The Art of Ray Harryhausen Hardcover – April 1, 2006

This book reads like a expanded version of Ray's FILM FANTASY SCRAPBOOK! Ray describes in detail the processes involved in making his movies and the influence of such artists as Charles R. Knight whose depiction of dinosaurs was a big influence on both Harryhausensen and Disney when it comes to the Rite Of Spring of FANTASIA. When Ray made EVOLUTION he abanded the project after seeing Disney's dinosaurs! Ray prefered the surreal quality of his stop motion over the realism of today's CGI animation!Chapter 3 Masks, mayhem and Monsters shows his experimenting with puppets and his mask making which he made with latex rubber and molds Chapter4 The Formative Years shows Ray experimenting with commercials like Kenny Key( his early work can be seen in RAY HARRYHAUSEN THE EARLY YEARS DVD VIDEO )Then he worked with Willis O Brian on MIGHTY JOE YOUNG. The full colour illustrations of Joe Young the gorilla show how expressive Ray was with his drawings!In Chapter 5 Fairy Tales my Teething Rings Ray talks about his charming Fairy Tale shorts that are featured in RAY HARRYHAUSEN THE EARLY YEARS dvd video! Model sheets by Ray show Red Riding Hood and other characters before they are visuallised in 3 dimentions as stop motion puppets. As an animater myself I can only look at his work and realise the patience and persistance in animating these models one frame at a time! I find it enough work to animate hand drawn animation instead of models! The beautiful kodachome forest for Red Riding Hood to walk through is breathtaking to see! And the glistening gold in KING MIDAS is spectakular!Chapter 7 ZEUS COMPLEX shows his visualisations of JASON AND THE ARGAUNAUTS and CLASH OF THE TITANS! I just watched JASON AND THE ARGAUNAUTS, THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD on DVD! The drawings of Medusa the Gorgan show how expressive Ray made her and also reveal a weakness in some of his work in that the monsters are much more alive and expresssive then the hero such as Perseus, acted stiffly by Harry Hamlin! Jason fares better with an army of skeletons and the Hydra both animated by Ray! Storyboards of Talos the giant statue towering over the ship, the Argo are powerful and intriguing! There are also storyboard drawings for sequences not used like Hermes taking Jason up to mount Olympus by a horse drawn Chariot and creature sketches for the unrealised FORCE OF THE TROJANS!Chapters 8 and 9 depict THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD with the dragon from 7th VOYAGE with Ray holding it and full size drawing of one eyed cyclops centaur in GOLDEN VOYAGE menacing some men with a boulder!The last chapter, chapter 11 Its fine stuff but it will rot in time" shows Ray preserving his models in bronse since his models were not made to resist the rigors of time! This book is beautifully illustrated , highly recommended!! R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen!

Rarely does a man come along that is as influential to a specific field or occupation or art form that has such a impact as Ray Harryhausen!! Many could argue that Willis O'Brien should alone be credited with the advent of stop motion animation, but I believe that Ray Harryhausen's film's have influenced a much wider audience. Mr. Harryhausen gives credit where credit is due & this book not only showcases Ray's work but offer's a generous look at Willis O'Brien's work as well! Ray Harryhausen is a rare example of the student exceeding the master & Ray stay's true to his teacher in realizing O'Brien's unfulfilled project's like "The Valley of Gwangi." Ray Harryhausen has never let his ego get in the way never missing a opportunity to give credit & admiration to Mr. O'Brien. This book is a must have for Harryhausen fans & student's of special effect's in motion pictures. It is filled with beautiful art work & images of unrealized film's that stir the imagination. Before the advent of C.G.I. stop motion animation was a breakthrough development in film making, making it possible to bring a level of realism to creature films not available prior to its creation. This also allowed Hollywood to revive ancient literature & bring it to a new audience of film viewers. Not everyone has a vivid imagination being able to envision the wild & weird creatures of Mythology & Science Fiction tending to making these genre's dull & unappealing to many readers. But through the creative imagination & talent of Ray Harryhausen many people left the movie theaters with a whole new appreciation for those genre's! It is difficult to express in words the full impact this one man had on the film industry and the thousands of movie goers that were privileged to witness this quantum leap in film making! Our children will never fully appreciate the impact of people seeing a 30 foot tall orange Cyclops rampage a crossed the big screen framed in a stunning blue sky background! If not for pioneers like Willis O'Brien & Ray Harryhausen who took stop motion animation to the next level we would have never had inspired hungry young special effects artist to push the envelope to develop C.G.I. and have special effects so realistic you can't tell where reality ends & the illusion begins! Whether its my age that makes the old Ray Harryhausen / Charles Schneer films so endearing to me or if its the quality of the story telling I will never truly know. But I can tell you this, no matter how good the C.G.I. special effects are today almost every child still finds these old films great fun & every parent can allow their child to watch these old classics without having to worry about excessive violence, sexuality, or foul language!!! I am very glad I decided to get this book. Not only because its filled with exciting beautiful artwork & story boards I am familiar with, but it is filled with great information & images of lost & unrealized projects that in my opinion are worth the price I paid for this book alone! If you are a fan of Ray Harryhausen I highly recommend this book!

