The Art of Alice: Madness Returns Author: R.J. Berg | Language: English | ISBN:
1595826971 | Format: EPUB
The Art of Alice: Madness Returns Description
- Hardcover: 184 pages
- Publisher: Dark Horse (May 17, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1595826971
- ISBN-13: 978-1595826978
- Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 9.2 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The Art of Alice: Madness Returns is a video game art book. A very good one.
The book's a 184 page hardcover published by Dark Horse. It's in a large vertical format. The paper is thick low glossy. Binding is superb. Production value is top notch.
The concept art and ideas are awesome. There are out-of-the-world background paintings, character designs, props, weapons and gruesome creations. Also included are discarded ideas that didn't make it - usually the too abstract.
When you mix a classic like Alice in Wonderland with pop culture, video game designers, concept artists and throw in a Victorian-gothic theme, you get very strange new world. A world so dangerous Alice has to be equipped with a kitchen knife at all times or sometimes a Bazooka firing hammer (yes, hammer) or a teapot cannon.
Every page brings a little element of surprise and twist. You can see crows with baby faces, Jack the Ripper with tentacles, Alice helping a mother giving birth to a load of kids (gruesome concept), an angler fish with human legs, cow birds, steampunk-like contraptions, a Chinese Humpty Dumpty, flying pig noses, embellished pieces of weaponry, etc. There are lots of mix and matches for things that shouldn't go together.
The environment and set designs are amazing. It looks like some gothic Victorian hell that Alice is treading through. The landscape is ever changing along the game. They are beautiful and detailed. They totally nailed the mood.
There's also plenty to read with the little captions that describe the designs, characters and stories. It gives a nice idea of how such a strange game came about. It's all very interesting to read.
I have been a huge Alice fan since I played the original on the PC. I was really glad to see that a sequel was being made, and knew I had to pick this Artbook up as well. The book is a nice size which is great. It is a hardcover, and the pages are thick and very nice quality. The colors and art can be appreciated with the bigger size and the better quality paper.
The content is beyond incredible. The art in the book comes with blurbs about the piece from the artist or a producer, and it often goes into detail about the piece, why it was made, and what the goal for the piece was. Most of the work is concept art, but they are of high quality. There is alot of complete pieces with full color and depth. Not just sketches or storyboards which is common in alot of artbooks you get as preorder bonuses with games. The book is broken into chapters, with each chapter giving insight on an aspect of the game, such as preproduction or Wonderland locations. Each chapter has art pertaining to the theme. So in preproduction, you see alot of the brainstorming and ideas that came up early in the game's development that ended up getting cut from the game. It's a real treat to see. Even the design of the characters are in detail.
The book is about 170 pages or so, and has a ton of material to go through. I could not put the book down, and finished it in a day. It was just really good and kept my interest up the whole time.
If I have any small gripes, it is that a few of the pieces which are VERY interesting, have no blurbs about them. There were a couple of pictures I had really hope had some context to it, but it only lists who did them. About 5% of the pictures have no blurbs. Also, some of the artwork isn't talked about enough.
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