THE ART OF INCREDIBLES 2

KAREN PAIK | CHRONICLE

With every new animated film comes the obligatory Art Of book to pore over. Oddly available before the film was released in the UK (best to hold off on perusing this tome until you’ve seen it if you want to avoid spoilers), The Art Of Incredibles 2 is loaded with the kind of sketches, digital doodles and clay sculpts that you have come to expect from these tie-ins. It’s an essential indulgence for anyone who wants to wallow in the world and explore the details that fly by far too quickly on-screen.

Broken down into characters, environments, vehicles and outtakes, this is a predominantly visual experience, interspersed with the occasional paragraph from the film’s key contributors, including writer/ director Brad Bird. Among the highlights are doodles of Jack-Jack’s altercation with a raccoon (a sequence that story artist Teddy Newton came up with for the first film), and reams of in-world graphics such as signs, logos and cereal boxes that attest to the sheer amount of invisible effort that goes into populating the background of an animated world. The fold-out lighting studies are also a lavish touch.

While it’s not an exhaustive making of, there are production nuggets scattered throughout – you’ll see, for example, how the original plan for the Deavor siblings was very different. A John Lasseter foreword now dates the book somewhat, but serious fans will still want this adorning their coffee table.