The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles: Art & Design
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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles: Art & Design explores and celebrates the creative vision of the second film in Academy Award–winning filmmaker Peter Jackson’s trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.
This lavish volume follows Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin’s Company of Dwarves eastward, through hitherto unseen regions of Middle-earth, on their quest to reclaim the lost realm of Erebor from the Dragon Smaug. Exploring the design and development of the environments, cultures, creatures, and artifacts encountered by the characters, it is filled with more than one thousand stunning images of conceptual art, supplementary photographs, and detailed commentary provided by the film’s cast and crew.
As a bonus feature, unique to this book, there is a special fold-out replica of the portrait of the Master of Lake-town, played by Stephen Fry, exactly as it appears in the film.
Compiled by Weta Workshop senior concept designer Daniel Falconer, this is the third book in The Hobbit: Chronicles series, and it has been created in full collaboration with key members of the production’s creative team to ensure the most comprehensive and authentic film companion possible.
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Delannoy –
Livre aussi magnifiques que les autres de la collection. Pour tout les fans du Hobbit et des Artbook, ou si vous vous intéressez au designs conceptuels des films, le livre est rempli d’illustrations magnifiques et d’explications très complète sur les designs du film. A avoir dans sa bibliothèque.
Je recommande !!
Clint K –
This latest addition to the acclaimed hobbit chronicles book series is great as usual. Weta continue to create persistently efficient books with wonderful artwork and behind the scenes photos of how they made the desolation of smaug. With this one you still have alot of alan lee and john howe’s wonderful sketches of the early stages of each part of the movie. I think its really cool that they also show the mini models the art department makes, for what will eventually be full size movie sets. Beorn’s house, mirkwood, laketown, erebor, and many other environments are presented in this. Although towards the end of the book, the dragon smaug himself isn’t really presented too much. Which i think they did on purpose, due to the “dragon unleashed” book that’s coming in 2014 (which will feature NOTHING but smaug designs). Daniel Falconer is one of the best in the business as far as organizing these thousands of pieces of concept art into one volume. He says himself in the introduction that it takes hundreds of people to bring middle-earth to fruition. And its kind of sad that all of the art can never all be seen. Just because of the sheer volume of it of course. Anyway, regardless of what’s missing, which isn’t much in my opinion, this is yet another home run for the weta team and harper collins books. I will continue to buy this series and when i have them all, i can look at them as one lushious and full title that i can show my children, who will hopefully be tolkien fans as well :)!!!!!
Lena –
Ich hab mir das Buch aus 3 Gründen gekauft. Zunächst mal bin ich ein absoluter Tolkienfan!! Die Filme finde ich auch alles in allem klasse. Ich brauche einige der Infos (Grund 2) für eine authentische Gewandung (-> LARP, für die, dies kennen.) und meine Hoffnungen wurden erfüllt. Drittens hab ich das Buch von jemand erfahrenem im Hobbi empfohlen bekommen.
Im Buch werden einzelne Schauplätze im Film wunderbar erklärt, mit vielen, vielen Bildern und letztendlich dem fertigen Ergebnis. Ich könnte so viel daüber schreiben, was alles daran toll ist.. Mir ist auf jeden Fall kein Contra aufgefallen. Also absolute Kaufempfehlung! =)
Charlie-CJ –
Love this book. Probably my favourite. Very easy interaction with seller. Good purchase. I recommend.
Charlie-CJ –
This is the official book of the art and design of the second The Hobbit movie ‘The desolation of Smaug’. It follows from the first book Chronicles: Art & Design (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey). I bought this book for my 17 year old son, who being dyslexic doesn’t read books, but loves drawing, dragons and art/comic books (mostly Manga ones) – he also loved the first Hobbit movie. This hard back book is very well presented and well bound with the little bits of cotton on the spine with good quality shiny paper pages, plus it’s very substantial at 12″ x 10″ x 3/4″. The book is the art work used to create the sets, characters, costumes and creatures in the movie, and it has over 1,000 coloured drawings and B&W sketches. There’s also some interesting text discussing the pictures, but mostly the pages are filled with pretty illustrations. These were most likely specially commissioned with an eye for the book as much as setting the style for the movie, as they are of such high quality. The chapters include: Beorns house, Beorn & his props, Lost in the forest of Mirkwood (flies & spiders), Mirkwood Elf Hunters, Thranduils Halls & Throne Room, The Woodland Realm, Lake-town & its props, Ancient Dale, The coming of Smaug, The lonely Mountain, The Hill of Sorcery, Inside Dol Guldur, and Erebor – Smaug’s lair. I’ve posted a few example pages from the book under customer images.
I particularly liked the drawings of the houses and the towns (not so sure about the rather realistic giant spiders though). All the costumes are typical gothic/wizard fantasy outfits, but none the worse for that. Perhaps some of the pictures of Smaug were a bit dissapointing as we didn’t get too many of them (mostly in the last few pages). Apparently it was the film-makers decision to limit images of Smaug prior to the general release of the movie (i.e. spoilers), so Smaug gets his own book, Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon (The Desolation of Smaug) in April 2014, once the main film release in the cinemas is over. But overall it’s 226 pages of delightful illustrations and well worth the £13 we paid on preorder (the low price being the reason we bought this Hobbit Art & Design book first). My son loved this book, and the front hard cover is even simulated Dragon skin. So 5*.
