Creative Lettering is a really fun book to look at if you're lettering or calligraphy work.
16 artists and their wonderfully handwritten and designed letterings are featured. Author Jenny Doh has done a great job seeking these artists out and showcasing their work.
The letterings are very beautiful and since they are hand drawn, they have lots of personality. Some have designed the whole set of alphabets. Others use letters as a design element for their illustrations. There's a good variety to look at.
Each artist also explains how they created their letters and also provide a list of materials to get started. They use the standard pens, paper, markers and other stationery. This means you can start with whatever you have on hand.
It's a great book for inspiration. If you use sketchbooks, you can spice up your pages with some creative lettering.
Art Fundamentals looks at the elements that contribute to a successful piece of art.
The fundamentals covered in the book includes light and colour, composition, perspective and depth, and anatomy.
It's written by several guest artists, among them Gilles Beloeil (Assassin's Creed), Andrei Riabovitchev (Harry Potter films), Roberto F. Castro and Matt Smith. The artists provide their own examples and commentary.
There are whole books written specifically for each of those subjects mentioned earlier. Having four in a book, I felt that the depth of coverage is sacrificed at times. So do not expect in-depth complete coverage on each subject. Think of this as a book of tips rather than a detailed practice-along instructional book.
The chapter on light and colour has 27 pages only. It's brief considering it's a huge subject - James Gurney wrote over 200 pages on the same subject in his book Color and Light. Here Gilles Beloeil uses his Assassin's Creed concept art as examples and talks about the fundamentals of lighting.
The next chapter on composition deals with the indispensable golden ratio. There are many useful composition diagrams and example paintings that highlight the importance of strong composition. The concepts are easy to grasp and the subject is sufficiently covered.
Next is perspective and depth. There are basics of 1,2 & 3-point perspectives, and vanishing points of course. What's missing are the rational behind using the different point perspectives and the placement of viewpoint positions. Coverage of depth is too brief. I would definitely recommend a dedicated book on learning perspective instead.
The chapter on anatomy has 76 pages. Emphasis is on muscle form of the body and there are many beautiful detailed illustrations of muscles of the torso, arms and leg. Other parts like head, nose, ears, expressions are briefly covered. There's mention of posing but not much.
The last two chapters are sizable galleries with accompanying commentary discussing each image. The first of the two talks about the paintings with attention to the art fundamentals covered in the book. The last chapter has contributing artists talk about their own artworks, specifically the concept behind. The work featured are contemporary paintings.
This book has useful tips and insights. But because of the limited space, each subject somewhat feels incomplete. Personally, I prefer books dedicated to single subject or aspect of drawing.
I'll recommend this book to beginners, probably as a supplement to what you've already learned....more
This is another excellent addition to the Digital Painting Techniques series.
It's a 288-page book with tutorials from top artists, covering the conceptualisation, as well as the actual techniques used to create the piece of art.
The chapters are split into Subjects, Styles, Techniques, Project overview and lastly a gallery.
For Subjects, they have tribal warriors, droids, vehicles and environments. Different artists will present their own creative process. Styles have pin-ups, comic art and manga. Techniques look at illustrating fairy tales, creating custom brushes and painting different materials. Project overview looks at the high level conceptualisation of ideas and presentation.
It's an insightful and informative book for digital painters....more
Here's the watercolour tips and techniques book from Rose Edin, who's a watercolour painter and teacher.
There are watercolour specific tips as well as those that are not, such as composition, creating balance, working from reference etc. The information presented are concise and easy to absorb. Many of her wonderful drawings serve as examples.
This isn't a book for beginners but it serves well as a companion. Reason is her paintings are quite complicated. If you look at the cover, you see this myriad of colours and details going on. Many of the example paintings are like that. You're not supposed to follow along, but there are a few step-by-step tutorials showing how she painted them.
Overall a rather insightful instructional book. It's a nice book to get if you like her art as many of her paintings are printed huge....more
Beginner's Guide to Creating Manga Art is a more of a tips and techniques book rather than a structured cours
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Beginner's Guide to Creating Manga Art is a more of a tips and techniques book rather than a structured course on drawing manga from start to end. The book covers only characters.
It starts with lessons on features, expressions, anatomy, poses, clothing and character designs. The lessons are brief and are covered under 30 pages. For example, for drawing of heads, the front and sides are taught. But for heads at other angles, while there are illustrated examples with guidelines, there aren't enough in depth explanation to go with it. This section is just an introduction on figure drawing.
