best art book bang for $100?
polycounter lvl 18
I've got a $100 Barnes & Noble gift card and not much of an art book library, what do you guys recommend? I'd rather get a bunch of less expensive books than one $100 book and since it's a B&E gift card I'd have to be able to order it from them.
Replies
If "Cinematic Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King" ever goes back to print, I highly reccomend it. Beautiful artwork and additional high-gloss prints in vellum sleeves.
Ashley Wood's "Art of Metal Gear Solid" is really great if you're a fan of the series or of Wood, really beautiful style. Any of Wood's books are a great addition to a library.
WETA workshop has a brand new book that is either almost published or just recently published "Art of District 9" which is sure to be a beautiful collection. I have it on preorder at Amazon, be happy to let you know how it is once it arrives (sometime early january)
Art of Uncharted 2 is really great, being from ballistic it's a bit on the pricey side though.
The Skillfull Huntsman: Visual Development of a Grimm Tale - I've heard great things about this book and how it walks through the artistic process. Haven't gotten my hands on it personally, so I can't speak first hand, but it's on my list.
Uncharted 2 and God of War are also amazing.
For books from B&N I love the Star Wars books. Books are PACKED! with content and only like 20/30 bucks. If your not looking for Sci Fi stuff movie books likes Avatar and such are great and can be found at B&N for cheap occasionally.
They usually have vids of someone flipping through each book, pretty useful
as far as educationalish books---- How to draw comics the Marvel way, Drawn to Life by Walt Stanchfield, Dynamic anatomy by Hogarth, uhmmm i asked for this one for christmas: [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719[/ame]
when it comes to showcase art books, just looking over at my shelf, the skillful huntsman, cinematic art of WoW: WOTLK, all the art of pixar film books are REALLY great. Art of WoW trading card game, and a few copies of ImagineFX and 3d World are all really great
I also tend to grab artist's sketchbooks when they go on sale (usually around comicon time) Nico marlet and Creaturebox are a couple of my faves.
Too bad I can only pick up two for this christmas. My gf would probably kick my ass if I bought all of them :P
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Art-of-District-9/Daniel-Falconer/e/9780062064301
~ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What sort of books are you after, video game, film related, comic art or just art in general?
I love my artbooks, heres some of my favourites
Artey fartey and film;
Adam Hughes Cover Run
Rough Justice, The rough sketches of Alex Ross
Mythology- alex ross
The marvel art of marko djurdjevic
The Art of Drew Struzan (amazing, best book he has done)
The Stan Winston Effect (Probably My favourite book ever)
The art of Hellboy - Mike Mignola
Watchmen portraits (awesome ref book for faces and skin, Massive B&W prints)
Any art of star wars (if you can find them)
Gil Elvgren
Wizard - How to draw comics series
Giovanni Civardi (Amazing anatomy books)
Any studio Ghibli art book (Princess Mononoke and Spirited away were my favourites, oh porco rosso and my neighbour tortorro, arggh too many)
Making of avatar (not art of, waste of money that one)
Brian Froud the world of the dark crystal
The Skillful Huntsman
Digital Paint Masters
Iain Mccaig Shadowlines (absolutely beautiful)
Video Game Related
Darksiders (definetly the best one out imo)
Star Wars Force Unleashed art of
Uncharted 2 art of
God of war 3 art of
Digital art masters 1, 2, 3, 4,
Art of Metal Gear series (yoji shinkawa)
Assassins creed art book
Mass Effect Artbook
Exodyssey the art of steambot studios
Bioshock 2 (must buy special edition of the game but artbook is worth it alone)
Gears of war special edition strategy guide with art book combi.
The cinematic art of wow wrath of the lich king
The art of Darkwatch (still love this one)
art of halo 3 (if you like halo 3 its good, which I really dont so meh)
gotta get that district 9 one now
Art of Uncharted 2, equally incredible.
Art of God of War 3, quality of work isn't as good as in UC2 but the book is equally nice in content.
