『Kuromukuro』Artbooks vol.1 & 2

『クロムクロ』設定資料集上卷　キャラクタ編
『クロムクロ』設定資料集下卷　ジオフレーム編

To celebrate the studio’s 15th anniversary, P.A. Works produced in 2016 a mecha anime TV series called『Kuromukuro』, which means ‘black relic’. Two volumes of 194-page artbooks immediately follow the airing of this series, which are entirely printed in colour on heavyweight coated paper. Adding up to 384 pages in total, this set of artbooks mark the second thickest artbook P.A. Works has produced thus far, next to that of『SHIROBAKO』.

The first volume focuses mainly on character design, with 14 pages of prop design at the end. The first 156 pages cover early concept, final colour scheme and line art of all the major and minor characters that appear in the series. The prop section includes items that range from small electronic devices to weapons and vehicles. This volume ends with cast commentaries, complete credit lists for OP#1 and ep. #1-13.

The second volume, strangely called ‘Geoframe’ in Japanese, starts with 110 pages of detailed mechanics design that includes various robots’ early concept art and final 3D design. Different parts of a robot that is capable of changing into different shapes are shown in details. The next 62 pages showcase environment design: this time, the background art and environment line art are printed side by side on a page. Each image is typically at least 1/8 of an A4 page, but sometimes some images run smaller, while others are enlarged. Before showing staff commentaries, this book includes 2 pages of 2D artworks that appear in the series. It ends with complete credit lists for OP#2 and ep. 14-26.

Click here to see more images of these books.

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First published on 29 December 2016.
A4; 194 and 194 pages; colour; paperback.