Cool Video Game ArtBooks?

Parnell · Dec 2006

Ok, so I was thinking for xmas I'd ask for some Video Game Art Books.
Any recommendations?
Thanks!
B

Gmanx · Dec 2006

If you mean 'Making of' books and such, I'd recommend Valve's "Raising the Bar".

Parnell · Dec 2006

Nope sorry!:)
I meant Art Books like the stuff you get in Collector Editions.
I'm going to ask for the World of Warcraft one.
Any other ones like that?
B

nitzmoff · Dec 2006

The WoW artbook is really lame. Some great environment stuff, but everything looks very rushed and not totally fleshed out. I wouldn't pay more than 10 bucks for it (or whoever buys it for you).

I was very satisfied with the FF11 World Concept book (jp version), the first Guild Wars art book (albeit it is quite small) The Phantom Kingdom Character book (only about half of it is actual concepts, jp version).

Tulkamir · Dec 2006

I disagree about the WoW book, I really enjoy it and feel it was worth the extra money.

Also, I'd also deffinatly recommend the Guild Wars one.

Bort · Dec 2006

The okami book is huge(2cm / ¾ of an inch thick and A4) and beautiful.

Some shitty pics.
http://www.oxtongue.co.uk/bort/help/DSCF0388_1.JPG
http://www.oxtongue.co.uk/bort/help/DSCF0389_1.JPG
http://www.oxtongue.co.uk/bort/help/DSCF0390_1.JPG
http://www.oxtongue.co.uk/bort/help/DSCF0391_1.JPG

http://global.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code-j/section-books/pid-1004525860/ - a few otaku site have it as well.

Parnell · Dec 2006

Wow thanks!
Especially for the okami amazon link:)
You'll make this very easy for my wife to pick one out for me.
Thanks!
B

adam · Dec 2006

Raising the Bar is my #1 recommendation. GoW has a nice one too.

retleks · Dec 2006

http://store.animebooks.com/artofmetgear.html
Can't find MGS 2 art book anymore, but it's good stuff too. Raising the bar is good. All of the GOW stuff can be found online, in larger versions, and plenty more of it as well... just go to art forums and search for hawkprey posts, and then go to http://www.johnwallin.net/site/main.html for the environments.
The making of doom 3 wasn't terrible, but ultimately a let down in terms of art content...
Good thread though, I'd like to get the okami one.

Marine · Dec 2006

this site has a bunch of different art books from japanese games, animes and artists. most of them are offline and only added if someone requests them.

erik! · Dec 2006

this place isn't much on video game art books, but if you're into anime and stuff, this site has lots of high-res scans.

http://gh.ffshrine.org/art/

gavku · Dec 2006

Its not a book, but i just ordered a copy of Markos DVD as an early Christmas present for myself...
http://www.customflix.com/Store/ShowEStore.jsp?rtnPt=0&id=221650&isPreview=true

iangrafix · Dec 2006

ooo my first post

I have this book - it's got lots of pics of Capcom character illustrations
http://www.ncsx.com/www/capcomil.htm
This one is nice too -
http://www.toysnjoys.com/artbooks/snk.jpg
This book is not game related, but Michael Whelan is one of my favorite artists of all time
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Michael-Whelan...TF8&s=books
Ok, admittedly, the first two books are hard to come by now, but maybe you can track them down on Ebay. But still highly recommended.

Rhinokey · Dec 2006

http://www.amazon.com/Video-Game-Art-Nic...TF8&s=books

i only recomend this cause it has some of my work in it.. so i'm self pimpin!

_Shimmer · Dec 2006

I have this book rhinokey. Its nice!

VideoGameArtBooks · Feb 2013

Hello everyone,

I just had to register here as soon as I found this thread via google, when I was looking for video game art books

I sure as hell dont want to beat a dead horse (this thread is a bit old) but I love the topic, collect video game art books myself and I feel it's still a relevant topic. I have also started to create a little website where I review these books - so far there are only a couple of reviews online, but Ive got quite a backlog to work myself through

Some of my favorites include:
The Art of Darksiders 1 + 2
Dark Souls Official Design Works (unfortunately in japanese only )
The Art of Alice Madness Returns (my most favorite - it's so wicked!)
The Art of Halo 4
The Art of Assassins Creed 3

Feel free to visit my site: www.videogameartbooks.com

I hope the moderators are cool with this post. Please keep this thread alive and post about video game art books you like. I also feel that video game art books are becoming more and more prominent these days. What do you guys think?

