Gorgeous book

Beautiful!
Fulfilled my annual Howls Moving Castle obsession :)

Hoping to use this book for art-making too

Getting to see all the tiny details of the art was wonderful

This Artbook is the only one I onw which I wont rate with 5 stars.
Its a solid Artbook and definitely a treat for any Ghibli or howls moving castle enjoyer but it didnt really have me invested in it as much as i thought I'd be.
Overall still good though.

amazing. beautiful. awe inspiring. humbling.

2020.05.21–2020.05.21

Contents

Miyazaki H (2004) Art of Howl’s Moving Castle, The

Part I: Hayao Miyazaki’s Concept Sketch Collection

• Introduction
• Screenplay Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
• Production Synopsis
• Storyboards

Part II: Concept Art, Background Art, Character Designs and Concept Sketches

• Howl’s Castle
• Sophie
• Hatter Family
• City Transportation
• Pedestrians
• Howl
• The Soldiers
• The Blob Men
• Sophie and Howl
• Lettie
• The Hatter’s House at Night
• The Witch of the Waste
• The Elder Sophie
• Sophie’s Departure
• Scarecrow Turnip
• Sophie Encounters the Castle
• Inside the Castle
• Calcifer
• Porthaven
• Markl
• Living Room in Howl’s Castle
• Howl’s Cooking
• The Witch’s Brand
• Sophie’s Housecleaning
• Trip to the Lake
• Star Lake
• The Bird Howl
• Howl’s War
• Howl and Calcifer
• Morning Market
• Howl in Despair
• Howl in His Bedroom
• Journey to the Royal Palace
• Heen
• The Witch of the Waste Returns
• The Witch’s Palanquin
• Palace Entrance
• Suliman’s Trap
• Greenhouse
• Suliman
• The Witch of the Waste Turned Old
• The Emperor
• Suliman’s Magic
• Escape
• Flying Kayak
• Return to the Castle
• The Monster in the Cave
• Daybreak
• New Family
• Moving
• Sophie’s Gift
• Howl’s Secret Garden
• The Monstrous Flying Battleship
• Tadpole Monsters
• Honey
• Life During Wartime
• The Peeping Bug
• Bombers
• Bombing
• The Embrace
• Protecting Sophie
• Howl at War
• The Fallen Castle
• Calcifer at Work
• Sophie’s Castle Runs Amok
• Separated
• Into the Dark
• Star Children
• Worm Hole
• The Kiss
• Liberation
• Turnip Saves the Day
• The Neighboring Country’s Prince
• Howl Wakes
• Joyous Heen
• Calcifer Returns
• Sophie and Howl’s Castle

Part III: Final Screenplay

Credits

So good. I loved reading about the animation process, and how the Ghibli employees added CG into a film that was created with mostly 2D Animation. The actual, full script of the movie that was added in the end of the book was an added bonus, along with the lush backgrounds, and the interesting concept art. I also enjoyed learning about the technicality involved in creating the movie, and the tedious task of finding the "true" appearance of the main characters.

Really wonderful experience reading this! The illustrations and screencaps are printed beautifully as well. I only mark it down a star due to some translation errors.

miyazaki san’s sketches like he never has a bad drawing even if it’s just lines like the genius that he is

(for more reviews, visit my site's book section here )

Howl's moving castle is set in a world conceived by the late 19th century European neo-futuristic painters where magic and science co-exist. The main idea is that one day a witch of wasteland puts an 18-year-old girl named Sophie under a spell, turning her into a 90-year-old lady. The aged Sophie encounters the wizard Howl and she begins her strange life with Howl in his castle, the formidable walking fortress. The film is based on Howl's moving Castle children's book, by Diana Wynne Jones. All concept sketches are by Miyazaki. Concept art and backgrounds are by the art staff supervised by art directors Yoji Takeshige and Noboru Yoshida. Character designs are by supervising animators Akihiko Yamashita and Takeski Inamura. The background art and still images for this book were created from digital data. Scene images without captions are still images.

Miyazaki's storyboards with their rough sketches and notes on the storyline, are more informative than concept sketches and a total bliss looking at them even if you don't know Japanese. This book and hence the movie itself is a feast of colors giving emphasis on the "realness" of the characters and with soften incredibly beautiful backgrounds. It's not an exaggerations to say that this movie's art made me reevaluate my opinions about background art. These lush landscapes with their incredibly creative colour seem to be totally otherworldly beautiful.

The book is split into 3 parts. Part 1 is about Miyazaki's concept sketches. Part 2 contains concept art, background art, character designs, movie stills and plenty of concept sketches. Part 3 is the script, or final screenplay. Throughout the book, there are breaks with narration from the art directors and animators explaining the movie's production process. They would talk about animation, colour design, research and characters. There's a short section that explains how computer graphics was used to overcome the limitations of cell drawing, which I thought was really interesting.

A lovely accompaniment to a lovely film

I have to admit, I didn't read all the lengthier annotations from the production team, but I did skim through most of the writing in the book. But I will be constantly going back to this book, so I will read them all in due time!

This is an amazing book, suitable to anyone who loved the movie and would be interested in seeing some behind the scene stills. It quickly becomes obvious how detailed the animation process was, and how hard Studio Ghibli worked on this movie. I was surprised when I stumbled upon two pages dedicated to transport and pedestrians - seemingly miniscule details only present at the beginning of the movie. Earlier sketches of characters also show how much the ideas were pushed and developed. I could go on and on, but I think one should discover it for themselves as it's an experience in itself (just as much as the movie is).

As an artist myself, I immensely enjoyed looking and reading through this magnificent book. I think it will also be helpful to look through whenever I need motivation with my Illustration degree coursework. Highly recommend!