The second part of the book features tutorials from various artists on designing characters. There are many useful tips on drawing, what type of materials to use and things to look out for. Many artists are using traditional medium but there are a few tutorials on Photoshop.
The third part is on colouring the characters that were drawn in the previous chapter. The tutorials cover a variety of tools that are used, such as coloured pencils, markers, watercolour and Photoshop. Again, there are good tips on handling the specific mediums.
The last few pages feature a manga art gallery from various artists.
Overall, this book is more on understanding the style of manga art, and the tutorials that show you how to create them.
This is one humongous book on infographics put out by Taschen. It's 480 pages and it's heavy so there could b
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This is one humongous book on infographics put out by Taschen. It's 480 pages and it's heavy so there could be additional weight surcharge depending on where you're shipping to.
As an artist at the newspaper, I also create infographics occasionally. I bought this book for reference. It's a good reference with lots of examples. But there are some things to take note.
The infographics presented are rather heavy on data. There can be a case of too much information in an infographic. Some are rather complex, and most definitely drawn with the help of computer programming. While they can look spectacular, I'm not sure if readers will be overwhelmed by the complexity and skip reading it. So we are unable to know whether they are effective or not. The accompanying text just provides information on what the infographics is about but not the thought process that goes behind.
The examples are from a huge variety of publications, mainly magazines and websites. I'm actually hoping for more newspaper infographics but there aren't a lot compared to other forms of publication, but you can get The Best of Newspaper Design books for that.
Overall, it's a great visual reference. There are many interesting ways of presenting information. That should inspire some ideas.
This is an excellent book on caricature by caricaturist and illustrator Tom Richmond. There are few artists w
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This is an excellent book on caricature by caricaturist and illustrator Tom Richmond. There are few artists who are more qualified to write a book on drawing caricatures. Over the years, he has drawn for many print media, especially for MAD magazine which is known for its art.
To get the best out of this book, you should already know how to draw basic portraits. This book gives you the tips and techniques to add to your knowledge of portrait drawing to create the caricatures.
There are enlightening drawing tips on every page from the start till the last page, accompanied by lots of amazingly drawn examples. It teaches you how to push the limit of drawing facial expressions without sacrificing likeness to the character. You'll learn how to modify head shapes, enhance features, put in expressions and more. It also covers a bit on body postures. Towards the end there's a section on drawing live caricatures.
The very last section looks at the caricatures from MAD magazine and includes the process of working from start to finish.
This book is packed with tons of information and is most highly recommended.
Set the Action is a book on creating backgrounds authored by Elvin A. Hernandez.
It's text heavy with plenty examples and they are well explained. Focus of the book is on it takes to make the environment believable, and hence the story believable. For example, if a character is a dirty fellow, his home should not be spotless clean. There's stuff on what props can be put into the scene, coverage on the different art styles, textures. The perspective section is surprisingly quite brief.
There's not much on talk specifically on animation and games. In particular, games nowadays feature such realistic environments I suppose there would be something to talk about.
This book is more for the intermediate and above artists who already know how to draw characters and just missing information on how to create backgrounds.
I've found some preview pages from Google Books and have embedded them below. Read some pages to get a clearer idea of the book....more
I was drawn by the book's cover for this purchase. I love how the fog is painted, obscuring the two fishermen on the [image] (More pictures on my blog)
I was drawn by the book's cover for this purchase. I love how the fog is painted, obscuring the two fishermen on the small boat fishing on a misty day.
Lou Bonamarte has taught watercolour for over forty years. In this book are his collection of tips and insight on watercolour paintings. The style you'll see in the book is that of traditional realism. There are lots of beautiful examples painted by the author.
This isn't a hands-on tutorial book so to get the most out of it, you should already know how to paint watercolour, at least at the beginner's level.
This book is about understanding why paintings are painted in a certain way. Using the cover painting for example, the author would explain that the boat's prow is left as a hard edge against the fog for contrast, and for depth, removing the fog from the foreground to reveal the shoreline and also showing the edge of the distant shore. What's not explained is the exact technique used, which in this case I would say is wet on wet, or how the colours are mixed to get the gradated look.
