Film: Step into the haunting world of Guillermo del Toro's beautiful sketchbooks

Date
6 November 2013

I owe a debt to The Guardian for showing me these beautiful images at the weekend. Sat eating some porridge on Saturday morning I turned to a double-page spread of ghoulish faces and scrawled, bloody text and was so excited I spat oats. Ever since Cronos gave me nightmares as a nine-year-old I’ve been a tentative and latterly whole-hearted fan of Guillermo del Toro’s films, so to have the opportunity to sneak a peek into his haunted mind via the busy pages of his sketchbooks is an absolute treat.

Weirdly his drawing style has a roundness to it that makes his sketches of sets and mocked-up characters seem that much more friendly than in their final, terrifying iterations, but the book still gives the overwhelming impression of leafing through a satanic bible written in blood on the skin of a sacrificed victim. Which, in the end, is probably the look Guillermo was going for.

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Guillermo del Toro: Sketchbooks

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Guillermo del Toro: Sketchbooks

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Guillermo del Toro: Sketchbooks

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Guillermo del Toro: Sketchbooks

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About the Author

James Cartwright

James started out as an intern in 2011 and came back in summer of 2012 to work online and latterly as Print Editor, before leaving in May 2015.

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