The pictures here are only a small selection of the total movie archive of artwork, and more books will appear, but this is intended to provide a good cross-section of all the material created for the film, and we think it succeeds in that. As well as the ‘Art & Design’ book per Hobbit film, there is also the companion ‘Creatures and Characters’ book – but we fancied this ‘houses and set design’ one (which includes many of the film characters and their costumes anyway). Sufficiently impressed, we ordered the first films Hobbit Art & Design book: An Unexpected Journey for £16 and weren’t disappointed. I guess these books were inspired by Alan Lee’s excellent The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook: Portfolio which presents the sketches and final illustrations for the 1991 ‘centenary’ edition of Lord of the Rings – Lee and John Howe subesquently became the lead concept artists for Peter Jackson’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies (2001-2003) and they were consulted to ensure continuity of design in the new Hobbit films.
Sanchayan Sarkar –
Following on the success of the films , we finally get to look into the pre-production phase of “The Desolation of Smaug”. With over hundreds of designs , stills and concept arts , the team at WETA & 3foot7 brings this amazing book that provides intricate details that went behind the design of The Hobbit. The painstaking work done to make this movie look as good as it possibly could and with character given on every detail of props to sets to creatures really is a treat to read. This articulated book should be a good read for all movie lovers like me , fantasy geeks and more importantly people who love the world of JRR Tolkien. It can also serve as a good educational artbook for all designers who aspire to be in this field as to how to approach good characterful designs in quick time and interpret the vision of the director. With a visionary in charge in the name of Peter Jackson , the world he created is not just his composition but a collaborative work of all the artists from Alan Lee, John Howe , Richard Taylor and his team at WETA workshop , Dan Hennah and his art department , the script writers and the thousands of carpenters , prop makers that worked on this singular vision
Parka –
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Wow. Wow. Wow. That’s one “Wow” for each of the Hobbit artbooks that were published so far.
This artbook is still hardcover, 208 pages, and is as detailed and packed as the earlier Hobbit Chronicles books.
Featured in this particular book are the environment, props, character and creature designs. It’s predominantly hand drawn plus digital painting art with some 3D renders, and a few photos of miniature props. The art is fantastic.
Covered, of course, are the locations as they appear in the film, such as Mirkwood, the Elven kingdom, Lake-town and the others. The designs are wonderful and really set the tone for the movies.
Character art are for the new characters, such as Beorn, Evangeline Lilly’s Tauriel, Legolas, the many orcs, creatures like the spiders and other miscellaneous characters of which there are a lot. Strangely, there are only a few pages of art for Smaug the dragon.
You’ll see quite of a lot of pencil sketched concept art from Alan Lee and John Howe, who are both concept art directors for the film. The other contributing artists are also quite amazing as to the quality of work they are putting out. It’s nice to see a good mix of pencil and coloured artworks.
This is mostly a showcase of the concept artworks of Weta Workshop and 3 Foot 7 Art Department. The environment and character designs are from Weta, while the sets, props and dressings are from 3 Foot 7.
The writeup is also very extensive. Usually for each subject, be it character or location, there will be a few designers giving their own views and elaboration on the designs. It’s very insightful as there are inputs from lots of the artists that work behind the scenes.
By the way, there’s going to be another artbook for this film coming out later called The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles: Cloaks & Daggers. Very good.
This artbook is really worth the money. Highly recommended to fans of the film and concept art. There’s plenty to see and read.
(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)
Stormvoël –
For starters, and just so you know: yes, Smaug is only lightly touched on, but that’s because he gets his very own book, called “SMAUG: Unleashing the Dragon,” also from Daniel Falconer.
As for this volume… wow! It’s everything I could have hoped for, full of sketches and full-color pictures, and a lot of commentary by the artists. I particularly enjoyed the extensive coverage of Beorn, who was seriously underutilized in the film, but whose set and person were so interesting in the original book. He gets his just due here.
The book is large and heavy; definitely coffee-table material. Still, it’s not bookshelf dressing; it’s something you’ll want to read again and again, so leaving it out is the best thing for it.
Sherry Mc –
Another labor of love from the Weta Workshop. These people are truly masters of their craft. These books are a great companion for the behind the scenes extras on the DVDs. Wonderful illustrations, conceptual art, photographs and commentary from the cast and members of Weta.
I loved all the new information on the elves, particularly Thranduil and Tauriel and the elves’ home, Mirkwood. We follow the journey of Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves there and on to Lake-town and then to the Mountain with illustrations and art of these areas.
As always lots of new creatures, characters and places. I loved seeing the illustrations of Alfred, the Master of Lake-town’s sycophant because he was such a funny character. On the back inside cover there is a portrait of the Master of Lake-town as a bonus.
Azog and the Orcs are also illustrated and shown as well as spiders and Beorn. Only a few pages on Smaug. Perhaps they show more in subsequent volumes.
There’s 208 pages of beautiful work to look at and study. If only all big movies franchises did companion books such as this I’d be one happy camper.