The art & reference review thread! 2012

[fishw]

it might interest some of you that richard schmid's alla prima is now available in paperback it seems, at half the price!

[Meli Hitchcock]

I just recently picked up Luis Royos recent book, Submersive Beauty. Not as large as the Fantastic Art book, but nice art all the same. Lots of the books I have are already listed though, I grabbed quite a few of the Ballistic books a while back... hard to rein in the spending when it comes to these books though.

[young paddy1]

seba_boi indeedily doodley do

that d'artiste book that Sinix is on about is great, I especially enjoyed the tutorials, and the guest artist sections contain some very familiar faces.

so I'm an artbook whatya gonna do about it

[Crane]

fishw never even heard of the guy, wat kinda stuff does he do?

MeliHitchcock Luis royo has some beautiful art, i'll be sure to check out his new book. wouldn't mind getting a few ballistics books either

young paddy1 well that book is getting nothing but good reviews, i'll look into getting it when i can.

Thanks to DSillustration i can die happy!

[Rascar Capac]

fishw never even heard of the guy, wat kinda stuff does he do?

kind of stuff he does...


get his book along with Harolds Speed painting techniques (lots of text, less pics) and you should be set for life...

also - a book my teacher recommended on head drawing...go to
www.yimaukun.com

its $15 but youll also find his complete book of drawings and paitning dvd tutorials

[Crane]

Rascar Capac hey thanks for posting that, his pretty good i see, but is it wrong when i say it doesn't appeal to me?
i'll look into his book and stuff though anyway, i may be able to pick a few things up haha.

[Jabo]

I got my World Of Kong yesterday and watched the movie just before it arrived. Very nice art book. It's really centered on creature design (bad for me, I was hoping for some environment designs. I found the scenes at the cliffs one of the most horrifying sets since Alien, esp. in the Jackson-esque pole vault scene).

A great book, if the word "film" wasn't mentioned, it could easily be mistaken for a real animal encyclopedia. The layout and typography is rather well done here, there are a lot of descriptions (one thing that bugged me about the Half Life 2 art book, which had nearly no text at all).

[EVIL]

I got:

• Syd Mead's Century
• Barlowe's Inferno
• The Fantastic Art of Beksinski
• The Art of Star Wars Episode 3
• The Art of Spirited Away
• The Art of Howl's Moving Castle
• Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
• The making of DOOM³

I just ordered myself

• Concept design 2
• The Skillful Huntsman
• The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe

stuff that I am getting soon:

• brushfire (Wayne Barlowe)
• Robot Volume 1
• Robot Volume 2
• Concept design 1.5
• revolution: the art of jon foster
• The art of Star Wars Episode 2
• Sparrow (Phil hale)
• mockingbird's/Relaxeder (Phil hale)
• GOAD: the many moods of phil Hale

Stuff that are on my wishlist:

• Rakuga King (Katsuya Terada)
• Start Your Engines
• Lift Off
• In the future
• Structura: the art of sparth
• The art of Midway
• Quantumscape: The art of Stephan martiniére
• Quantumdreams: The art of Stephan martiniére

[asoir]

thanks guys, gonna spend a measly £10 on two great books on this thread...nice!

[Lone Wolf]

Get ROBOTA by Doug Chiang & Orson Scott Card. Really great book.

Any books by Zdislaw Beksinski.

[Jabo]

Structura: The Art of Sparth is finally available for pre-order \o/ Just half a year more to wait

[asoir]

thanks to this thread, (for inspiration and books)
i spent £20 on art books towards my xmas stuff!

big thanks!

for those curious:

[EVIL]

the monkey king volume 1 is great! nice read and great art, and the stuff in the graphic novel is explained as well in a sort of outro. Really interesting

I got 2 more books, one is
"Human Anatomy: Depicting the Body from the Renaissance to Today"
Which has awesome images from anatomy studies done from dead body's etc.

and
"Leonardo Da Vinci's studies"
Which has a large collection of Leonardo's notes and studies in it with explanations etc.

And damn, Concept design 2 is a blast to look trough, awesome art!

[bhanu]

WOah so many books, and now I am bloody confused , now tell me if I have to buy just one book , what would you recoomend. Please I need help here.
And I cant get phil hale's goad and I was also thinking about getting his collab book with rick berry . how is that at book . And howas the jon foster book revolution. i love ashley woods work so should I buy his sketchbook.
I am confused . I need help.

[DSillustration]

now tell me if I have to buy just one book , what would you recoomend. Please I need help here.

well thats a little tough.
but considering the names you mentioned,
i would have to say jon foster's new book.

not only is the art sensational,
but it has twice as many paintings as those other books you mentioned.

[Ostrander]

"My adventures as an illustrator by Norman Rockwell"
This is a great read. He tells the story of his life from when he was a boy around the turn of the century on up until the late 60's early 70's. His son, Tom Rockwell, finishes NR's last years of the book up to his death in the late 70's filling in where the original printing left off. It's not so much an "art book" with a collection of his works as it is the story of his life and his art combined. You will gain a whole new appreciation of him as well as for illustration. There are some great images throughout, and you see his progression in chronological form. But the real meat is in his storytelling. I highly recommend it.

Another notable book from me, from an artist based in the comics field is "The Art of Brian Bolland". I just recently got this for Xmas, I haven't read anything thoroughly yet, but the artwok in it is spectacular. It spans his entire career from the 60's to the present. It's a huge book, 300+ oversized pages. If your a comics fan, or a fan of incredible draughtsmanship it's a prize of a book.

