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Artbooks - The Best And The Worst

shaowebb

Member
Best that I own by a mile is the Culdcept complete works from the PS2 era card game. I own a LOT of artbooks too including Amano artbooks.

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Video of the book

It contains card art from multiple famous painters in japan who worked with Omiyasoft to create the series.
 

DemWalls

Member
Did the Bloodborne artbook ever get translated.

Not yet (and if it takes as long as the DS II one, we'll have to be very patient), but the Japanese edition has everything both in Japanese and English. Actually, there is barely any text at all.
 

Nikokuno

Member
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3 books .. it is huge ... but since pretty much every art is full page, lots of art were left out, specialy from the later FF that had fewer amano art

I have this one too and never opened it.

Oh, Shigenori Seojima Art Works:2004-2010 is a must have for Persona 3/4 fan and people who love drawing too. This guy is a God period, so talented, I'll probably buy Personal 5's art book.
 

cj_iwakura

Member
Does anybody have any impressions of the Kaneko Works?

The last Japanese artbook I bought was the disappointing Sugimori Works so I'm hesitant to drop $300 on Kaneko works sight unseen even though he's one of my favorite artists.
When did they get so expensive? It depends on which one you want. I have the first book and it's fantastic. Haven't seen two or three yet.
 

JayBabay

Member
Ji8hytO.jpg


3 books .. it is huge ... but since pretty much every art is full page, lots of art were left out, specialy from the later FF that had fewer amano art

Thanks for bringing this to light, I just purchased the same set from Amazon after seeing it here. What a beautiful collection.
 

hampig

Member
Even as somebody with no interest in Disney stuff, that Epic Mickey one looks amazing. I might have to look into that.
 

Garudan

Banned
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Might be a little niche but this was like sub-5 bucks on Amazon a few weeks ago and I'm a big fan of SUDA51 so this was pretty awesome.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Many good choices around here :D i hope i have more spaces to add more to my 100+ Art books collection
 
Alice Madness Returns artbook is amazing...

Second this! Also recommend taking a look at the Dead End Thrills screenshot gallery and interview with Art Director Ken Wong:
http://deadendthrills.com/little-china-doll-alice/
Wong: ...There was always this agenda to inject a lot of colour into the scenes, to have very vivid hallucinatory colours wherever we could... We wanted to put our finger on the pulse of why that first game had such resonance. Why were people still talking about Alice and making fan art of it ten years later? We looked at what people were producing and that’s what helped the concept artists get a hold of what made this game special... She’s not framed in a relationship with a male, she’s not the sidekick of a male, she’s not a daughter, she’s not the love interest. She’s her own person. She’s the star. It was really as simple as that... But there was so much on the cutting room floor, which is why I’m glad we have that art book, because a lot of my favourite ideas are in there... There’s so much detail we created that’s not very obvious. For example, the doctors in the Asylum have scalpels and other medical tools on their fingers, and the nurses have no eyes and seven fingers or something. It was so much fun to design all those little things...

Also:
Remember Me: Aleksi Briclot is a god. The visual the concepts and the works are stunning. A must have for any cyber punk or neon enthusiast, regardless if you enjoyed the game or not...

Second this as well! No corresponding Dead End Thrills feature yet (just the gallery), but he did take a look at another game's Neon-Dystopian 'Cyberpunk' vision:
http://deadendthrills.com/future-imperfect-the-lost-art-of-westwoods-blade-runner/
Duncan Harris: ...Its vision of a near-future Los Angeles, a society pushed to the limits of architecture, industry, technology and population, remains a touchstone for designers whatever their trade. And as 2019 approaches looking nothing like it, it’s not relief that we feel but regret; we’ve got its problems of isolation, privatisation and the demise of the natural world, yet we’ve failed to invent the flying cars, sky-piercing towers and offworld colonies. No wonder our artists choose, with apparently endless enthusiasm, to build such futures for themselves... The following combines two Dead End Thrills features published in 2010... They return here as a single piece which, for the first time, includes the full set of production renders found in the garage of 3D artist David Austin as part of the feature’s research...
 
