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Old 06-13-2016, 03:01 PM   #11
OrangeCrush
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I am a HUGE fan of both video game related art books and comic related art books. Unfortunately, most of the art books the come with special editions are terrible quality wise. So I pretty much stay away from those. Some of my favorites include:

"The Art of the Mass Effect Universe"



"The Art of Blizzard Entertainment"



"The Art of Video Games From Pac-Man to Mass Effect"



"UDON's Art of Capcom: Complete Edition"



"Shigenori Soejima Art Works 2004-2010"



"Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia 3.0"



"Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts"




The Art of Video Games: From Pac Man to Mass Effect was actually an art show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum which was shown in 2012. It then travelled to 10 different museums across the country. I was fortunate as I had a photo job that was only like 25 miles away from the Smithsonian when it was showing there so I scheduled an extra day and went and saw it and it truly was one of the best art shows I have seen to date and the book is outstanding as well. I highly recommend it if you enjoy gaming art and the history of that art.

I also have a few on pre-order that I am really looking forward too, but this one in particular I am really excited to get.

"Art of Atari"

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Old 06-13-2016, 04:01 PM   #12
OrangeCrush
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I almost forgot, have you ever heard of Expose, Exotique, Digital Painting Techniques, or Digital Art Masters? They are all ongoing series of art books that focus on computer generated art and a lot of it deals with video game subject matter. All 4 series are outstanding and are ultimately some of my all time favorite art books.

Digital Painting Techniques and Digital Art Masters is produced by 3DTotal Publishing. Digital Painting Techniques is up to volume #7 and Digital Painting Masters is up to volume #9. Here are the links for those 2 series:

Digital Painting Techniques



https://shop.3dtotal.com/books/digit...echniques.html

Digital Art Masters



https://shop.3dtotal.com/books/digital-art-masters.html


Expose & Exotique are produced by Ballistic Publishing. Expose is up to volume #11 and Exotique is up to volume #7. Here are the links for those:

Exotique



https://www.ballisticpublishing.com/books/exotique/


Expose



https://www.ballisticpublishing.com/...pose/expose_1/

One of the nice things about Ballistic Publishing is they have both regular editions (soft cover & hard cover) and a special limited edition. The limited editions, while a bit pricey, are absolutely beautiful and are some of the nicest quality books I have ever purchased. They have a black leather cover, gold metallic embossed lettering, and come with a bonus. Exotique #1-#4 comes with 4 bonus prints. Exotique #5-7 come with tutorials. Expose usually come with a free A3 print and a tutorial.

Plus if you go to Ballistic's website, they have a preview for each book that lets you view a sizable portion of the books before buying them. So you can see a lot of the artwork before buying any particular book.

Here is a picture that shows what thier limited editions look like, along with the COA they come with:




Ballistic also has a line of books called "The Art of the Game", which are art books based on particular games. There are only 4 books so far in this series, but I was told by CS that more are being planned. The titles currently available are The Art of Uncharted 2, The Art of God of War 3, The Art of Gears of War 3, and The Art of Oddworld Inhabitants. They actually produce 3 different versions for this line. They have the regular edition, limited edition and Folio edition. Here is the link in case anyone is interested:

The Art of the Game
https://www.ballisticpublishing.com/...eartofthegame/

Here are some pics for the Uncharted 2 book:





and here is the Folio edition:



I haven't purchased any of the Art of the Game books, but the limited edition and folio editions look really nice!

Anyways, if you really enjoy art books that focus on computer generated art, you should really give these books a look. Again, you can preview a large chunk of the Ballistic Publishing books right on the website, including the Art of the Game books.

Personally, I am hooked on all 4 series. Thankfully, they only come out with 1 new book every year so its not that expensive keeping up to date with them once you have actually purchased all of the previous books, which took me over 3 years to do. I buy hard covers for Digital Art Masters and Digital Painting Techniques and buy the limited editions for Exotique and Expose. If you really like quality art books, thier well worth the price!

