The Art & Design of Rayman - Official Art Book

[RayCarrot]

Ubisoft has just announced an official art book in collaboration with Cook and Becker and Lost In Cult for the 30th anniversary.



https://www.cookandbecker.com/en/artwor ... isoft.html

Pre-orders are open now and until Christmas. There's also a collector's edition which is only available during pre-orders!

[Master]

The extras are pretty nifty, but I don't think I'm willing to pay £75 more for them. But the artbook itself looks pretty cool, and I do like seeing background art of other games I've enjoyed in the past, so £40 for the regular edition is well worth it for me.

EDIT: Also £15 shipping, just folks are aware.

[RayCarrot]

I did notice the page they showed with the Rayman 1 sprites are using sprites from Rayman Advance, and thus a lot lower quality. And they appear to be taken from the Spriters Resource as it's the exact same frames

Ripped Sprites.png (9.92 KiB) Viewed 1355 times

Besides this I think it looks great though! I went ahead and pre-ordered it now.

[EdgyRabbid]

Now THIS is something I'm willing to pay for! Im pre ordering this for myself, hopfully there's gonna be concept art for Hellen! But im gonna keep my hopes down for that,,

[WPTheModder]

Just pre-ordered!

I'm really happy with how this looks, plus it's another good art book to add to my collection

Much better than the ModRetro GBA re-release... I actually think this is the best Rayman merch (besides L'Histoire De Rayman) we have so far!

Although, I wonder what that green forest-y thing on the right is. They mention a protective sleeve, along with an art print, but what's that?

Edit: It's just magnets, nevermind

[RayGamer99]

This art book looks really interesting, especially since it'll have some info and insights from the developers and designers. It feels like a sort of "sequel" to L'Histoire de Rayman (which we still haven't gotten in English, and at this point I doubt we ever will ), and I'm definitely going to pre-order it if possible!

The collector's edition has some fun extras as well, but in my mind they are not worth the $149 USD asking price.

EDIT: Also £15 shipping, just folks are aware.

The shipping in USD is $19.95. Not sure if they meant to do that, but still a fun reference.

[Hunchman801]

Well, that was expected, but at least it looks promising! I don't care much for the collector's edition bonuses but I'm definitely gonna pre-order it now. Note that the book is expected to ship in fall of 2026, one year from now.

I did notice the page they showed with the Rayman 1 sprites are using sprites from Rayman Advance, and thus a lot lower quality. And they appear to be taken from the Spriters Resource as it's the exact same frames

Maybe we'll also find images from RayWiki in it?

[Master]

I did notice some artwork that was originally shown in a news article back in 2011, whether or not it's the same images or if they rescanned the original artwork, remains to be seen.

[The Jonster]

This art book looks really interesting, especially since it'll have some info and insights from the developers and designers. It feels like a sort of "sequel" to L'Histoire de Rayman (which we still haven't gotten in English, and at this point I doubt we ever will ), and I'm definitely going to pre-order it if possible!

The collector's edition has some fun extras as well, but in my mind they are not worth the $149 USD asking price.

The shipping in USD is $19.95. Not sure if they meant to do that, but still a fun reference.

Ohhhhh that is a nice reference actually. Might be something for me to keep in mind
If I were to get this I'd just shoot for the pricing of the Nintendo Switch 2 game Standard Edition.

Either way this is still a nice thing Rayman fans have been given for a start.

[Reese Riverson]

Well, that was expected, but at least it looks promising! I don't care much for the collector's edition bonuses but I'm definitely gonna pre-order it now. Note that the book is expected to ship in fall of 2026, one year from now.

I thought the bonuses were cute, but it's fair enough if it brings the price up too much for them. It is a significant difference.


I've also put an order into it, and one of my friends I've shared this with decided to as well.

[Elite Piranha]

I'm interested, I'll try to buy the standard edition.

[SilverLum]

I've already spoken on this on Twitter, but I would like to put in my opinion here as well. I fully believe the preorder bonuses should have been Rayman 1 themed. As it stands, everything that has come out, from the Youtooz figures to the plushies and board games, have been themed after Origins and mostly Legends. I understand Ubisoft has very little faith in this series so they wanted the last big, successful entry of the mainline games to take center stage, but the lack of any of the first three mainline games aside from small mentions and references in the Sparks of Hope DLC is astounding to me.

To give an example to my point in this case, Nintendo celebrated Mario's 20th, 25th and 30th anniversary with his first sprite. I felt this was very respectful to the origins of their success as well as showing how far the series had come. It felt tasteful.

I made a mock up of what I would have liked to see for the preorder bonuses personally. No one has to agree, but this is how I would have liked to see the preorder bonuses.

In the end I feel thankful I don't have to shell out my wallet for the preorder now, so in the end I don't really lose anything from this decision. I will still be happy to pick up the default book as I didn't mind the cover that was pictured. £50 is a lot more reasonable than an extra £100 for some magnets and plastic shoes, imo.

[Hugo]

Beautiful mockup, Silverlum!

It certainly would have encouraged me to at least consider buying it. And it does seem like a missed opportunity for what is essentially a piece of art history.

