Avatar: The Last Airbender (The Art of the Animated Series) Hardcover – June 1, 2010

As a devoted fan of the show from almost the very beginning, I followed all the interviews, sneak peeks, and DVD commentaries aggressively, so I thought I knew a good bit about every aspect of the show, from its influences to its creation process to little trivia bits about the finished episodes. I told myself I didn't need the art book because it would tell me little about Avatar that I didn't already know. For a while I was able to hold off buying this book, but the art in Avatar is so beautiful that I finally broke down and got it, telling myself that I might as well dish out twenty bucks to have a nice hardcover Avatar book to add to my collection of flimsy cinemanga and Earth Kingdom Chronicles paperbacks. Now I'm writing this review to tell every fan out there who has had even a minute's hesitation in buying this book: DO IT.Avatar: The Art of the Animated Series covers everything you could dream of wanting to know about the show. I should have known Bryke would never do anything halfway. I was blown away by the obviously intense amount of effort the creators put into compiling such a thorough and well-put-together inside look at the creation process. They explain everything about Avatar's production, starting with their very first fateful meeting and taking fans all the way up through the end of the epic series. It's so neat to read about all their inspirations (especially if you're an anime fan; you'll probably recognize a lot of names) and some of the difficulties they had to overcome in order to make the show what it is today. It is a fantastic read from cover to cover.As you can tell when you use Amazon's "look inside" feature, the creator commentary is arranged in paragraph format with bold letters to tell which creator is speaking. They actually go into a lot more detail than I thought they would about almost everything. They spend a lot of time talking about the development of characters: their personalities, design characteristics, models, and any changes that were made and why. (Plus it's really neat to see the way some of your favorite characters looked like originally!) They mention the animals, settings, voice acting, martial arts influences, weapons and technology, and all sorts of other things, some that you may not even necessarily have thought about much before, like color schemes and drawing styles. I learned a lot of really neat things about the process behind Avatar's animation and about the Korean studio that did such a beautiful job animating the series.The thing I like most about this book is the great variety of art it showcases. There are original character concepts by various crew members, background sketches and paintings, real storyboard action sequences, martial arts references, detailed clothing and weapon designs, descriptions and illustrations of Avatar-verse animals, screenshots from the show and the original pilot episode, press and/or promotional art, and even some photos Mike and Bryan took on some of their trips to places that inspired the layout of the Avatar universe. And to top it all off, there is at least a one-page spread for each one of Avatar's 61 chapters that highlights some of the strongest points in each episode, whether it's new characters, locations, technology, action sequences, or a combination of several of these. Needless to say, this book is a must-have for all Avatar fans. Whether you're a casual fan who just happened to fall in love with the art (and there is plenty of it in this book, all amazing quality despite the fact that much of it is simply sketched) or you're a die-hard Avatard who wants to know everything about everything, trust me when I say that this compilation is worth every penny and more.As for the packaging and shipping, I have very little to say - the item was wrapped adequately and arrived when it said it would. No problems there. The only minor (and I do mean minor) problem that I had was that one of the corners was bent when it arrived. It probably would have happened anyway, though, through regular use, so it's not really something to complain about. Everything else was fine, and the price is excellent given the durable binding and beautiful thick pages (not to mention the content). I know I've said this so many times that it's probably starting to sound old, but if you want a good look behind the scenes of the greatest cartoon of our generation, this is it. Other creators, take note: this is how TV series art books should be.

I'm a huge fan of the series. Not just for the story, character depth or enticing music.. but the art. It's what hooked me the first episode I saw. I mean, c'mon, you can't deny how gorgeous the premiere looked! So yes, I JUMPED at the opportunity to grab a copy of this baby.The cover is quality. Then you open up to the map of the Avatar world followed by an introduction given by M. Night... And then, the revealings of Avatar's beginnings come to light.One of the things I have to stress about this book is the amount of insight about the behind the scenes work. For the fans who want to know how this deep story came to light, they tell you and they don't hold back. Everything from insights on the difference between American Animation studios and Asian Animation studios to momo going from a robotic monkey to a lemur explained.. It's really great and helped me appreciate the show a lot more. This makes up the first of five chapters.After this, it comes on to highlight sketches from each episode in chapters made up of each season. Some explained in depth, such as "Jet" and "The Blue Spirit" and others just illustrations with very minimal explanation, such as "The Deserter". (Season one). They include small extras about the DVD covers and the chibi Avatar animations as well.The artwork is beautifully colored and high quality ensured. It looks absolutely great. My only nitpick about the book is how short it feels. At times, I wanted more artwork and more details, or wanted some of the art featured to be larger so I can gasp at the details. All in all though, this book really shows how much thought, love and care was put in and the vast amount of talent of those who worked on it. Boy do they have talent. The art speaks for itself. Even friends who aren't fans of the show loved looking through the book. A must buy for any fan or anyone interested in this line of work for that matter.Go! Buy it! The Avatar will blow you away! Eh heh...

