IC Forum Archive

Guardian FINAL · Posts: 1137

I recently bought the out-of-print official Konami Art of Metal Gear Solid. I really like art books for their gorgeous printing and will sometimes go far out of my way to find one that contains material I have already become attached to, simply because such art is not usually available anywhere else in quality reproductions. I bought this one becuase I've decided to love Yoji Shinkawa. But a nicely put-together book can seduce me regardless of my familiarity with the material.

What art books do you have or recommend?

Ataru · Posts: 295

i have Groundworks of FLCL, Gungrave Materials, and a pretty decent SNK one as well.

FortNinety · Posts: 4591

Even though I'm not a big fan of the game or anything, the Xenogears Perfect Works book is very nice. Lots of great preproduction went into the game.

Maztorre · Posts: 1175

The Street Fighter: Eternal Challenge book is excellent. Not just great art from SF1 through to 3rd Strike, but they show you every character ending from every Street Fighter, various notes on the game design, merchandise, staff interviews and other assorted coolness.

I also recommend Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar. They show off reams of dropped content over the 5 year development span, including the artwork for an entirely different opening episode of the game, set on a tanker. How suspicious!

The Document of MGS2 doesn't strictly count as an artbook per se but it's definitely worth picking up just for how well presented and exhaustive it is. Exhaustive like you can watch the development team act out Clearing Mode.

Persona-sama · Posts: 1145

The Phantasy Star Online artbooks are all very pretty.

The first one, The Book of Hunters, has a lot of details on the monsters, weapons, and environments of the game, all with lots of sketches and interesting notes. It also includes interesting info on monsters and character not included in the game such as the half-human/half-animal Nei-ish half breeds that the team wanted to include.

The artbook for PSO Episode I and II is much more polished and shiny. The pages are like plastic and it shines so much that you can't read it on a sunny day. The book is like a remix of the first one so it features condensed versions of most of the information that was in the first book. However, it adds a lot more finished work like showcasing all the 3d character models with every color, face, and hair variations. I kind of prefer the sketches and details of the Book of Hunters more but this one does include lots of information about the story of PSO: it has a glossary of characters and references in the back, a timeline starting from way before the first game to Episode II, interviews with the creators, and other interestings tidbits.

So yeah. They're nice to have as reference.
I wish America published more artbooks for games and movies.

(I'll find some links with pictures later.)

DonMarco · Posts: 565

Persona-sama wrote:

I wish America published more artbooks for games and movies.

Persona! SHOCK!!

Batman Animated is an awesome book worth it's weight in gold. Tons of pictures, stories, stories about stories and stories about the show. A little humor and insight into possibly the greatest animated superhero show EVAR.

Phoenix Rie · Posts: 111

FortNinety is absolutely right about the Perfect Works book. Digicube also released one for Front Mission 3 that I enjoyed. The things are just massive; almost roach-killing in size (Think a phonebook printed on way better paper stock).

The Phantasy Star Compendium (ISBN #4-89052-782-6) is personally the favorite of my collection. Worth it just for the Neifirst sketches I'd say. Very tough to find in the states, expect to spend quite a bit. Also, Enterbrain's SF3 3rd Strike Bible (ISBN #4-7577-0175-6) is like 200 pages of nothing but frame data. The info used to be mirrored on www.karathrow.com. I'd mention others, but they're nigh impossible to find now.

If you're more budget-oriented may I suggest picking up some gamest mooks? Save for the Capcom Illustrations issue, most of the run can be found pretty cheap, and the content is usually excellent.

EDIT: Since we're on the subject, for the love of god get some mylar bags and acid free boards. Sure it sounds like comic-book guy wankery, but its a cheap way to protect your investments.

yellowlightman · Posts: 359

There's a couple of great Front Mission artbooks. One features paintings and character art by Amano, kind of a nice change from his usual Final Fantasy stuff. The other book is even better, it's a collection of custom dioramas made from kitbashed models based on the Front Mission Wanzers.

jiji · Posts: 780

I buy artbooks put out by artists I'm a fan of. Most often it'll be artists who've worked on games that have caught my eye, but there are a few that I've become interested in through anime. On the game side, Range Murata, Tsukasa Jun, Katsuya Terada; from anime: Yoshitoshi ABe. I'd recommend any books by them you might come across, but that's mostly my tastes speaking.