For whatever reason, they seem intent on solidifying ubiart as what you think of when you think Rayman. To be honest, it makes me think of a Dionysian outburst, a bit like the French Olympics (yeah sorry for bringing that up).

But for all the qualities of ubiart—its vibrancy, aesthetic purity, audacity and pure silliness—it really lacks the mystery and otherworldliness of R1 & 2; the fantasy which is surely a massive factor in the franchise's appeal. You can see how it sparks the imagination of both young and old members of Pirate Community. And Rayman graphics have never aged badly; I'd say the hero himself looks a lot better than Mario across the generations.

Ah well, maybe this is fate so we could come together and rant about it.

[SilverLum]

Beautiful mockup, Silverlum!

It certainly would have encouraged me to at least consider buying it. And it does seem like a missed opportunity for what is essentially a piece of art history.

For whatever reason, they seem intent on solidifying ubiart as what you think of when you think Rayman. To be honest, it makes me think of a Dionysian outburst, a bit like the French Olympics (yeah sorry for bringing that up).

But for all the qualities of ubiart—its vibrancy, aesthetic purity, audacity and pure silliness—it really lacks the mystery and otherworldliness of R1 & 2; the fantasy which is surely a massive factor in the franchise's appeal. You can see how it sparks the imagination of both young and old members of Pirate Community. And Rayman graphics have never aged badly; I'd say the hero himself looks a lot better than Mario across the generations.

Ah well, maybe this is fate so we could come together and rant about it.

Thanks for that!

I agree, I no longer have any interest in the preorder as well. A bit happy to be saving some of that money for other things! Maybe we could commission our own original trilogy pieces or make them ourselves at this point, because I sincerely doubt Ubisoft will make any sort of effort to reference the past games.

The new Youtooz plush looked like R3 Globox, but I only think that's because an employee quickly looked up "Globox" on google and the R3 version just happened to be the first result. You'll find that a lot of the Youtooz Rayman products are poorly researched about before their production, leading to Rayman smiling over a caged, struggling electoon and one of Globox's quote being cited as "GAH! Listen up, Pipsqueak!". Maybe we're lucky that the first three games are being spared of this fate

I miss when the games really felt like they were occurring in a dream, so I agree with your sentiment

[EdgyRabbid]

Im still excited personally, seeing more photos of my husband is legitmatly the reason why i pre-ordered it lololol.

[SilverLum]

The content within the book itself I am also excited for. Personally I want to see a lot of these pieces in high resolution.

[Hunchman801]

As it stands, everything that has come out, from the Youtooz figures to the plushies and board games, have been themed after Origins and mostly Legends.

Sadly, the series' identity has been completely reduced to that of the UbiArt games and the original trilogy is all but forgotten nowadays...

I made a mock up of what I would have liked to see for the preorder bonuses personally. No one has to agree, but this is how I would have liked to see the preorder bonuses.

Very cute, I like it!

[Reese Riverson]

Sadly, the series' identity has been completely reduced to that of the UbiArt games and the original trilogy is all but forgotten nowadays...

Which is rather unfortunate, but at least we will never forget about the original trilogy, and will take it to our graves.

[SilverLum]

I think what I love about the Pirate Community is that it is filled with people who remember fondly the original identity of the series. It's comforting how you can talk about the first three games as if they released yesterday, and will be met with just as much enthusiasm as when they first came out. A really special website, this is.

Very cute, I like it!

Thanks as always, Hunch!

[Steo]

Yeah it's a bit of a shame that the identity of Rayman for the most part is always UbiArt these days. I don't have a problem with the design itself and I even said I think Origins looks interesting, but it feels like we seldom see the older designs anymore. I can't say I'm even a fan of the modern 3D models for Rayman either. I keep saying I really dislike them, though that's probably a matter of personal taste.

I'd have to say that my favourite model would be the Rayman 2 model. I think they had it perfect here:

All the concept art just looks amazing to me from that game. It of course couldn't look exactly like this in game for obvious reasons, limitations, polygon count, etc. However, even the in game model is still iconic.

That said, I of course really love the Rayman 1 design too, his roots, and everything about that game just looks so beautiful. I like the Rayman 3 model too, but I think that's the last 3D model I liked. After this, they started doing weird things like making him shiny, giving him eyebrows (why did they give Rayman eyebrows?), making him look plastic, making his hair look like cheese, etc.

I personally feel like after Rayman 3, they should have went back towards the Rayman 2 design again, giving him back his scarf and trying to base future models from this one. I know it's probably still a matter of preference to some extent, but I can't personally look at this model compared to the Rayman 2 model, and say that I like it:

Too many random details that are just not needed, the aforementioned cheese hair, the tiny pocket that his hands are too big to fit into, and he now has brown eyes? It could be just me, but I'm not a fan of any of these modern 3D models they've used for Rayman. They had it perfect at 2, and they also did a good job with 3. That's how I feel about it anyway. 3D models should be based more on what 2 was than having random UbiArt elements thrown in really. They are definitely deviating far too much from Rayman's roots for me.

___

That said, the artbook itself still looks cool for what it is, but I'd like to see something that provides elements from the first 3 games more often in general.