Over the past few months, traffic on the blog has been increasing slowly but steadily, which is great.
For those who bought any books here, commented on the blog, or linked back, I thank you! Additionally, I would like to give a little back to all my blog readers to show my appreciation.
The "little back" will be the prize of the contest I'm holding below:
To participate, simply reply to the following question in the comments section:
Question: What's your top 3 favourite art books from 2008?
Some rules
- You must list 3 art books and provide a few sentences to explain why you like the art book.
- Closing date: 30 Dec 2008
- Prize: $20 Amazon.com voucher
- There will be one winner chosen randomly.
- Results will be announced on 31st Dec 2008.
- Do not leave your email in the comments, I'll release the contact details on 31st Dec 2008. So please check back on 31st Dec 2008.
Take this also as an opportunity to share with others your favourite art books, and also find out what others like!
It would be great if you can post a link back to this contest on your blog. With more readers, I hope I can give out better prizes in the future!
Here are my top 3, to start the ball rolling, and also to serve as an example.
1. Art of Kung Fu Panda
This book is about character design. There are over hundreds of concept sketches. Also, the environment paintings are just breathtaking.
2. Street Fighter Tribute
Amazing variety of style. Great characters. What else can you ask for?
3. The Sumi: Vagabond Illustration Collection
Inoue Takehiko compiles some amazing manga art from his Vagabond comic series. It's a showcase of manga prowess.
That's all.
Again, thanks for reading!
1. Shadowline, the Ian McCaig artbook. It has some of the nicest printing I've seen in a while, and as I'm particularly fond of his sketches, it's definitely one of my favorites.
ReplyDelete2. Art of Paul Bonner. Lots of art, very high quality prints, and plenty of stuff I hadn't seen before.
3. Mark Schultz, Various Drawings 3 - I really like seeing the process work in these, and I think this one's the best of the bunch. Mark Schultz doesn't get nearly as much attention as he merits, IMO.
1. N.C. Wyeth: Catalogue Raisonn: BEAUTIFUL repros over 700 pages. A staggering amount of his work is reproduced. Finally a fitting book for this legendary and influential artist. Great photos of his studio. A good balance of smaller thumbnails and full page spreads. Good literature as well.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/N-C-Wyeth-Christine-Bauer-Podmaniczky/dp/1857594789/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228797531&sr=1-6
2.VICTOR PROUVÉ (1858-1943): Terrific book on the often overlooked French artist. With a hint of Toulouse Lautrec and Sargent, along with scupltures, Prouve is a great inspiration.
http://www.artbooks.com/titles/083/Item83582.htm
3. JC Leyendecker by Laurence S. Cutler et.al:
Again one of the greatest illustrators to live receives a gorgeous book with great reproductions of all his covers from Colliers to the SE Post. It's a good year for Golden Age Illustrators. Now we just need a Mead Schaeffer book!!!
http://www.amazon.com/J-C-Leyendecker-Laurence-S-Cutler/dp/0810995212/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228797585&sr=1-1
Sorry for clouding your comments my link is not working for some reason...
ReplyDeletewww.francisvallejo.blogspot.com
cheers from a fellow book lover!!!!
you have a good blog........ I see the book of J. Foster........uohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!!! really nice. =_=
ReplyDeleteHmm...I haven't read any of these, but I have read the manga Uzumaki. Ito Junji's artwork is sooo very creepy and terrific!
ReplyDelete1. Fables Covers: The Art of James Jean. With preliminary sketches included for the works it is a wonderful capturing of one of the hottest illustrators recently.
ReplyDelete2. Classical Painting Atelier: by Juliette Aristides. A detailed look into the return of realism in figurative painting. This book is flat out wonderful, a great read, and print wise has great color. Her drawing book companion from 2006 is also a must for any artist.
3. Spectrum 15: Consistently good printing, wonderful imagery, and where else do you ever get to see an collection of talent of this caliper?
1. Art of Kung Fu Panda: What can I say? This is one of the best "art of" books out there. It's up there with The Art of Mulan and The Art and Making of Monster House (also my favorites). Nicolas Marlet is brilliant too!
ReplyDelete2. The Totoro Forest Project: Sadly, I do not own the book, but from seeing pictures of the book and all of the artwork on the site, I can already tell that it's an amazing book. All for a good cause too! They're in the talks of a second printing, so I'm prepared to pounce on that! I might just break and get the 1st printing (goes for $200!!)
3. Art of the Modern Movie Poster: International Postwar Style and Design: A monstrous book with movie posters from around the world. There are more than 1,500 images in it. A great book for illustrators, designers, and movie buffs alike.