As for strictly gamey stuff, I have the Breath of Fire V Official Design Materials book, which is full of concept sketches that show how each character's design evolved, as well as illustrations of different environments in the game. I also grabbed a Dynasty Warriors 5 hardcover artbook on a whim, because I love Koei's game illustrations, and playing/reading Three Kindgoms-related stuff has made me fond of the characters. I would buy any artbook Akihiko Yoshida put out in half a second, because I love his work on Matsuno-directed games (OB, TO, FFT, VS, FF12, etc.), but as he hasn't released anything, I have to settle for strategy guides.

As for specific suggestions: pay close attention to the games/anime whose art styles you like, and follow the breadcrumbs. Quite a few (Japanese) games these days involve the work of freelance artists who have careers outside of the games they work on, so looking them up on the web can find you other material of theirs that's been collected. If an artist isn't that well-established yet, they might only have released some doujinshi - or they might have released specific material related to the anime or game they worked on as doujinshi only. (This can be seen with Choco's mecha designs for Xenosaga, Han's character designs for Advance Guardian Heroes, and Taka Tony's chara designs for Shining Tears.) In that case, use Google, eBay, and/or Comiket, Inc.

Ataru · Posts: 295

to expand on my earlier post, I also have this book, Koji Morimoto Illustrations - 0range:
http://www.animebooks.com/komoilor.html

it's beautiful. Tons of color, some nice transparent page overlays... and the art is in general absolutely fantastic.

I have a friend who's day job is graphic design, and he buys a lot of nice gaming art books and every so often he tosses a book my way. well.. twice now. He got this book from Amazon.co.jp, and it arrived with a damaged corner. He emailed them, and they sent him a second copy and told him he didn't need to return the damaged one. So, lucky me, I got the (slightly) damaged one. Very awesome.

He also once ended up with two copies of Gungrave Materials ( http://www.animebooks.com/guma.html ), so again, score! It's a nice book, but has a ton of japanese text. Good production sketches and paintings too.

I got this SNK one at a con: http://www.animebooks.com/persnkcharal.html for $40 or so, it's a real mixed bag. Some of the art is incredible, some of it is crap, but overall I'm very happy to have it. The more recent games have some spectacular pages in this book, Cool Cool Toon, Mark of the Wolves, Metal Slugs, Last Blade... good stuff.

Outside of gaming and manga, I've got the paperback edition of Gerhard Richter Forty Years of Painting exhibit catalog from the MoMA. ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0870703579/qid=1122049816/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-9713778-3712159?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 )

It's full of beautiful paintings, a lot of amazing abstracts. I am glad that I saw these in person however, as they were ENORMOUS, easily 16 feet tall or so.

I also have the Melvins - Neither Here Nor There art book, which is full of great work but has questionable typesetting that is in general too tiny to comfortably read. Luckily it's worth owning even if you're illiterate.

Chuplayer · Posts: 775

I've got a few CLAMP manga art books. I've got CLAMP North Side, CLAMP South Side, and the two Magic Knight Rayearth artbooks.

*fapfapfap*

billy · Posts: 15

i've had my eye on this for what seems like forever.

http://www.guumedia.com/comersus/store/io_books_artofthewired.asp

i wanted to get it a while ago when it was on sale, but unpaid internships really have a way with keeping you unpaid.