I have a few more recommendations, but I thought I'd pipe in with these for now from 2 very different illustrators.

[bhanu]

I was thinking jon foster too. The revolution art of jon foster is the book I am going to buy. Only I ahve to wait for a month to get it .

[Rascar Capac]

just picked up THE ORIENTALISTS Western artists in Arabia, The Sahara, Persia and India Krisitan Davies
whole lot of book for $40 - couldnt believe it was that cheap
easily in my top 10

[Jabo]

Today I received my copy of LA<>SF by Christian Schellewald. This book is a must-have. The scribbles are drawn on all kinds of different materials, for example beer coasters. They are loose, very simplified, but hell they look awesome. Emotional drawing and painting at it's best. I really recommend it.

[ArtZealot]

This is my library of art books and i love them all:

Oxide 2x artbook (link here: http://gallery.digik.net/gallery/272)
Art of starwars episode 1
Art of starwars episode 2
Art of starwars episode 3
Concept design 1
Concept design 2
Art of Half-Life 2
Art of Midway
D'artiste - Concept art
The art of Darkwatch
Monstruo - Art of Carlos Huante
Skillful huntsman
In the future
Ballistic - Painter
Lift off - scott robertson
The art of Stephan Martinere
Quantumscapes - Stephan Martinere
The art of Beowulf
Art of world of warcraft
Art of world of warcraft: burning crusade

Other good reference stuff:
Planet earth DVD box set (about to watch it as i write this)
Smithsonian Earth - The definitive visual guide
Imagine FX
Richer/Hale Artistic Anatomy
Weapons by the diagram group


And that's about everything in my collection. Top reccomendation would be skillfull huntsman and the art of darkwatch. Also the oxide 2x artbook is great for getting ideas for cool costumes.

[Crane]

Necro'd and updated! See first post for details!

[.empyrean.]

Most brutal thread necromancy ever.
But thanks, I needed something like that.

[Crane]

Most brutal thread necromancy ever.
But thanks, I needed something like that.

I know right

I didn't want to make a new thread when there are plenty of info on books already on here, so I necro'd and updated.

If you see any books you're interested in, I can give a small preview and other info, size, no. of pages etc.

[thedaywillcome]

Hey,

I saw your thread about art/reference books and I was inspired and just went on a little shopping spree =P. Never feel too guilty about buying books.

I'm wondering if you have more detailed descriptions and perhaps if you could name your "overall favorites"?


(My friend said he thought it was a picture of Barnes and Nobles at first)

Thanks

[Mrianna]

Since I'm poor I went looking through my libraries website, but everything I try to search for is non-existent.

I need to make some extra money so I can buy art books. /cry

[Crane]

Hey,

I saw your thread about art/reference books and I was inspired and just went on a little shopping spree =P. Never feel too guilty about buying books.

I'm wondering if you have more detailed descriptions and perhaps if you could name your "overall favorites"?


(My friend said he thought it was a picture of Barnes and Nobles at first)

Thanks

I'll list my top 5 of each.

Art book:

Rakugaking- Book is def worth the price tag, for me personally, I really love looking at sketches far more than finished pieces because I feel they have more character, feel more raw if you know where I'm coming from 1000 pages of dirty raw sketches is pretty much heaven for me!




The art of District 9- Loved the film, loved the designs, this books really shows off the process that they go through to get the final rendering, also a lot of sweet stuff not in the movie.




Alien race- Funky wordplay on this book, I related to it a lot because I've always had the idea of an intergalaxtic race between humans and alien species, this book really steps that up with epic creature designs rather than cars/ships/etc which gives it a more dynamic feel for me, as I love creature design.





The Skillful Huntsman- I'm very much into seeing the barebones of creation and this book really gets into that, the range of designs and ideas coupled with the mountain of drawings really gave me food for thought.




Structura- Always a massive fan of Sparth, I dunno if you know of him, if not look him up, he is also a member on this site. The art in this book is really refreshing and has that dark technological feel I crave, I'm so picking up structura 2 at the end of thi month, got it on pre order




Photo/reference books:

Anatomy drawing school/Cyclopedia Anatomicae (same book, the latter is the older print)- Very indepth look at human and animal anatomy, simple a must have for anyone who wants to learn about it, I say get Anatomy drawing school since it is much cheaper, exactly the same content, just newer print and not rare, I ordered the older print thinking it was a different book, paid about 45$ for it apposed to the 17$ I paid for the new one haha.




Aftermath- This is actually a photographic journey of ground zero in the aftermath of 9/11, so it may be a sensitive subject for a lot of people, but that aside the photos are stunning, huge book, I got it for destruction reference mostly, but some really good shots of people/vehicles.





Hands- Recently got this book because I needed reference on hands, this has heaps of pictures of hands from around the world, not perfect in that it doesn't have more dynamic hand poses but it's far more beneficial to have this book than not.





Home- Giant book of architecture, great of perspective and building design, aswel as lighting etc, was lucky enough to get this for a fraction of the price ( the works).




Forbidden places- Book on abandoned buildings, ruins, run down and left to rot, very interesting book as I really love that kind of thing.




Holy shit that took a long time, really looking forward to the bulk uploader!

I hope that helped you, if you want any more info just ask.

Thanks!


Mrianna Sadly I can't recommand a place to shop for books apart from second hand book stores as I'm in the uk That library seems a bit naff though!