspiration if you're a sculptor or a 3D maker. 160 pages, $40.00. Currently $23.99 on Amazon.

The Art of Big Hero 6
This art book shows how Disney Animation took a little known Marvel franchise and developed it into an animated feature. The subject is divided into World, Characters, and Cinematography. The contributions of a wide range of talents is laid out along with explanatory captions from various contributors. One page spread takes time for a fascinating lesson about realism vs. stylization, and there's a color script at the end. Most of the art is digital. 160 pages, $40.00. Currently $30 on Amazon

The Art of The Croods
Director Chris Sanders has always been an artists' artist, and this book features many of his drawings of a prehistoric world. There are also character and set designs by other DreamWorks and guest concept artists, such as Carter Goodrich, Christophe Lautrette, Dominique Louis, and Shane Prigmore. The book is divided by Characters, World, and Anatomy of a Scene. The writer, Noela Hueso, is a former editor of Hollywood Reporter who brings her expertise about animation to the captions and chapter openings, making it more than just an art book. 176 pages, $34.95. Currently $26.28 

The Art of Brave
The forewords by co-directors Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews introduces some of the challenges faced by the crew in tackling this Scottish coming-of-age story. The book shares many visual aspects of the development: color scripts, storyboards, character sketches, environment art, and 3D sculpts, all set against dramatic black pages. Interviews with key creatives such as animators and effects artists reveal insights on how they navigated the complicated technical processes. 160 pages, $40.00. Currently $31.00 

Surf's Up: The Art and Making of a True Story
This book is more than a concept art collection. It's an ambitious publishing effort, with a boxed, slipcased hardcover, inserted postcards, stickers, and acetate overlays included inside the book. The artists share how they gave individual personalities to the penguins and otters, and the technical artists explain how they figured out how to animate realistic but also expressive water effects. The book includes a DVD video called "Making Waves." 150 pages, $50.00.  Currently $18.57

The Art of Monsters, Inc.
When all you see is the finished film, it's easy to underestimate how many unknowns the crew faced at the beginning. Nowhere is this more true than in this film, where the monsters had to be funny but also scary. The presentation includes many beautiful color concepts in pastel by Dominique Louis, and far-out character and layout ideas by Carter Goodrich, Lane Smith, Nicolas Marlet, Ralph Eggleston, Ricky Nierva, and Tia Kratter. Most of the artwork is in physical painting materials, such as gouache, watercolor, markers, and acrylics. 144 pages, Currently $43.20

The Art of Finding Nemo
Developing this world presented some formidable challenges: getting the fish to have personalities and making unfamiliar undersea environments sufficiently varied and interesting, with convincing physics and effects. The artists are a who's who of leading animation concept talents, such as Peter de Sève, Jason Deamer, Ricky Nierva, Ralph Eggleston, Dominique Louis, and Sharon Callahan, plus some strikingly moody charcoal compositions by Simón Varela.
160 pages, $40.00.  Currently $30.81

The Art of The Incredibles
This Pixar classic went through some surprisingly abstract concept stages. Director Brad Bird encouraged the artists to take unusual liberties to explore way-out visual looks. Styles range from collages by Teddy Newton, to the noir-ish chiaroscuros of Paul Topolis, to the charming character designs of Tony Fucile and Teddy Newton. Lou Romano's semi-geometric color script opens out to a double gatefold so that you can see the whole thing at once. Occasional commentaries by the artists gives context. 160 pages, $40.00 Currently $40.01

The Art of Ratatouille
The concept artists did their homework when they designed a French restaurant in Paris, and the inspired rat who wanted to become a chef. Director Brad Bird admits in his introduction that the film's look was well established before he came on board. The presentation includes a lot of the clay sculpts by Greg Dykstra and the hilarious character concepts by Jason Deamer, Carter Goodrich, and Dan Lee, who passed away during the production. Includes evocative color keys by Dominique Louis after he went digital. 160 pages, $40.00 Currently $30.90

A Bug's Life: The Art and Making of an Epic of Miniature Proportions
One of Pixar's early features, Bug's Life was an artistic and technical breakthrough in its time, with plants that moved in the wind and transmitted light, and characters that were a leap forward from the plastic toys in Pixar's first feature. The book features the moody color concepts of Tia Kratter and Bill Cone. The concept art is mixed with production stills and a text that offers fascinating insights into the early challenges of CG animation.
Oversize, 128 pages, $40.00 Secondary market copies vary greatly in price. 

Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: An Art in Its Making
Snow White was the highlight of Walt Disney's determined effort to assemble and train a group of artists that rivaled the best storybook illustrators in Europe. This book is a catalog from an exhibiion of the collection of Stephen H. Ison, but it includes everything from Kendall O'Connor's powerful storyboard layouts to  animation drawings by Norm Ferguson, Art Babbitt, Bill Tytla, and Grim Natwick. Many of the cel setups and watercolor backgrounds are not credited, either because they didn't know, or they were the work of so many different people. 194 pages, $45.00. Used copies are about $50.00 

Walt Disney's Bambi: The Story and the Film
The fascinating text by two of the 'Nine Old Men,' Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, chronicles the story of the production. The drawings and paintings are informed by direct study of nature and animals, and the authors describe how the studio worked to enhance the skill sets of all the artists. The shift of style from Tenggren to Ty Wong is well documented, with a lot of Wong's atmospheric pastels and watercolors included. The last section showcases some key drawings from animation sequences, making this book a good supplement to their famous textbook The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. 208 pages, $29.95. Currently $19.95

Walt Disney's Fantasia
Disney described every film as an adventure in the realm of sound, color, and motion, and this adventure reached a high point with Fantasia, which has some of the finest artistry of the classic era of animation. This lavish Abrams book includes character sketches, color keys, background paintings, maquettes, animation drawings, and final cel setups culled from the archives. Animation historian John Culhane brings to life the story meetings and conferences by means of transcribed notes. Most of the artwork is not credited, but all of Disney's top early talent is in evidence. 220 pages, $29.95. Currently $19.95

Layout and Background (Walt Disney Animation Archives)
The idea of the Archive Series is to compile a whole book of art in a given category, showing examples from the studio's collection of short animated films and features. The art is large and uncropped, and mostly without commentary. Most of the works are credited in the back of the book. Both pencil layouts and painted backgrounds are included in this volume, showing the evolution of BG styles over the decades. Oversize 280 pages, $50.00. Currently $35.00

Story (Walt Disney Animation Archives) 
The drawings in this book are rough but incredibly expressive, communicating the emotion of the scene immediately. Many sequences are shown in series so you can see where the story beats are headed. Artists include Gustaf Tenggren, Bill Peet, Ferdinand Horvath, Glen Keane, and Chris Sanders. As with other volumes in the Archives series, the art is shown mostly without accompanying text, which lets the beautifully reproduced art shine on the page. The other excellent book on this subject is: Paper Dreams: The Art And Artists Of Disney Storyboards
Oversize 280 pages, $50.00. Currently $31.00

Design (Walt Disney Animation Archives)
This book showcases the work of the stylists and designers. The samples range from cartoony to expressionistic, and they will inspire illustrators looking to hone their own style. Art includes color scripts, character keys, color illustrations, and background sketches. Artists include Eyvind Earle, Mary Blair, Ty Wong, Gustaf Tenggren, Joe Grant, Aaron Blaise, Armand Baltazar, Lorelay Bove, and Hans Bacher. Oversize 280 pages, $60.00. Currently $34.00

The Art of DreamWorks Animation
 This thick book offers the best of the concept art from the history of DreamWorks Animation, 30 films in all. The early work goes all the way back to Prince of Egypt, and it carries through to Home in 2014. The individual pieces are mostly uncredited, but it includes recognizable talents like Carter Goodrich, Sam Michlap, Nathan Fowkes, and Christophe Lautrette. Paragraph-long captions scattered throughout by directors and production designers testify to the ferment of creative cross-fertilization that happened during many of the productions. 324 pages, $50.00. Currently $32.76



The Art of Zootopia
Character designs, mostly by Cory Loftis, explore many variations of pose and expression of all the main characters. The various regions of the Zootopia universe are explored in terms of their architecture, color styling, and concept. The text explains the evolution of the story concept and the challenges faced by the designers to make such a sprawling story cohesive visually.
160 pages, $40.00. Currently $24.74

More Art-of-Animation books that you recommended:
The Art of Spirited Away
The Art of My Neighbor Totoro: A Film by Hayao Miyazaki
Oga Kazuo (Studio Ghibli background artist)
Tekkonkinkreet Art Book Shinji Kimura
The Art of DreamWorks Kung Fu Panda
The Art of Kubo and the Two Strings
The Art of Pixar: The Complete Color Scripts
The Art of Tangled
The Art of Frozen
The Art of Blue Sky Studios
Song of the Sea Artbook
Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950s Animation