SouthpawSid · Feb 2013

Reppin mah game. Fall of Cybertron has some of the best sci fi concept art I've ever seen. And I'm not just saying that ;D

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Transformers-The-Art-Fall-Cybertron/dp/1613774435/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359934008&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=fall+of+cybertron+artbool"]Transformers: The Art of Fall of Cybertron: Mark Bellomo, Justin Eisinger: 9781613774434: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

Kwramm · Feb 2013

I'm looking forward to this. really love the art style.

Rwolf · Feb 2013

Wow this thread came back from the dead!

Avanthera · Feb 2013

Monster Hunter Illustrations 1 and 2 are two of my favorite art books I've seen:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-Illustrations-Art-Book/dp/B003NMTG3Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359953794&sr=1-3&keywords=monster+hunter+illustrations"]Monster Hunter Illustrations[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-Illustrations-Capcom-Official/dp/4862333672/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359953794&sr=1-4&keywords=monster+hunter+illustrations"]Monster Hunter Illustrations 2[/ame]

Each comes with a full-color art book and a smaller black and white book full of sketches and idea evolution.

A coworker has #2 and I ordered both later the day I saw it.

JacqueChoi · Feb 2013

Kwramm · Feb 2013

JacqueChoi wrote: »

Ni No Kuni Wizards Edition. (Only if you like Studio Ghibli)

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/06/29/ni-no-kuni-wizards-edition-will-travel-to-north-america-too/

darn. now I have to spend more money

crazyfool · Feb 2013

the new zelda one is pretty awesome, I thought it would be just a zelda encyclopedia aimed at kids but its actual a full blown artbook that documents every zelda game EVER!!!!! the skyward sword stuff is awesome!!!

[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Legend-Zelda-Hyrule-Historia/dp/1616550414/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359966597&sr=8-1"]The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia: Amazon.co.uk: Akira Himekawa, Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma, Patrick Thorpe: Books[/ame]

Hellmouth · Feb 2013

Dragon's Dogma Design Works is pretty good, to be honest. There's pretty much a ton of everything in it.

ambershee · Feb 2013

crazyfool wrote: »

the new zelda one is pretty awesome, I thought it would be just a zelda encyclopedia aimed at kids but its actual a full blown artbook that documents every zelda game EVER!!!!! the skyward sword stuff is awesome!!!

The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia: Amazon.co.uk: Akira Himekawa, Shigeru Miyamoto, Eiji Aonuma, Patrick Thorpe: Books

I ordered that, but there's quite a backlog of orders. Mine won't even be dispatched from Amazon.co.uk for another week and I preordered

Hang10 · Feb 2013

I just picked up the Zone of the Enders book with the HD re-release of both ZoE 1 & 2. It's not very big but has a lot of cool sketches.

Sorry no link

roosterMAP · Feb 2013

The halo 4 art book is the best iv ever seen.

mazz423 · Feb 2013

The Borderlands 2 book if you haven't got it is fantastic, I have quite a few of them, a lot of the ones from ballistic publishing are good, the uncharted 2 and god of war one's being standouts. I have to second what has been said about the halo 4 book, although I do find it quite annoying when a majority of a book consists of beauty shots, sculpts and concepts, i.e. you aren't going to see a single wireframe shot or texture flat in the halo book, however the borderlands 2 book even has a shader section which I haven't seen in any other art book off the top of my head.

There's also a dead space book scheduled for release some time this month, have it ordered on amazon, and that could easily be very good.

edit: link [ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Dead-Space-Martin-Robinson/dp/1781164266"]The Art of Dead Space: Amazon.co.uk: Martin Robinson: Books[/ame]

ambershee · Feb 2013

mazz423 wrote: »

The Borderlands 2 book if you haven't got it is fantastic, I have quite a few of them, a lot of the ones from ballistic publishing are good, the uncharted 2 and god of war one's being standouts. I have to second what has been said about the halo 4 book, although I do find it quite annoying when a majority of a book consists of beauty shots, sculpts and concepts, i.e. you aren't going to see a single wireframe shot or texture flat in the halo book, however the borderlands 2 book even has a shader section which I haven't seen in any other art book off the top of my head.