There is currently a buy one get one half off sale on Digital Painting Techniques and Digital Art Masters currently has a deal where if you buy 2 books you save 10%, 3 books and you save 15% and 4 books and you save 20%. And Ballistic Publishing does have other series as well. They have a series called "d' artiste" that has some really interesting looking books. Here is the link for that series in case anyone is interested in checking them out:

https://www.ballisticpublishing.com/books/dartiste/
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Old 06-13-2016, 04:22 PM   #13
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This book is excellent:
METAL GEAR SOLID V : THE PHANTOM PAIN
T H E - C O M P L E T E - O F F I C I A L - G U I D E
C O L L E C T O R ' S - E D I T I O N

As well as being a level by level guide, there's an art work section
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Old 06-13-2016, 08:44 PM   #14
Grayfox117
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OrangeCrush View Post
I almost forgot, have you ever heard of Expose, Exotique, Digital Painting Techniques, or Digital Art Masters? They are all ongoing series of art books that focus on computer generated art and a lot of it deals with video game subject matter. All 4 series are outstanding and are ultimately some of my all time favorite art books.
Wow that's what I'm talking about. Some of those I had never seen. Thanks for posting. I had seen that expensive Uncharted 2 folio and was very tempted but ultimately it was too expensive and its only for part two. They also made a God of War 2 Folio I believe . Which was also pretty cool and expensive.

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Originally Posted by ukshaun View Post
This book is excellent:
METAL GEAR SOLID V : THE PHANTOM PAIN
T H E - C O M P L E T E - O F F I C I A L - G U I D E
C O L L E C T O R ' S - E D I T I O N

As well as being a level by level guide, there's an art work section
I have this one as also. Bedsides the art and strategy guide. I love how it has a timeline of the story and characters .
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Old 06-15-2016, 10:35 AM   #15
Pyrotwilight
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There's a Fire Emblem Awakening Art book coming out in August that I'm picking up. I LOVE that game and its characters.
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Old 06-16-2016, 05:00 PM   #16
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I actually have ended up with quite a few of them and truth be told... I never know why. I might browse through them at the onset but then never look again. Ideally I'd love to sell them but is there even a market for video game art books?
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Old 06-21-2016, 10:31 PM   #17
OrangeCrush
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I actually have ended up with quite a few of them and truth be told... I never know why. I might browse through them at the onset but then never look again. Ideally I'd love to sell them but is there even a market for video game art books?
Actually the market for video game art books is pretty large and only gets bigger and bigger with each passing year. Thats why they produce art books for pretty much all major game releases now and I am not talking about the cheap one's included in special editions.

If your looking to sell some of your books, just let me know which ones you have. I might be interested in buying some of them if the price is right.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Grayfox117 View Post
Wow that's what I'm talking about. Some of those I had never seen. Thanks for posting. I had seen that expensive Uncharted 2 folio and was very tempted but ultimately it was too expensive and its only for part two. They also made a God of War 2 Folio I believe . Which was also pretty cool and expensive.
Yeah, all 4 of those series are absolutely outstanding. I browse through art books on a pretty regular basis on Amazon and that is where I stumbled onto them. I wound ordering a book from each series and was absolutely hooked. If you like computer generated art, they are without question some of the best art books on the market. Again, I prefer Exotique and Expose, but you can't go wrong with any of them.

And yeah, each book in the "Art of the Game" series has a regular edition, a limited edition, and a folio edition, but the folio editions are not cheap. Again, I have yet to buy any of those books, but I am very tempted to buy the Art of Oddworld Inhabitants. I have been a fan of that game series for a long time and an even bigger fan of the actual art design and character design.

I actually made a post awhile back that I was hoping would become an ongoing thread where new art books got posted up. I would like to see that happen with this thread in regards to gaming art books. Even if you check sites like Amazon on a regular basis, there are always great books that wind up falling through the cracks. Threads like these are great for announcing really great art books that are coming to market!
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Old 07-02-2016, 07:50 AM   #18
d rod
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I have collected quite a few over the years. Thanks to the post, I just preordered the Atari art book. Thanks for the tip!
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Old 07-10-2016, 02:17 PM   #19
OrangeCrush
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I have collected quite a few over the years. Thanks to the post, I just preordered the Atari art book. Thanks for the tip!
Yeah, that Atari Book looks pretty freaking amazing. The art on those Atari 2600 boxes reminds me of old movie poster art in that you just don't see that kind of art style anymore. It was a very unique style used almost predominantly on Atari games. And it really is beautiful artwork. Have been patiently awaiting that books arrival for some time now.
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Old 07-12-2016, 11:10 AM   #20
candyrocket786
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One of my favorites

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