Creating any piece of animation requires a huge amount of work, most of which never finds its way before an audience. Academic and artist Laura Heit aims to change this by presenting the sketches of over 50 contemporary animation luminaries in her new book Animation Sketchbooks.

It presents the concept art and idle doodles of an international ensemble of stars animators, including David Polonsky, art director on the Oscar-nominated Waltz with Bashir, and Kōji Yamamura, whose Mount Head was nominated for the Animated Short Film Oscar in 2002.

The book covers a wide variety of animation genres, from full scale features to short films, children’s TV shows to biting satire. This is reflected in the wide range of styles present, rough pencil sketches, collages and abstract paintings.

The pieces showcase artists at their most creative and inventive. It is these pieces that are the wellspring from which the finished animation flows. The informal, improvised nature of the sketches is at odds with the meticulous and languid pace needed to create a full animated story.