The topics included cover light, value, colour and composition. There is more analysis than usual techniques-only books. In some ways, it reminded me of James Gurney's Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter except the examples here are all watercolour.
The book does a good job at explaining the concepts. There are some short useful exercises included, which involve copying line drawings and practicing what was taught.
Recommended for watercolour beginners, and maybe intermediate painters. This is a nice reference book to accompany other techniques-only book....more
Beginner's Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop is one of the better books for learning digital painting with Photoshop.
It's published by 3DTotal and follows a somewhat similar style to their Digital Art Masters series of books. It's filled with tutorials that teach the various aspect of digital painting. There are 224-pages and it comes with a pretty plastic slipcase.
The book benefits those already with some basic experience in creating art. You should be able to draw first. The book's goal is to help you make the transition over to digital painting by showing you how you can replicate your traditional techniques digitally. Through the illustrated examples, you can also learn how the techniques required to create them. Intermediate and advanced digital painters should be able to find useful tips in the book too.
Here's the full list of contents:
A Beginner's Guide
Introducing Photoshop's Workspace
Canvas Settings, Scanning, Colors and Brushes
Composition, Perspective and Blocking In
Grayscale, Blending and Using Photographs
Masks and the Wand Tool
Final Touches and Filters
Art Fundamentals
Lighting and Color
Composition
Portraying Emotion
Perspective and Depth
Storytelling
Complete Project - Area 51
From concepts through to the final image
Painting Styles and Approaches
Speed Painting Sci-fi Characters
Speed Painting Sci-fi Landscapes
Painting Over Grayscale
Digital Painting Using Photographs
Fantasy Landscapes
Project Overviews
The Trials of Devotion
Closet Monster
Soul Hunting
Quick Tips
Learn tricks of the trade from industry professionals
Breakdown Gallery
Image analysis – see how artists create their digital paintings
The first section covers the setting up of Photoshop and understanding the interface with regards to digital painting. The author uses Photoshop CS so some of the software features might differ from newer released. But essentially, the basic features should still be around, somewhere.
The second second covers the art fundamentals. That would be things like lighting, composition, etc. The insightful commentary reinforces what makes a good painting.
The next section is on painting styles and covers painting of fantasy and sci-fi scenes, which is type of subject the book focuses on.
There's also a useful section on creating effects and textures, things like clouds, smoke, explosions, trees, skin, fur, metal, etc.
All the tutorials are created by professional artists, such as Nykolai Aleksander, Richard Tilbury, Eric Spray, Weiye Yin and more. They have lots of experience and their commentaries show.
This is a good book on digital painting. Beginners to advanced users should be able to learn a lot....more
I've noticed that this series has shrunk in page sizes over time. The CS4 version had 496 pages, CS5 with 304 pages a[image] (More pictures on my blog)
I've noticed that this series has shrunk in page sizes over time. The CS4 version had 496 pages, CS5 with 304 pages and now the CS6 version has 284 pages. I don't have the CS4 WOW book so I can't say for certain what material has been dropped. Anyway, that's not important because the book is still great!
This book is for the intermediate and professional uses. You need to have the basics to fully appreciate the content.
This is a tips and techniques book. There are plenty of practical tips. One thing I like about the series is they use real life examples. Many artists have their work featured and there's commentary explaining how their working process. The writing is concise and easy to follow. There are many neat tricks that aren't featured in official training guides. These are what set this book apart from others.
There's no more disc with the book. You've got to download it from their WOW! Online website. Shouldn't be a problem unless you have no internet connection.
Since this is a series of books, some of the material in this CS6 book is repeated and updated from the CS5 book.There is a lot of new content too....more
There are seven chapters in the book covering the line, tone, colour, telling the story, creating ideas, fields of illustration and experiment and study. The first few chapters explain more on the drawing techniques while the later chapters are more on visualising and creating art for display ads.
This isn't a draw-with-me type of book. You should have basic drawing skills, and using the drawing tips and insights provided, you can understand what makes a good drawing and improve yourself. Commentary is lengthy but clear. The illustrated examples are beautiful and even if some of them are dated, the techniques still remain as relevant today.
It's a great book for all who wants to get better at drawing....more
Drawing and Sketching Secrets is a collection of wide ranging drawing tips and techniques compiled by Reader's Digest[image] (More pictures on my blog)
Drawing and Sketching Secrets is a collection of wide ranging drawing tips and techniques compiled by Reader's Digest. There are four chapters covering the tools, the techniques, working on different subjects, drawing for submissions and displaying your work.
