The Art and Making of Kong: Skull Island (Kong of Skull Island) Hardcover – Illustrated, 14 Mar. 2017

fantastic book great pictures

Very pleased. Great book. Great service

Full of great artwork and In depth detail about how the film was developed. My only quarrel is that for a film about Skull Island you would expect this art book to have extensive content on the creatures of skull island, when in reality that section is lacking and insufficient explanations are given for proposed creatures.Still worth buying for any Kong: Skull Island fan though.

I was a little disappointed by the lack of world building in the film when it came to creatures and the environments, so was looking forward to receiving my copy of the "Art of..." book to see how much they may have explored and imagined in pre-production.There are chapters [double-page spreads] dedicated to each character in the film which ironically has more characterization than they did on screen, but you do get to notice subtle costume details with the close-up photographs of them which I suppose is an unintentionally nice touch, especially for the soldiers and their customization of their helmets.The development of Kong is a little disappointing too as there's nothing particularly radical included here, and no details on how they created his digital rugged dirty fur [which was impressive on-screen], the anatomy of a more upright Kong etc but what we do get to see are some maquettes, which is something I praised "The Art of Rogue One" for given it's a fascinating pre-production process often over-looked or ignored in these kinds of books these days.The creature designs are not really given a great deal of shine or focus here, but there are many curious and horrifying key-frames of creature encounters which either never made it into the script or never made it on film - frogs so enormous the soldiers thought their open mouths were caves, tigers with antlers and a stalk-like birds with feathers so large they blend into the tropical foliage and palm leaves - which is funny because these sound like fantasy tropes and there is a quote from director Vogt-Roberts saying he wanted to avoid "aliens" and "dinosaurs". We get two double-page spreads on the design of the "Skull Crawlers" which feel a little uninspired because there's very little variation or development from the drawings to the physical/digital maquettes. There are actually more pages dedicated to showcasing the various pixel face and body paints of the natives [who barely feature in the film] than the exploration of any one creature, including Kong himself.I have to admit, I did reminisce on Peter Jackson & WETA's "World of Kong" concept art book which went above and beyond exploring an alt-universe "alien" eco-system evolved from pre-historic mammals and reptiles on an island - and given the title of this latest film, we could've done with a lot more of.The book also misses out on the opportunity to capitalise on the gorgeous promotional posters [created using old-Hollywood air-brushing and painting techniques] which are sadly not included in here at all - but I suspect that's because they were created months after the book's content was locked and sent for mass-production printing.The dust-jacket cover artwork of Kong facing a solider is really impressive, elegant and beautiful which is a shame given that over time, it will degrade in order to protect the lack-luster hardcover artwork underneath it.I pre-ordered this book so it was cheaper than the RRP, but at full price I'd sadly have to say this would be a bit of a disappointment, and would therefore recommend you to invest that same money for a book that has more to offer.

not as good as art of Godzilla, needs more monsters.

Not much about the actual filming of kong, no behind the scenes pics, which i wan't too pleased about. Barely any pictures of the characters, this book is based on the concept art.

Disappointing.I own a large collection of art books and this is a poor example. It has more descriptions of characters than actual artwork.I was expecting a lot more sculpts and iteration regarding Kong himself.