To start with, this book reproduces so many unseen and barely- glimpsed-before drawings and concepts, that one can spend hours looking at each one again and again. So it is rare are we are afforded this backstage look at the making of those wonderful stop motion films. Harryhausen's legacy is testamony to a time when films were made of this kind, and they not only took a long time of thinking and planning to make, but the result on screen was epic and, worth the wait. Nowadays fantasy film effects are churned out so ad nauseum thanks to CGI, that they simply lose their wonder-it's like we're used to it. I'm a big fan of *real* model work and real matte painting. You could touch it and it had presence, and those little nuances people fault it for now, are what give it it's character and style. Because of that, Harryhausen's legacy stands on it's own and will be remembered well past his lifetime. Remember, even up to his last film CLASH OF THE TITANS(1981) he worked largely out of a very small studio-one time it was his garage(!!)with one or two assistants and that was only on later,larger budgeted pictures. What does that say compared nowadays to $150M dollar + effects films!!!???And though retired, we have Harryhausen now, still working away with his drawings ans sculptures into his 80's. A man who loves what he does.I can't recommend this book enough, save to say that the reproduction is excellent on all the art shown-pencil sketches, storyboards, charcoal drawings. It's so nice to see drawings as opposed to overrendered computer artwork of nowadays.Of note is the "Inspirations" part of the book where we see some of the artwork by others that inspired Ray to follow his muse. It says much about the man.

Excellent book on the amazing Ray Harryhausen.

Amazing book filled with great Harryhausen artwork and his 'pitches' to film studios. Theres also some great close ups of his models too.

RH's Art is here (which is often really nice), as is the art of people that influenced his style. A great book for reference for Artsists & SFX people. I paid £7.99 I think, the book has a price of £20, so I was happy as Larry.

This is a very fine book full of very interesting illustrations. I bought it as a gift and haven't actually read it myself, so can't comment any further except to say that its appearance is very attractive.

I haven't yet looked at this, as I got it for my hubby as a Christmas present

A GREAT BOOK, AND A GREAT SERVICE......

Lovely book with great pictures

A beautiful book!

A beautifully produced book with information and pictures not available in any of Harryhausen's other publications. An essential purchase if you are a fan.

For anyone that has an interest in film animation, then this book is a must buy. The author is a film legend and the book is testimony to his outstanding work.

Super present

Als langjähriger Fan dieses Künstlers, der ja bei einer ganzen Reihe von Fantasyfilmen seine Monster erschaffen hat, ist dieses Buch für mich natürlich ein MUSS. Sehr viele, seltene und auch teilweise doppelseitige Abbildungen, größtenteils in Farbe (soweit sie ursprünglich farbig waren), machen dieses Buch, zusammen mit dem umfangreichen Text, in dem der Künstler viel über seine Einflüsse, Vorbilder und Lehrjahre, sowie über seine Techniken und Arbeitsweisen verrät, zu einem Lese- und Betrachtungsvergnügen.

Als ich das Paket von meinem Postboten in die Hand gedrückt bekam, habe ich auch sofort die Verpackung aufgerissen und da war es! Ich freute mich wie ein kleiner Junge. Sofort musste ich nachsehen. Ich wurde nicht Enttäuscht. Ein absolutes Meisterwerk. Legende Ray Harryhausen, ich bin aufgewachsen mit seinen Filmen, und ich war schon immer begeistert von seiner Kunst Fabelhaften Wesen auf so Genialer Weise Leben einzuhauchen. Dieses Buch ist gespickt mit Bildern der Figuren, Entwurf Skizzen, Zeichnungen von der Zusammensetzung der Armaturen, bis hin zu den Zeichnungen die so unglaublich detailiert sind und alles genau so Darstellen wie es später im fertigen Film zu sehen ist. Es gibt auch Zeichnugen von Willis O Brian zu King Kong zu sehen oder zu Mighty Joe Young und auch Entwürfe zu Filmen die nie Realisiert wurden. Da mein Englisch leider sehr Mager ist, werde ich wahrscheinlich Jahre brauchen um den Text verstehen zu können, der mit Sicherheit sehr Informativ ist. aber das sollte niemanden daran hindern dieses Buch zu kaufen. Ich bin Stolz dieses Buch jetzt mein nennen zu dürfen.

Simplemente espectacular. Libro de importación (sólo en inglés) que recoge todos los trabajos del maestro en efectos especiales Ray Harryhausen. Multitud de fotografías y bocetos.

This is a wonderful book full of illustrations and photographs as well as the insight of Ray Harryhausen himself.