It fluctuates prices every now and then. There are sites to set up an alert when it drops below a certain price. I got it for like 6 bucks and the next day it jumped back up to full price.

Yeah, it was like $10 the other day and right now it's goddamn $40. Should have gotten it then. Oh well, hopefully it drops back down a bit.
 
Hyrule Historia was disapointing ... lots of games have just one or two pages and lots of focus on text and timeline and stuff.

Wasn't that the point of the book? It wasn't a strict art book as it was a history of the series and the in-game universe. If it wasn't a previously unreleased illustration, it was simply a graphic given to provide visual context.
 
Darkstalkers Graphic File, Art of Dead Space, The Last Of Us, Bioshock Infinite and Persona 4 are awesome.

I hate those Udon books though. I'm not into fan art.
 

Platy

Member
Wasn't that the point of the book? It wasn't a strict art book as it was a history of the series and the in-game universe. If it wasn't a previously unreleased illustration, it was simply a graphic given to provide visual context.

It was ... both.

It had the timeline and history stuff

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but the last half was basicaly an artbook.

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But like an rpg character who tries to be good everything, it ended up sucking in at least one of the parts =P

I am hyped for the next artbook that will be released in february I think ... appears to be just art ....and artifacts

 

Curler

Unconfirmed Member
I sure wish we actually got the Pokemon artbooks... We did get the TCG one (only available in a BIG TCG special box thingie), and will be getting the manga artbook translated, but never these...

For ORAS and SM, if you pre-ordered both games at the Pokemon Center in Japan, these are what you would get:




Small, hardcover, but GORGEOUS!!!! I miss the days when Namco and Atlus used to just hand out separate artbooks for preorders!
 

fatherKratos

Neo Member
Best ones that i own:
- Journey: Good commentary, art and gr8 design.
- GOW:Ascension: Its massive!! Must have for GOW fans.
- Half Life 2: Raising the bar: Title says it all.

Good ones:
- Rocksteady's Batman: Good commentary, only issue - lots of in game renders.
- Bioshock Infinite: Lacks commentary, but art content is good.
- TLOU

Art book that came with UC4 collector's edition is the worst i have. Would not have paid even 5$ for it. Hoping that the one with The Last Guardian's collector's edition turns out good.

If only there is one for Ni No Kuni.....it would have been amazing!!
 

Firebrand

Member
This thread made me go look up some art books on Square-Enix's store... what the flying fuck, the only shipping option is 7-day DHL at €35 (!).
 

1upsuper

Member
I got the Darkstalkers Official Complete Works the other day and it's really great. Udon really knows what they're doing. I want to get all their Capcom books now.
 

Auctopus

Member
The problem with buying a non-translated Design Works is that the previous two have contained very eye-opening interviews with the creators. The interview at the end of the Dark Souls 2 English translation actually partially changed my opinion on the game (previously very negative).

Dark Souls 2 didn't take that long to be translated. Seeing as Bloodborne hasn't been translated yet, I'd assume they're not doing it. I haven't seen any news of even a JP Dark Souls 3 one either.
 

V1ctIm

Neo Member
Holy hell, I had no idea the Journey art book was worth that much. Need to make sure mine is in a nice safe spot at home.

I've got some of the other lovely ones in this thread... HL2 Raising the Bar, The Art of Alice. One other particularly nice one I haven't seen mentioned is The Art of Destiny - lots of great sci-fi inspiration in that one.
I was just going to post about the Destiny book. I loooove the sci if art inspiration in there and it gets me so excited to see what Destiny 2 might hold. Love that game world.
 

Mariip

Member
Journey%20Art%20Book%20-%20Blog.jpg


Journey Artbook is amazing. One gaffer got me this for Secret Santa last year I think. It's my favorite because it goes in amazing depth to explain the entire creative process, all the hit and misses, all the idea scrapped or explored to get to the game. I never though such a visually simple game could have taken so much research and time to nail... Its a must have for any artist or game enthusiast curious to dig into the creative process.
Really love how they included the 3d artwork in augmented reality form, this book is essential to anyone who wants to work in art direction, and the pictures are just gorgeous.
 

