Showing all 16 results
How to Paint Landscapes Quickly and Beautifully with Watercolor and Gouache reveals quick and effective painting setups and techniques to depict any landscape. From simplifying complex scenes and making smart choices about portraying light and texture, to establishing an effective color palette to enhance mood, world-renowned entertainment and fine artist Nathan Fowkes shares priceless lessons that he has developed over twenty five years of painting a broad range of places. His detailed tutorials and thoughtful insights will help you create more impactful, gallery-worthy landscapes on location―without an easel―in record time.
Cinematics Storyboard Workshop is for any artist who wants to learn how to create professional, production-ready storyboards for film, animation, television, and video game cinematics. Modeled on the Cinematics course by artist and educator Gregg Davidson, this must-have guidebook is a concise, in-depth guide to the fundamentals: from storyboard mechanics and camera angles, to shot progression and staging, as well as current digital storyboarding and previsualization practices. Founder of The Animation Academy, Charles Zembillas, called Cinematics Storyboard Workshop “one of the best books on learning how to storyboard.”
No matter what stage artists are in their careers, “it’s necessary to look toward the future eager to learn and to be better every day,” writes artist and best-selling author Marcos Mateu-Mestre (Framed Ink, Framed Perspective Vol. 1 & 2) in his latest book, Framed Drawing Techniques, which is packed with opportunities to do just that. In exquisite and thoughtful detail, Mateu-Mestre lays out distinct approaches to drawing in the book’s chapters—The Ballpoint Pen, Graphite Pencil, The Digital Way, and The Gray Scale—outlining the benefits and challenges of each, and specific techniques that can be applied to one’s work in all the mediums to achieve the greatest results. Alongside his important technical lessons, on everything from depicting reflected light on a character’s hair to how to add rain to dramatize a scene, is Mateu-Mestre’s awe-inspiring artwork, which serves to educate and motivate artists of all levels to discover what incredible storytelling is possible with a single pen or pencil (or tablet).
Are you ready to begin your career as a concept artist in the video game industry but don't know where to start?
The Big Bad World of Concept Art for Video Games: How to Start Your Career as a Concept Artist is book two in the Big Bad series, delving deeper into the subjects and topics explored previously in An Insider's Guide for Students. Going beyond the amateur level, this guide prepares the upcoming professional, or any other artist, for a future in the entertainment industry. Whether you are a graduating student joining the workforce, a young professional who has just broken into the job market, or even an existing professional frustrated with your current situation, receive help figuring out what comes next for a fulfilling career.
Eliott Lilly is a highly sought-after concept artist with over a decade of experience in the video game industry. He has worked for such prominent game companies as id Software, Treyarch, and Activision. He has contributed to several popular franchises, including Rage, Doom, and Call of Duty. Also an educator, Eliott teaches introductory concept art classes to university students.
With his firsthand knowledge of the ins and outs of the video game industry, Eliott Lilly is an exceptional guide who can help prepare you for the rewarding journey toward realizing your ambitions.
The Silver Way: Techniques, Tips and Tutorials for Effective Character Design by Stephen Silver offers invaluable instruction from one of best teachers in the industry. Whether you’re a professional artist interested in improving your drawing skills, or an aspiring designer fresh out of high school looking to add to your portfolio, The Silver Way will help you build your confidence and strengthen your work in order to successfully design characters for any project, in any style. Chockfull of helpful—and entertaining!—drawing techniques and easy-to-follow tutorials developed through his decades of experience as an artist on popular animated shows (Kim Possible, Danny Phantom, The Fairly OddParents) and as the owner of Silver Drawing Academy, The Silver Way is the kind of educational art book you’ll revisit again and again for guidance, encouragement, and inspiration.
How can I be more creative? People from every walk of life have asked this question. Whether the motivation is to find more personal satisfaction in everyday life or to achieve success in the workplace, the desire for creativity, and the struggle to sustain it, is universal. Drawing on his varied experiences as a successful product designer and creative director, as well as a seasoned educator and a working parent, Fridolin Beisert’s Creative Strategies: 10 Approaches to Solving Design Problems uncovers priceless strategies to lead a more creative life—in any industry, at any level—whether you are a student, a teacher, a parent, or a CEO. Beisert’s approaches, cleverly and appropriately titled Pattern Breaking, Planting Limits, and Reality Hacking, to name a few, are revealed through case studies and personal anecdotes that are both entertaining and illuminating, and demonstrate that creativity is a skill that can be learned the same way that we learn how to ride a bicycle: by actively practicing it.
Perspective is a discipline often set aside when it comes to general art study, though it is essential to master in order to produce any piece of art that is and feels realistic. As intimidating as perspective may seem to aspiring artists, celebrated artist and author Marcos Mateu-Mestre takes the mystery out of understanding and applying it correctly with his highly anticipated two-volume collection, Framed Perspective.
In FramedPerspective, Vol. 1: Technical Drawing for Visual Storytelling, Mateu-Mestre equips artists with the technical knowledge needed to produce successful visual storytelling–related drawings: from understanding the basics of the space around us and how we perceive it, to more sophisticated endeavors such as creating entire environments that are believable.
