I have been racking my brain trying to settle on just 10 books, that in my opinion are a must for any animator. When we started the animation book business 5 years ago, there wasnt a lot of choice. Today there is so much great stuff -its hard to choose, but choose i did. After reading the list, you may disagree with me, and if you do, feel free to leave a comment.
No TOP 10 list is without controversy. I tried to pick the books that i personally love to go back to, looking at them over and over again. Of course, i own hundreds of books and i dont recommend anyone should stop at just 10. Most of the books i listed are still available, as i tried to stay away from rare or hard to get stuff.
First off let me clarify, that for the purpose of this list i am looking at artbooks/sketchbooks -not so much how to books. For example, no animator should be without Richard William's Survival Guide to Animation -but as artbooks go, its not the best.
Starting the list was easy, but then i realized that i liked several books by the same artist. For that reason, the TOP TEN list is broken down more by Artist, then by book. For Example Norman Rockwell is known as a master illustrator- but his ability to charicature and invoke action and emotion into his paintings make his books a must on any animator's list.
Note: There are plenty of other books not on the list, that could easily have been added, except that i limited the list to 10. To simplify the list, i didnt include any japanese artbooks of which there are plenty of awesome ones (Anything by Miyazaki, Koji Morimoto's Orange, Range Murata,Hyung Tae Kim's Oxide 2,Terada Katsuya's Zenbu or Tatsuyuki Tanaka's Cannabis Works are just a handfull that pop into mind).
TOP 10 (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER):
1. Claire Wendling - Drawers 2.0 & Iguana Bay
2. Norman Rockwell - Pick any book
3. Stephen Silver - Art of Silver, Sketches 1,2
4. Ben Caldwll -3 sketchbooks, Action Cartooning,Fanasy Cartooning
5. Carlos Meglia - Canari, Superman infite city
6. Barbucci - Skydoll,Monster Allergy
7. Cartoon Modern - 1950s animation
8. Dean Yeagle - 4 sketchbooks
9. Art of Star Wars Episode I,II,II - awesome location and costume designs
10. Michel Gagne - Insanely Twisted Rabbits
So what do you think - is there any you would remove? Any you would add? Let me know what you think.