The media could not be loaded. This is a wonderful art book for a spellbinding animation series. Making the series took 6 years, hundreds of artists, and hundreds of thousands of drawings. This book showcases a selection of some really beautiful illustrations.There are loads of character and background designs inside, in sketches and in their finished coloured form. The main characters like Aang and others come with cool animation sequences created with pencils. Also included are many of the discarded concepts which were difficult to animate or doesn't suit the story. Appa had some really awesome spiral horns but were discarded, unfortunately. The character drawings are superb. Just by looking at their different expressions you can pretty much guess their characteristics.Besides the characters which includes the town folks and soldiers, there are also drawings for many miscellaneous stuff like storyboards, airships, hybrid animals, wanted posters, promotional posters, chibi (or super deformed) style and random doodles from meetings.Did I mention the background paintings? The world created is so beautiful!The whole book is annotated heavily by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. They talk about everything on production, from creating the pilot episode to Nickelodeon approving the final season. You can see and read about their influences and inspiration everywhere, from Buddhism, Studio Ghibli, Gainax, Chinese martial arts, etc. It's very interesting to see how they apply what they learned from research to their drawings and animation.This is a fantastic art book for the series and fans, which should appeal to anyone who hasn't watch the series. Good art appeals to all.Highly recommended!(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

O livro é maravilho, bem grande todas as paginas em papel couché, para quem é fã e gosta de desenhar é um otimo livro para colecionar! so pontos negativos para a LOGGI TECNOLOGIA LTDA que simplesmente entregou em outra casa eu tive que ir buscar e tbm jogaram o livro de qualquer jeito!

El libro es una pasada para fans incondicionales de la serie, para mi, esto es un complemento friki perfecto jejeje. También para quienes les gusta dibujar/ilustradores, está repleto de bocetos y creaciones de diseño de personajes. Es una joyita.Está en inglés.Me sumo a algunos comentarios que han hecho por aquí, de la lástima que es que esta serie no tuviera el exitazo masivo que se merecía (no comprendo como no lo ha tenido, de verdad), y que por eso, no podamos disfrutar de una edición en dvd/blueray con opción de audio y/o subítulos en castellano, y tampoco ediciones en castellano de los libros y cómics que continúan con la historia.De lo malo malo, podemos disfrutar de estos libros en inglés, y son bastante cómodos de entender :)COMENTARIO SOBRE ENTREGA: ahí me la han liado. Porque de repente vi un email que decían que me lo habían entregado, Y NO. Me dio por mirar y me lo habían dejado DEBAJO DEL FELPUDO. ¡Tened cuidado con eso! especificad en detalles del envío de que no lo hagan así si no os viene bien. Mi edificio es horroroso de como las lían, no se como es posible que me haya aguantado el paquete ahi ni 5 minutos. Eso es un fallo súper gordo.

Es un libro excelente, el dibujo, sus detalles, la historia de como empezó todo, es un libro necesario si eres fan de esta serie

Guardavo questo artbook da un po' e quando è sceso sotto i 30€ mi sono fiondata a comprarlo. È così bello, che mi sento in colpa nell'averlo preso scontato.È un artbook abbastanza grande (supera le dimensioni di un A4) e in meno di 200 pagine racconta e mostra tutto il procedimento della serie animata, con alcuni interessanti appunti sull'animazione coreana, keyanimations e storyboard (che sono in realtà abbastanza rari giacché tanti artbook si focalizzano molto su character design, concept art o layouts).L'artbook è ovviamente in inglese (perché in Italia non c'è mercato per queste cose, inutile lamentarsi di mancate traduzioni) ed è una piccola chicca per chi vuole studiare la produzione di una serie animata a tutto tondo.

It's amazing! Seeing how the story was developed was absolutely inspiring. Enjoyable for any avatar fan.