Keep on doing what you're doing, Parka!
1.The Art of Kunfu Panda
ReplyDeleteThe art book of the year.
2.Street Fighter Tribute
I love Street Figther and Udon.So this album had to be second.
3.The art of Walle
Great movie and great art book.
1. Shadowline: The art of Ian McCaig
ReplyDeleteBeen waiting for it forever. It's great to see some of his non-Star Wars stuff, like the Princess of Mars concepts. I love the personality and sensitivity in his sketches.
2. The Art of Paul Bonner:
The level of detail in his art is amazing and it’s great to finally have a huge collection in one book! The book is big and chunky too!
3. Blade of the Immortal Illustration collection
Another book I’ve been waiting to come out for years! It has a good mix of his old and new covers as well as the amazing grayscale chapter heads.
How about these:
ReplyDelete1. "Walt Disney Animation Studio Archive: Story." A wonderful collection of storyboards, showing not just just how pencils drawing depict and diagram movement, but how pencil marks can themselves seems to move.
2. "Willie & Joe: The WWII Years." Watch Bill Mauldin develop as an artist in wartime, with cartoon linework steadily transformed into slumping, slouching, muddy, inky masterpieces.
3. "Alexander Calder: The Paris Years 1926-1933." The catalog captures the playfulness of Calder, whose uses wire and metal like a kind of drawing in the air.
Three runners-up: Lynda Barry, "What It Is" (a wonderful comic/diary/sketchbook/writing workshop/collage); Kramer's Ergot 7. (comic artists working at tabloid size, like the Sunday funnies of the early 20th century; Hiroshige, "The Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido" (like floating).
Best, Peter
1> watching the watchmen - an exhaustive look at Gibbon's work on a true classic of the genre. anyone who wants to be a comic artist should be held and down and forced to look at the amount of work needed to do 12 issues.
ReplyDelete2- retroactive - darwyn cooke a neat coffee table book by someone whose style can actually stand up to the enlargement of the pieces!
3 - the art of herge vol 1 - a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of a master - the foremost practicioner of the belgian "clean line" technique
cheers -
charles
1. Kungfu panda - Amazing artbook,saw this book review from a magazine, then found this book in KINOKUNIYA. From character design to environment setting, this book give quality information and really worth to have it.
ReplyDelete2. The art of Sparth, Structura - I am a big fan of sci-fi art. i can't wait to see the book after i ordered it from Amazon. The author,Nicolas Bouvier is a very creative person. I like all his works.
3. HellBoy Library Destruction Devil V.1 - For me it is super good book, the book in hardcover, full color printing,high quality paper. The art works is great and fantastic.
1. Okami official complete works
ReplyDeleteThe book has beautiful artwork in one of my favorite mediums - watercolor & ink. I haven't even played the game, but the art in this book is just stunning and there's nearly 300 pages of it. The US version was finally released last summer, I recommend picking this one up ASAP.
2. Iain Mccaig's Shadowline
Ok, I don't actually have this yet (on order), however I've really liked Mccaig's linework since I first saw it in the SW Episode I artbook. There's something nice in his character drawings, expecting more of the same goodness in this book.
3. An Illustrated Life
I haven't bought other 2008 released artbooks this year, so my third pick is something I don't personally have.
Anyway, this book looks interesting and it's quite cheap. Although it doesn't have pro quality art the content still looks intriguing, kind of like what's in the Postsecret-book or a collection of flickr posts of sketchbook pages. There's a preview video on the tube for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odpf_PcXJZo
1. Kungfu Panda
ReplyDeleteAwesome character designs. Love how they've managed to play with the big round body of Po.
2. Art of wall-E
Explores everything from robots to aliens to fat blobby humans. bonus:Eve is designed in collaboration with apple product designer.
3. Art of Bolt
Ordered it on amazon.ca will be getting it soon. Love character designs of Rhino. And the book does not contain too many movie stills is a plus.
1. The Art of Kung Fu Panda
ReplyDeleteLots of character designs. The setting of the movie is beautiful and the book is superb (loved the dragon pressed in the front hardcover)
2. The Art of Halo 3
After beating the game, seeing the (art)work behind the masterpiece is something I really enjoyed.
3. Udon's Street Fighter Tribute
Udon kick a**, and the fact that this book contains hundreds of incredible works from around the globe is just great. You can notice various styles and influences here.
Oops, I didn't check the timezone (it's almost 9pm here in Brazil, 30/dec), but anyway, that's my 3 favorite '08 artbooks above. Cheers booklovers!
ReplyDelete