If you could only choose three...
polycounter lvl 18
I get asked for book recommendations all the time. I have bought a ton of books over the years but I find that I recommend the same three books every time. So what Im looking for are you absolute 3 must have books for a given subject.
Ill start with my 3 for modeling and texturing the human form:
Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life
I know its odd to have a 2d book as a recommendation for modeling but honestly this book helped me more than any 3d technique book has. He does an amazing job of breaking everything down into recognizable shapes. Ive had an early hardback version of this book for as long as I can remember and I still pull it out when I get stuck or simply for inspiration.
Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblet
This book is great for real life study of the human form. Its full of high res photographs. In addition to it being a great book for anatomy, the lighting in the photographs is perfect. You can really see the subtle variance of muscle and how light reacts to the varying surfaces. This book has really helped my painting and anatomy.
Digital Character Design and Painting: The Photoshop CS Edition
This last one is a more recent addition to my collection. I have yet to find a decent book that focuses on game art particularly when it comes to texturing. This book (although not game art related) is the best book Ive found when it comes to learning photoshop and having it relate to character productions. This is just a good solid book whose techniques can be applied to painting textures. He also has a version of this book for Painter.
Thats it. There are plenty of technical tutorials on the web for the process of modeling, UVing, getting things in-game, learning software, etc I feel that its more important to learn the fundamentals first then try and translate that information into the virtual 3d world.
Id love to see similar listings for environment art etc..
- BoBo
Ill start with my 3 for modeling and texturing the human form:
Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life
I know its odd to have a 2d book as a recommendation for modeling but honestly this book helped me more than any 3d technique book has. He does an amazing job of breaking everything down into recognizable shapes. Ive had an early hardback version of this book for as long as I can remember and I still pull it out when I get stuck or simply for inspiration.
Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblet
This book is great for real life study of the human form. Its full of high res photographs. In addition to it being a great book for anatomy, the lighting in the photographs is perfect. You can really see the subtle variance of muscle and how light reacts to the varying surfaces. This book has really helped my painting and anatomy.
Digital Character Design and Painting: The Photoshop CS Edition
This last one is a more recent addition to my collection. I have yet to find a decent book that focuses on game art particularly when it comes to texturing. This book (although not game art related) is the best book Ive found when it comes to learning photoshop and having it relate to character productions. This is just a good solid book whose techniques can be applied to painting textures. He also has a version of this book for Painter.
Thats it. There are plenty of technical tutorials on the web for the process of modeling, UVing, getting things in-game, learning software, etc I feel that its more important to learn the fundamentals first then try and translate that information into the virtual 3d world.
Id love to see similar listings for environment art etc..
- BoBo
Replies
Color (the follow up by Betty Edwards)
Problem Solving for Oil Painters
I know we aren't Oil painters, but this book should really be titled Problem solving for artists, because it covers so much amazing compositional and rendering subjects.
Harley Brown's Eternal Truths for Every Artist
Pure genius.
My top three reference books would be:
Anatomy by Andrew Loomis: http://www.saveloomis.org/
A hugggge collection of his stuff used to be free on that site.. looks like it might all have finally been reprinted though.
Perspective for Comic Artists by D.Chelsea---
Hands down this is the best, most concise, clear survey on perspective ever written. It goes from the veeerry simple, to to very complicated..things like conical distortion, to-the-degree-accuracy, and organic shapes. Most other books stop at 3 point or thereabouts..or they're technically written engineering texts.
Also, I always reccomend the steed book. I know it's outdated as all hell now, and I don't use it much anymore myself, but for beginners to modeling it really does goes over the basics of how to dive in and tinker on a low-level.
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth Andrew Loomis. The definitive anatomy book, especially for drawing good looking males and females that are individuals.
The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Wiliams. This is the best book since "The Illusion of Life" that gvs one the basics,and many of the advanced techniques for animation, and just by taking a character "walk" and someactio, he expands that into a way to give each character individuality, visually, and also explains how to handle timing.
Scott
The Zombie Survival Guide
and The Animator's Survival Kit.
(and anything Muybridge).
Oh crap, thats four.
Dick: A User's Guide
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
1.Character Design Bibles volumes 1-5 (there were only 5 volumes ever published, but it's basically techniques / methods described in detail for the production of character design as done by some of Japan's top character designers.
2.Digital Character Design & Painting: The Photoshop CS Edition - Don Seegmiller (I'm with BoBo on this one, great book and I actually carry this with me in my backpack at all times)
3.3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop - Luke Ahearn (A new addition to my library but a really nice book that focuses on environment texture work for games using Photoshop. It has a lot of useful information in it and has pretty good step by step method tutorials as well.)
I know you said 3 but I have to also take the time to mention a great magazine since it's not a book. Imagine FX from Future Media Publishing is awesome. The magazine is published in the UK but can be purchased at Barnes & Noble, Borders and even Tower Records in the US. It has contributions from a crew of regular staff (Don Seegmiller being one of them) along with contributions from guest artists every month. It's currently on issue #4 right now with #5 about to come out. Definitely would recommend this magazine to all of you.
- The Elements of Color by Johannes Itten
Poop turned me on to this book and it totally kicked my ass.
- The Dark Side of Game Texturing by David Franson
It's a light book. But where I was when I got this it helped me tremenously.
- The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
Helped me relearn to draw.
I have some architectural books and field guides as well. But those are real project specific I think.
I'm only gonna mention the authors not any of the books, but these guys taught me more than even the comic guys I was copying.
Any drawing book by Jack Hamm
pretty basic stuff, but concise.
Any drawing book by Lee J. Ames.
I have his how to draw books and many of his books he illustrated! Top notch!
Any drawing book by Burne Hogarth.
No comments necessary
(as a runner up look for any of the Our Army at War DC Sgt Rock comics from the early to mid seventies. The guy drew tanks and subs as well as he drew people. him and John Severin.)
Drawing on the right side of the brain
Color (the follow up by Betty Edwards)
Problem Solving for Oil Painters
I know we aren't Oil painters, but this book should really be titled Problem solving for artists, because it covers so much amazing compositional and rendering subjects.
Harley Brown's Eternal Truths for Every Artist
Pure genius.
[/ QUOTE ]I am and can vouche for those ones you've listed.
2. Dynamic Anotomy by Burne Hogarth
and...
I don't have a third one
Gray's Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical Practice - perhaps the world most famous anatomy book: huge, hardcore and gold priced, but if some anatomical detail is not there, then it dosen't exists.
Sobotta Atlas of Human Anatomy (2-Volume Set) - As the first don't have many images this is a must have choise. Other good one would be Frank H. Netter's atlas, alot cheaper too, but in my opinio, so as good as Sobotta's
As i said, not artist oriented, but these were my only sources for anatomic knowledge and i think those are two hell of outstanding books. But thanks for the thread bobo. Will start creating my own art book collection and these will be the first on the list...
The Human Figure by Vanderpoel
Has some nice renderings of various parts of the body and shows you how he brakes up the figure into simple shapes. The images are kinda small (it's only a little bigger than a dvd case), but you can get it pretty cheap.
Mastering Unreal Technology: The Art of Level Design
http://www.designstudiopress.com/books/skillfulhuntsman
- BoBo