Dascu

Member
The problem with buying a non-translated Design Works is that the previous two have contained very eye-opening interviews with the creators. The interview at the end of the Dark Souls 2 English translation actually partially changed my opinion on the game (previously very negative).

Dark Souls 2 didn't take that long to be translated. Seeing as Bloodborne hasn't been translated yet, I'd assume they're not doing it. I haven't seen any news of even a JP Dark Souls 3 one either.

Very true. I got the DS2 artbook recently and reading the interview made me a lot more respectful for the 'B-team'. I was never all that harsh on the game anyway, but it made me appreciate the challenges they were facing and how, all in all, they did a good job to overcome them.
 

DemWalls

Member
The problem with buying a non-translated Design Works is that the previous two have contained very eye-opening interviews with the creators. The interview at the end of the Dark Souls 2 English translation actually partially changed my opinion on the game (previously very negative).

Dark Souls 2 didn't take that long to be translated. Seeing as Bloodborne hasn't been translated yet, I'd assume they're not doing it. I haven't seen any news of even a JP Dark Souls 3 one either.

You think so? Maybe it's because they delayed it countless times, but it seemed to me it took forever to come out. A year and a half, almost, I consider it "that long" XD

Anyway, unlike the others, the Bloodborne artbook doesn't have an interview at the end (unfortunately), so that's not really a problem if one wants to purchase it in Japanese. Besides, as I said above, everything's in English too.
 
Not based off of a video game, but The Legend of Korra's art books are pretty damn awesome. There are four books, one covering each season. They're full of amazing full page background illustrations, concept art, character art, and storyboards. Each piece of art has a blurb about the production of the show, the evolution of an idea, or additional canon information from the creators about the world. They're amazing books for fans of the series.

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I have quite a few and they're all amazing:

Dark Souls Design Works (Various)
The Art of Grasshopper Manufacture (Various)

Tactics Ogre Artworks (Akihiko Yoshida & Tsubasa Masao)

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The%2BReview%2Bof%2BTactics%2BOgre%2BArt%2BWorks%2B%25E3%2582%25BF%25E3%2582%25AF%25E3%2583%2586%25E3%2582%25A3%25E3%2582%25AF%25E3%2582%25B9%25E3%2582%25AA%25E3%2582%25A6%25E3%2582%25AC%2B%25E9%2581%258B%25E5%2591%25BD%25E3%2581%25AE%25E8%25BC%25AA_14.jpg


Digital Devil Apocalypse (Kazuma Kaneko)

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mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I've been looking to get that Genesis/MD Complete Works book, but I remember visiting a site that shipped it to the US for free and I can't remember what it was. They shipped all the Read Only Memory books as well as the Bitmap Bros books, anyone know what I mean?
 

Dascu

Member
I have quite a few and they're all amazing:

Dark Souls Design Works (Various)
The Art of Grasshopper Manufacture (Various)

Tactics Ogre Artworks (Akihiko Yoshida & Tsubasa Masao)

Digital Devil Apocalypse (Kazuma Kaneko)
Thumbs up, I got the same except DDA. Would you say the latter is the best Kaneko artbook or are there other/more comprehensive ones? I'm mostly interested in the SMT art, not Persona.
 
Thumbs up, I got the same except DDA. Would you say the latter is the best Kaneko artbook or are there other/more comprehensive ones? I'm mostly interested in the SMT art, not Persona.

If you like early SMT (SMT1, 2 and ...if) this is a treat. If you like his work on Devil Summoner as well like the original and Soul Hackers. Lots of both his demon designs and his character designs. There's also lots of Maken X work in there too which is one of my favourites because of just how wacky/insane it is. It's basically all of his work up until Maken X (SMT1, SMT2, ...if, Devil Summoner, Soul Hackers, Persona, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Maken X), so it's missing his PS2 era stuff. If you understand any Japanese there's lots of interviews as well. I think it's a great art book at a great price (if you get it imported from Japan), get it.
 
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