The inspiration are from the pointers, drawings and demonstrations. The tips cover basics such as the always helpful contour drawing, understanding values, composition, etc. But they are too short to get a full appreciation of how powerful those drawing fundamentals can be. In that sense, this is more of a companion book to a more dedicated drawing book.
The beautiful examples are created from a variety of medium and they will tempt you to try them. Many great artists have their work featured. Some are amazing, such as the photo-realistic looking harbour piece drawn with colour pencil by Graham Brace, or the meticulously hatched and crossed hatched ink drawings by Melissa Tubbs and Edmond Oliveros. It's inspiring to see what artists can do with just simple tools.
It's a good drawing book to get if you want to explore different styles....more
Here's a great book for anyone interested in sculpt figures, whether you're a collector, aspiring sculptor or a profe[image] (More pictures on my blog)
Here's a great book for anyone interested in sculpt figures, whether you're a collector, aspiring sculptor or a professional.
The authors are Tim Bruckner, Zach Oat and Ruben Procopio. Both Tim Bruckner and Ruben Procopio have years of sculpting experience and have worked for companies like DC, Disney, etc.
The book is written in an entertaining lighthearted manner, filled with sculpting techniques, photos and even comic-style drawings for illustration purposes. I like the one that advises you to always get your children's permission before melting down their crayons. That's one good advice you might overlook, and there are plenty more useful ones throughout.
It's a rather detailed book. Here are the chapters:
Art, Reference & Design Materials, Tools, Supplies, and the Workplace The Rough Sculpt Casting in Wax Finishing in Wax Making a Master Mold Resin Casting & Finishing Articulation Accessories Painting Photography Going Pro
It covers from the conceptualization stage right to the finished sculpt and photography.
As a non-sculptor, I learned a lot of new information about sculpting. There are different types of clay and each has different properties. A few sculptors were interviewed and they explain their preference. There's even a recipe if you want to make your own.
They also show you how to create the armature (the wire support), how to cast, paint, make accessories and even create joints for movable parts. There are a lot of processes behind the scenes not obvious to beginners or collectors. The book covers them in great detail. Chapter 10 on painting is a fun read with cute cartoons of professional prototype painter Kat Sapene dishing out advice.
It's a helpful book for any sculptors looking to make their first figure, more so for those who are looking to sell them as the book covers casting and a section on going pro. There are even tips on dealing with art directors and project managers.
The book features mainly character models so you'll need to be knowledgeable about anatomy to get your sculpts looking good....more
Another year, another volume of Digital Art Masters. I can see this series continue indefinitely.
Digital Art Masters Volume 7 features 50 artists in this 288-page paperback. Each features a project and comes with insightful commentary into the creation process. The categories are Sci-Fi, Scene, Fantasy, Character and Cartoon. The techniques taught are mainly on digital painting and 3D modeling. Software used are Photoshop, Maya, ZBrush, Mudbox and others.
It's difficult to pick out any outstanding pieces because they all fantastic. The variety is great. Gilles Beloeil talks about the marketplace he created for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Borislav Kechashki explains how he creates his armor bear with 2D and 3D techniques, and many artists talking about their own way of creating character art.
It's an inspiring and insightful collection. Highly recommended to any digital artist....more
The first book focuses on the actual designing of characters. This book focuses on bringing the characters to life with body language, specifically by using expressions, poses and staging. In other words, this book is about acting using your characters.
It's filled with tips and insights, just like the first book. As the book title suggest, the teaching style here is one of mentoring. There are many assignments included, and Tom Bancroft has included his students' work, together with his mentor notes on the different ways to improve the result. You'll feel the years of experience seeping through the pages as he explains. It's all very simple and practical tips you can use to improve your characters instantly.
There are many wonderful illustrated examples in the book to show how important acting is to creating believability. One look at them and you'll be able to guess accurately how the character is feeling, who the character is or what the scene is about. These are all done without dialogue. The goal of the book is to impart the knowledge of getting to that level of clarity with your characters, the same sort of clarity you would expect from a masterful silent movie.