Tim · Posts: 169

Ataru wrote:

to expand on my earlier post, I also have this book, Koji Morimoto Illustrations - 0range:
http://www.animebooks.com/komoilor.html

Speaking of Studio 4c artists, I just got Cannabis Works by Tsuyoshi Tanaka. It's amazing. This one of the few artbooks I have in which I like every drawing. I want to play Linda Cubed.

http://www.jlist.com/PRODUCT/PH766
http://www.asukashinsha.co.jp/topsozaitemp/cannabis/cannabis.htm
http://www.animebooks.com/cannabisworks.html
http://www.otaku.co.uk/cgi-bin/itemview.asp?itemid=63341z

"I'm not a monster. I'ts only a mask."

sorry. Tatsuyuki, not Tsuyoshi.

Karoshi · Posts: 968

While I don't have any game related art books, for a time I was really into collecting design firm portfolios.
My favorite would have to be the Buro Destruct 2000, I get huge rockin' boners from vector design. I have this japanese one from 1996 featuring Graphickers, and a font comprised of 7 characters. I also have a few from Art.Lebedev. Last spring I received one from someone at tDR during a Philly installation.

Wind-up · Posts: 30

Yeah, the MGS book is excellent. Loads of extra tidbits about the characters, interesting comments from the artist ~ and the artwork is beyond beautiful. The Sons of Liberty one is a disappointment in comparison, though.

My current favourite is Capcom Design Works... absolutely overflowing with high-quality concept art, character designs etc. from throughout their history ... from Rockman and SF to Onimusha. Sweet as. I really should be picking up that Early Days companion volume one day ...

Some hints for locals : there's a lot of places you can buy anime / game artbooks here - and I don't know why, but a lot of it is cheaper new than you could get it second-hand in Japan (??). Best place I've found is a little shop between Sinchon and Ehwa ~ forgotten the name.

If you just like to look, the Seoul Cartoon Museum (near Namsan) has a great collection of artbooks in its library ... it's a really comfortable place to spend a lazy afternoon in ^^

W-up!

Tim · Posts: 169

The SF Kosmo site has a RAR file of all of Yasushi Suzuki's work that can be found on the net (mostly from his now dead website). That could kind of count as an artbook, maybe.

http://sfkosmo.gamersgraveyard.com/treasure/about/info/suzukiy.html

I've found quite a few good online artist galleries:

Lotus Eater.
Backfire. This guy is amazing, and he has a huge amount of content on his site.
Swimtecs.
PuriMari.
KYMG.

Guardian FINAL · Posts: 1137

Tim wrote:

http://www.jlist.com/PRODUCT/PH766

If I may take a moment, I'd like to say that I love cultures that aren't, you know, American. This image just instantly reminds me after my recent hiatus of the cultures that are steeped in imagination and vision, cultures that bring me things like The City of Lost Children.

KonamiCode · Posts: 88

Both MGS 1 and 2 artbooks are great. I keep hoping that they would publish one for 3, but it's looking like that's not going to be the case.

Capcom was putting out some good ones for awhile. I was never really too fond of the Xenogears Perfect book, mainly because it had all the game data, and I just didn't want any of that.

America does really need to jump on the artbook bandwagon. That Batman book is great, and recently we've seen Blizzard jump on the scene with the Art of Warcraft and the Art of World of Warcraft.

If you like books of artists in particular, I'd recommend StuartNg Books http://www.stuartngbooks.com/, they carry all sorts of collections of artists, Japanese, American, and European.

If you want, I'll lay out my collection and snap a couple photos of it.

Shapermc · Posts: 2450

The only one that I have is Psikyo Illustrations Art Book Gamest Mook Vol.113. It is nice and I really like Psikyo art.

I wish they were not so expensive (art books). I feel like I need to keep it in the plastic and be very careful with the binding. It also prohibits me from buying them.

friedchicken · Posts: 26

Shapermc wrote:

The only one that I have is Psikyo Illustrations Art Book Gamest Mook Vol.113. It is nice and I really like Psikyo art.

Thanks for that link! I've been looking for the Psikyo Mook, and I just bought the Capcom Design Works from them too. Sweet.