Drawing Basics and Video Game Art: Classic to Cutting-Edge Art Techniques for Winning Video Game Design Paperback – Illustrated, September 18, 2012

This book uses a lot of traditional as well as modern references in art as well as video games to give artists an amazing view at how companies come up with their visions.I'll be honest, I initially only bought this book cuz I heard the TF2 characters were published inside (yes, I'm one of THOSE people) but this actually turned out to be an amazing reference for a newbie designer.Everything that I learned from Impact art books you'd find at Hobby Lobby or Michael's or something by the sketching section doesn't compare to this. Why? Like I said, references... And it covers SO MUCH. I first took it out of the package thinking it would be a skinny little book like they had at Scholastic sales back in elementary school, but HOLY COW - this had some weight to it! This makes an honest-to-goodness amazing book for beginner artists and seasoned alike, if not for a refresher on certain topics, then for a fresh look on things they may have already covered like landscaping and proportion.So, if you're going shopping for some nerd's birthday or have no idea what to buy your grandson for getting straight-A's all year, I'd definitely give this a shot. As a professional illustrator and animator myself, this book sincerely surprised me.

I’ve been trying to get back into making art (I did go to art school, after all) and this seemed like a well reviewed book. Plus, the Kindle edition was very reasonably priced at $12. Drawing Basics and Video Game Art: Classic to Cutting-Edge Art Techniques for Winning Video Game Design by Chris Solarski is not a long book (at 240 pages) but it’s well worth reading.It almost seems like it’s two different books sandwiched together. The start is with basic drawing techniques and a study of classical artists. Anatomy, proportions, perspective, composition and layout, etc. Then the second part is more of a study of modern games with things like how color sets a mood, use of different shapes to evoke feelings, horizon lines, etc. It’s all very interesting, and I think would be helpful to not just artists but anyone working in gaming.Just be aware, the book doesn’t really teach you how to be a good artist. There are various topics covered that can certainly help an artist, but there is little direct instruction (outside of the brief introduction at the beginning). I don’t think that was the author’s intention, and there are really tons of more general art books out there if you are so inclined. Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is more about theory and I feel the author is successful in that aspect. Solarski also managed to get screenshots of many popular games to analyze in the text, and thankfully all the images were in full color on my Kindle Fire tablet.Overall, I liked the book and I think you will too.

Most of the focus is on drawing fundamentals, human body, and comparing classical art to modern videogame art. This is not a comprehensive guide to creating video game art. It is missing other important topics such as creating art digitally, inorganic objects such as buildings, and color. More useful for the beginner artist such as me than an expert traditional artist transitioning to game design. I have improved greatly in my drawing skills over the past month despite only spending 30 minutes a day on this book. Another good thing is that the materials to learn from this book you need can be found easily and cheaply. All you need is paper, pencil, and an eraser to do most of the tutorials.

I'm an art teacher who teaches foundations and I've been searching for years for a book that connects the import of knowing the basics and their application to today's technology and media. This is the book. A Rembrandt on one page, a Halo still on the other. The book discusses perspective, foreshortening, atmosphere, composition, figure - all the things an artist should know but students who want to do digital work think the computer will do for them. This book is fun and really integrates the two genres (traditional and digital artwork) in a way that is useful and cohesive to the reader. Highly recommend for students and teachers alike. Not for art snobs who discriminate against the genre, but it would do them good to read. Venues that pay commercial artists and designers are just as dependent on the artful use of basics as the masters of traditional fine art were, and let's face it, digital is making headway into fine art too. Highly recommend.

I have a couple of years of life drawing experience, but I've always felt that drawing from my imagination--and thus concept art--was out of my reach. With life drawing, one can get away with "drawing what you see." This requires certain techniques to get your erroneous assumptions out of the way to actually see what is really there, which is an essential skill to practice, but alas: when there's no reference there's no way I could draw anything. That's the problem I ran into, and I honestly didn't see any way to overcome it. This book makes me feel like it's possible!I've done all of the exercises in the first three chapters, and have been working through the human anatomy portions. (Detailed lessons on art-relevant human anatomy makes up most of the book.) The lesson on perspective is continuing to blow my mind. I'm not sure if the author should have gone into more detail, or if the best way to learn is just to attempt to draw lots of things from different angles, but either way I'm getting a lot of mileage out of just that small portion of the book.There is a wealth of information in this book, and its given me a ton of new stuff to learn and practice. There's not a lot of fluff in here. I highly recommend this book to anyone who's wants to learn concept art.