The book also includes a section on composition. It teaches you how to frame your scene with your characters to better tell a story. While this section is not technically character design, it's still useful knowledge. Several guest artists are also invited to have a go at an assignment. Artists such as Stephen Silver, Sean Galloway, Terry Dodson, etc. You get to see how their interpret the story scene in their own way.
This is an insightful book to character design. It's a great addition and supplements the first book well. Recommended to artists with some basic knowledge on character design, which is to say you should check out Creating Characters with Personality if you haven't done so....more
This is Tom Kidd's book on fantasy art. It's 192 pages, hardcover. The art is fantastic.
It's an instructional book that covers the tips and techniques on painting. The useful tips come from his personal observations. He talks about colours, composition, mood and other topics relating to fantasy art.
The techniques are taught by 13 step-by-step demonstrations. They are oil-based tutorials so if you're using watercolours, you need a shift in mindset. For example when painting a snow scene, he lays a base tone over the canvas, which is something you can't do with watercolour if you want to preserve the white, at least in the same sequence as described.
What's lacking is perhaps the part on conceptualization. He doesn't talk much about how he gets his ideas, but more on what he does with them. There's one example where he has a flying elephant idea and he eventually turned it into a flying airship with an elephant head. He has a huge reference library and reading material so that's where some ideas might come from. This book itself is also reference for inspiration.
It's a good book for those who already know some basics in oil painting and want to learn more techniques in applying them to fantasy art....more
This is a wonderful watercolour techniques book by Robin Berry.
It's packed with lots of insightful and concise tips. It's not just on watercolour tips but also on general drawing principles such as composition, using values, etc. One chapter features tips on dealing with different subjects, like landscape, water, flowers, people, buildings, animals, etc.
9 step-by-step demonstrations are included. They particularly good because they show and explain the techniques as they are used. The instructions are clear and they detail each painting process. There are beautiful paintings as examples throughout, from Robin Berry herself and other invited artists.
The last chapter covers techniques used to create effects, like spraying, glazing, removing colours. It's a short chapter but the examples are great.
It's an insightful and inspiring compendium suitable for beginners. Advanced artists might enjoy the examples and ideas suggested....more
Compared to other books that try to cover everything, this book focuses on certain aspects of drawing.
There's a great deal of emphasis on perspective and that section is 80 pages, which is half of this 160-page hardcover. At times, it can be quite difficult to follow because there's too many things explained at the same time. The part on drawing figures on different planes and elevation is quite useful. And also the part on common perspective mistakes.
The second half of the book covers lighting. It's stuff like how light rolls of a sphere, cone and cube. The application is more on figures as with the accompanying illustrated examples. There are many useful drawing pointers to take note of.
The book doesn't cover everything, or at least topics I would expect from a drawing book. What's missing are topics such as composition, contour drawings, colours, drawing portraits (dealt in his other books) and drawing techniques like hatching, layering tones, etc. It doesn't cover drawing by eye which deals with proportion, although it is mentioned briefly which can be overlooked easily.
Ultimately, the book is on understanding the fundamentals behind drawings. There isn't any step-by-step instructions to follow along, you learn by copying what's shown.
This is an intermediate book more suited for those with some knowledge of drawing, more specifically for those looking to learning perspective and lighting. If you have the two other Loomis books mentioned above, then you can easily apply what you've learned.
If you're looking to draw something instantly, then I would recommend more elementary beginner books. For perspective, you can try Perspective Made Easy, and Keys to Drawing for drawing in general. I'll also recommend Lessons in Classical Drawing because that book is also about successful drawing....more
This is a wonderful book on drawing by Juliette Aristides.
It covers the essential techniques to making a good drawing. These are subjects like understanding lines, contours, proportion, depth, tonal composition, light and shadow. They are the usual subjects taught for drawing. The text is insightful and filled with tips, supplemented by beautiful illustrated examples from artists and old masters.
This is not an immediately hands-on book where you can dive in and draw straightaway. It focuses on the understanding of different techniques. After which, each chapter ends with a guided practical lesson on learning points.
The book also comes with a DVD containing 1 hour of video with Juliette Aristides demonstrating what was taught in the book. It covers blocking in general shapes before defining them with more detail, and finishing them up with tones to give the illusion of light and shadow. The video reinforces the drawing techniques as used in real life.
This is a well written and presented book. It's really insightful.
Highly recommended to anyone learning to draw. A great value for money....more
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