That sounds awesome *purchased*. The little art book that came in the special edition was cute, but somewhat lacking.

glottis8 · Feb 2013

On my desk i have

The indispensable Calvin and Hobbes
Bloom county complete
Thor Art book
The Art of Diablo 3
The art and making of Paranorman
The art of District 9
The book of Cain
The art of Uncharted 2
The art of God of War 3
The art of Resident Evil 5
The art of Darksiders 1 and 2
The art of Mass Effect (the most recent one that includes 3)
Valkyria Chronicles Design Archive (i love this book)
Avatar the Last Air Bender Art of the Animated Series

I am sure i have more at home... like Okami and others... but those i find indispensable. I am looking forward to Halo 4 and the art of Dead Space.

pixelb · Feb 2013

I really like [ame="http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Game-Characters-Hartas/dp/0060724315/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360044624&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+game+characters"]The Art of Game Characters[/ame] and [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Worlds-Dave-Morris/dp/B000C4T136/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360045392&sr=1-1&keywords=art+of+game+worlds"]The Art of Game Worlds[/ame]. They're old-ish books featuring an assortment of art from the late 90's and early 00's. They're nice in that they pay tribute to many of the lesser-known and now-forgotten games from that time (really, who remembers Legend of Kay?) even though many of them had terrifically unique visual styles. Great reading for people nostalgic for the days before everything was normal-mapped, and you can pick 'em up for a song on Amazon.

Ootrick · Feb 2013

Awesome thread!

onionhead_o · Feb 2013

dark soouls artbook is awesome. Wish the in game models look as great as the conceptart counterpart.

BoBo_the_seal · Feb 2013

I want art books but I no longer want physical books. I have three bookshelves full of art books but honestly they hardly get used. They take up a lot of space. Packing and moving them is a big suck. I'm often worried about hurting the spine or damaging the book. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE them all but they are just impractical for what I'd really like to use them for ... reference and inspiration ... not just one or two pages at a time but ALL of it at once!

I would kill for people to start releasing digital versions of their books. I would love to have a collection of these books that I can use just like I do my reference drive. It would be more practical for me and I know I'd look at them more often than I do my physical books.

heh, not helpful for this thread but just wanted to vent.

- BoBo

J0NNYquid · Feb 2013

roosterMAP wrote: »

The halo 4 art book is the best iv ever seen.

I'll second that. Got it for Christmas, if you want inspiration for anything Sci-Fi, look no further, it's fantastic.

Also, I just bought book 1 of 2 of the "Structura" series of illustration/concepts by Sparth. Really great resource, I would definitely recommend it.

Arkadius · Feb 2013

onionhead_o wrote: »

dark soouls artbook is awesome. Wish the in game models look as great as the conceptart counterpart.

I was just thinking of this the other day, I would totally be on board.

I bought a book stand, its not the best but it works.

crazyfool · Feb 2013

ERMAHGERD!!!!!

There's gonna be an artbook for 'legend of korra', can't wait

the avatar one was ace!!

Baj Singh · Feb 2013

One of my favourites for fantasy armour and weapon design:

http://www.parkablogs.com/content/book-review-monster-hunter-illustrations

Jeff Parrott · Feb 2013

BoBo_the_seal wrote: »

I want art books but I no longer want physical books. I have three bookshelves full of art books but honestly they hardly get used.

I would kill for people to start releasing digital versions of their books.

This! I would love to have more kindle/PDF versions of books released. I look at art dumps on PC more than art of books for the same games most of the time. It's just easier to pull up the site on my iPad or computer than lug a stupid book around. Plus you know save the planet and all.

Kwramm · Feb 2013

I like both types of artbooks - but for a studio's library PDFs would be so much better. Sure there's the (c) issue and what are you doing if multiple people read it at the same time, but it's easy to share and I don't have to worry about people not returning the books.

