Creative Research - Guillermo Del Toro

Earlier in the year, I decided to treat myself to Guillermo Del Toro's "Cabinet of Curiosities" This has been an extremely helpful and interesting book, because it includes actual pages from his notebooks. These include concept sketches and notes for many of his films. The reason I have decided to blog about this is simply because, I love this book.

As somebody who wants to spend my time designing characters and concept art, this book was very useful to me. It allowed me to realise that development work and idea generation, doesn't always have to be neat and tidy, as long as the idea is conveyed. I have spent a great deal of time time stressing and trying to force myself on a singular style, however flicking through this giant book has put me off having a singular style. So I have decided just to go with the flow of things. 

Through out the book, there are countless sketches, some detailed, some not. Some of them aren't even done too preciously, however with the incorporation of diagrams and annotations, it is easy to see the development work that has taken place. Also, there were lots of development sketches for quite a lot of well known characters. The sketches for Pan's Labyrinth proved to be very interesting, because this is one of my favourite films, so I loved being able to see the development work that has gone into it. Having this book has encouraged me to make more notes ad not too overly stress about making everything in my sketchbook look perfect.