-Frank Frazetta: Icon
-Anything by/with Syd Mead
-Start your engines / Lift Off - Scott Robertson (these are must haves)
-Structura (The Art of Sparth)
-Hans Bacher, Dream Worlds
-The Art of How to train your dragon
-Daniel Simon, Cosmic Motors
-The Art of Drew Struzan
-Mignola, The Art of Hellboy
-All Star Wars art books
Alternatively, grab a copy of the Oddworld Inhabitants art book. You probably won't be able to draw as much directly from it unless you're making froggy people, but it's a beautiful and inspiring book to own nonetheless.
I really wish they would do an art book to Donkey Kong Returns, some really refreshing character art throughout and just nice artwork in general. might just have to get the strategy guide
this is my favorite one so far
Steampainting Spark
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Lift-Off-Renderings-Drawthrough-Collection/dp/1933492155[/ame]
I got it from a second hand shop for £8
http://cgi.ebay.com/Monster-Hunter-Illustrations-Complete-Set-art-book-/300506866074?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45f79ae19a
Art of Uncharted 2 - it has really amazing environment concepts
Deco Devolution - Art of Bioshock 2. Amazing book. Tho it can only be abtained with the Limited Edition of Bioshock 2.
Near bottom of page here:
http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/downloads-bioshock
......I could've picked that up while I was in chapters today *facepalm*
EDIT: Make Darksiders, Starcraft, Warcraft, any other fantasy doodle book.
This is happening to mine now, yes.
I also love pretty much any of the 'art of' books for animated movies by Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks etc. They're always full of great quality work. Of the recent ones, Tangled and Megamind books are very good.
In terms of traditional stuff, The Sargent collections by Paul Mellon Centre BA are really good with some excellent reproductions. The Leyendecker book from Abrams is awesome too. The Bernini book from Phaidon is another recommendation.
But yeah, so many books and so little time. I'm hoping Santa might bring a few my way...
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/DRIVE-vehicle-sketches-renderings-Robertson/dp/1933492872[/ame]
http://www.steelespublishing.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=Standard+Edition
http://exodyssey.com/
I also received Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar. It's part art book and part biography on Valve's journey from 1997 up to 2005. Was very lucky to get a new copy though because it went out of print in early 2006 I think. There are still some copies floating around though. I'm pretty sure mine was ordered off of Amazon from an outside seller but it wasn't cheap.
If anyone owns/has read Exodyssey and Skillful Huntsman, which would you recommend if I was to choose one?
I've got an Amazon voucher but money is kinda tight and for now I can only grab one of them.
edit; just got skillful huntsman out again and its amazing. The thumbnails are really fantastic, I just dont like the finals too much but yea I would get that now haha, why dont you have a look on parkablogs so you can have a sneaky peek?........dam you dreamer
~ Skillful Huntsmen > Everything Else > Exodyssey
Too much wishy washy nonsense in Exodyssey for me. I think it's overhyped. However; Skillful Huntsmen is probably in my top3 art books. Great learning tool, and incredible insight into thought process of creating unique concepts.
lol. Don't you think that's a little harsh?
IMO Exodyssey is friggin awesome. Its like an AWESOME overload. And an original way to bring a book together. Although granted, i'm still a little unsure what the story is about (coz I get distracted by the pretty pictures everytime i open it) and the images at the end seem a bit "off topic". But every page is inspirational.
When an Art of Deus Ex 3 book comes out its gonna look alot like it. You can see the Steambot style coming though alot in the deus ex trailers.
has anyone bought Steampainting Spark yet? I've been pondering it but im in UK so i've been waiting to see if come to amazon.
There is one "art" book that I've been meaning to get for a while now, and I'm sure some of you all know the artist's work - The Abominable Charles Christopher - Book One
The new Steambot book 'Spark' is pretty great too if you are interested in seeing processes. It's basically a set of images with 4-5 stages for each piece. Lots of great work by Feerik and those other talented fellows.
I miiiiight get The Skillful Huntsman but the last time I scoped it out it seemed very character focused, I'm more interested in environments or books that have an equal balance of characters and environments.
Structura: The Art of Sparth
Dream Worlds - Hans Bacher
Lif Off - Scott Robertson
The Art of Darksiders
total, $106.52 so with the gift card it came to $6.52.