I love what some publishers do for other physical books where they give you a code to download a companion PDF.

ambershee · Feb 2013

Hyrule Historia turned up today. Easily the best artbook I have (and amazingly also the cheapest).

marcel gold · Feb 2013

i like the brothers in arms art book.

VideoGameArtBooks · Feb 2013

I will have a review up of the Dark Souls Official Design Works artbook soon at www.videogameartbooks.com

Recently I have purchased The Art of Dead Space which features some of the most disturbing art I have ever seen. It's really disgusting at times.

I am also really looking forward to the new Tomb Raider artbook. I've always wanted to buy The Art of Tomb Raider which seems like a huge extensive art collection across all TR games.

Coridium · Feb 2013

Hi all,

Cool thread, had a quick look and never saw anyone mention this site (sorry if I missed a previous link)...

http://www.parkablogs.com/content/list-of-art-books-reviewed

It is a really good place to find cool books, most books have full video "flick-throughs" so you can see if it appeals to you before you buy and it offers a click through to the location on amazon (and other sites sometimes) so that its fast to find and also gives the guy/gal some money for there website efforts.

Hope people find it useful...

konstruct · Mar 2013

One of these days I will have this. ...One of these days.

https://www.ballisticpublishing.com/books/oddworld/

S_ource · Mar 2013

S_ource wrote: »

Found the free artbook of the game Hard reset and recommend to give it a look. If anyone is interested you can find it on their site www.hardresetgame.com under Game Information. Recommend using mirror 2 on the first one its like 3 download buttons some from adds, a bit messy.

Old post from a while ago.

Shadownami92 · Mar 2013

It's pretty small, but I love the artbook that came with The Last Story. The character artwork is fantastic!

Hazardous · Mar 2013

BoBo_the_seal wrote: »

I want art books but I no longer want physical books. I have three bookshelves full of art books but honestly they hardly get used. They take up a lot of space. Packing and moving them is a big suck. I'm often worried about hurting the spine or damaging the book. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE them all but they are just impractical for what I'd really like to use them for ... reference and inspiration ... not just one or two pages at a time but ALL of it at once!

I would kill for people to start releasing digital versions of their books. I would love to have a collection of these books that I can use just like I do my reference drive. It would be more practical for me and I know I'd look at them more often than I do my physical books.

heh, not helpful for this thread but just wanted to vent.

- BoBo

I know what you mean. I force myself to pull them out and look throught them whenever im working on something.

When I get my house im going to cut all the pages out, and use them as wallpaper in my man-cave.

Urzaz · Mar 2013

Hazardous wrote: »

When I get my house im going to cut all the pages out, and use them as wallpaper in my man-cave.

Hahaha. Do you use art books like that often? I've always thought of them as more of a consumer/collector product.

Hazardous · Mar 2013

Urzaz wrote: »

Hahaha. Do you use art books like that often? I've always thought of them as more of a consumer/collector product.

I havent done that yet, but I would really like to. I will need a laminating machine to preserve the pages I think. If it was up to me, id cover the hallways, passageways - the whole lot with artbook art.

serriffe · Mar 2013

I usually have a favorite group of books that I pull out of my library and have them rotated once in awhile. These are the books I have fomenting on top my desk so far-

The Art of Kung Fu Panda 1 and 2 ( worth it- )
KMYG art books ( the artist for No more Heroes )
Final Fantasy XI ( really nice environment art sketches )
The Art of Mass Effect Universe ( go buy it, now. )
Armored Core V ( really awesome mech sketches, the best art book yet out of the series )
Kim Jung-Gi 2011 Sketch Collection Art Book ( be warned for the explicit sketches- reminds me a bit of Terada )
Capcom Design Works ( I grew up with this stuff! )
Monster Hunter Illustrations 1 and 2 ( Capcom really went all out on this one )
Tadao Ando ( not really an art book but a must for environment/architect artist out there )
-iPad - I usually like to look at my digital collection from the net for inspiration- well most of the images I gather are from CGhub these days and what Bobo said, digital is way more convenient ;]

Cool Video Game ArtBooks?

Replies