Sure to be one of the most popular books in your art library, thanks to Mateu-Mestre’s thorough step-by-step explanations and awe-inspiring illustrations, Framed Perspective, Vol. 1 will train you to enjoy every curve and slope you see in the world and, more importantly, translate that vision into art with a solid comprehension of depth and proportion—in short, accuracy. Your perspective will never be the same!
Building on the foundation established with Framed Perspective, Vol. 1: Technical Drawing for Visual Storytelling, artist and best-selling author Marcos Mateu-Mestre delves deeper into particular elements that can make or break an illustration with Framed Perspective, Vol. 2: Technical Drawing for Shadows, Volume, and Characters.
Here he covers such challenging tasks as projecting shadows in proper perspective on various environments and depicting characters in perspective set in different situations—and makes them less daunting. You will also learn how to effectively observe a model or object in order to extract just the right amount of information to then translate it into an impactful graphic and visual image, the goal of every visual storyteller.
Only in Framed Perspective, Vol. 2, will you find Mateu-Mestre’s imaginative scenes explored in great detail, revealing invaluable drawing techniques—from how to capture the essence of a character with one gestural line, to using clothing folds to further define the shape and volume of a character—to help you drastically improve your drawings. It all depends on your perspective!
Whether you’re an aspiring artist or new to the medium, seasoned instructor and accomplished artist Nathan Fowkes makes drawing portraits in charcoal not only accessible, but also a real pleasure! From stocking the best supplies to using them effectively, and composing a portrait while avoiding common mistakes, How to Draw Portraits in Charcoal by Nathan Fowkes will place you firmly on the path to producing the charcoal portraits you've dreamed of creating. His easy-to-follow tips, in-depth tutorials, and valuable exercises make this guide your first step toward building an understanding and appreciation for every face you draw. This handy book will not only equip you with the skills to capture them in beautiful charcoal fashion but also to transfer those skills to any media.
Do you dream of becoming a concept artist in the video game industry but don't know where to start? The Big Bad World of Concept Art for Video Games: An Insider's Guide for Beginners gives aspiring artists an honest, informative, and entertaining look at what it takes to do just that. Author Eliott Lilly will help you on your journey from finding the right school and how to get the most out of your education, to preparing your portfolio to land that first job. In addition, renowned concept artists—David Levy, Sparth, Stephan Martiniere, Ben Mauro, and Farzad Varahramyan—share their own dos and don'ts to making a career in the video game industry a reality.
This book is about the fundamentals of light, shadow and reflectivity; the focus is firmly on helping to improve visual understanding of the world around and on techniques for representing that world.
Rendering is the next step after drawing to communicate ideas more clearly. Building on what Scott Robertson and Thomas Bertling wrote about in How To Draw: Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments from Your Imagination, this book shares everything the two experts know about how to render light, shadow and reflective surfaces.
This book is divided into two major sections: the first explains the physics of light and shadow. One will learn how to construct proper shadows in perspective and how to apply the correct values to those surfaces. The second section focuses on the physics of reflectivity and how to render a wide range of materials utilizing this knowledge.
Throughout the book, two icons appear that indicate either “observation” or “action.” This means the page or section is about observing reality or taking action by applying the knowledge and following the steps in creating your own work.
Similar to our previous book, How To Draw, this book contains links to free online rendering tutorials that can be accessed via the URL list or through the H2Re app.
How to Draw is for artists, architects and designers. It is useful to the novice, the student and the professional. You will learn how to draw any object or environment from your imagination, starting with the most basic perspective drawing skills.
Early chapters explain how to draw accurate perspective grids and ellipses that in later chapters provide the foundation for more complex forms. The research and design processes used to generate visual concepts are demonstrated, making it much easier for you to draw things never-before-seen!
Best of all, more than 25 pages can be scanned via a smartphone or tablet using the new Design Studio Press app, which link to video tutorials for that section of the book! You have to see it to believe it! An unprecedented technology, connecting printed matter to online digital educational content.
With a combined 26 years of teaching experience, Scott Robertson and Thomas Bertling bring you the lessons and techniques they have used to help thousands of their students become professional artists and designers.
This book is indispensable for anyone who wants to learn, or teaches others, how to draw.
Graphic L.A. is part practical instruction, part guided meditation on the importance of color values and objects in art. The reader is led by the professional instruction of Robh Ruppel; instructor at the Art Center College of Design, Gnomon School of Visual Effects, and Concept Art Academy. He is also a multiple award-winning art director of video games.
By reducing environments down to basic shapes and colors (or “symbols”), Robh builds astounding images. Robh documents the progression of building an image while referencing basic techniques. By using color with surprisingly bold brushstrokes, he produces images of incredible depth with intricate handling of light and shadow. It is a rare exploration into simplicity without resorting to minimalism.
Readers will be certain to take away both a sense of admiration for Robh Ruppel’s work and a greater understanding and appreciation for the importance of color value relationships in all forms of art.
Art of the PaperBlue is a must have art book for artists, entertainment designers, and anyone who wants to learn to paint creative environment paintings. PaperBlue shares his knowledge of creating environment conceptual paintings for movies, games, and other entertainment industry fields. This book shows more than 10 full-length step-by-step tutorials with detailed explanations and hundreds of stunning art works and numerous quick sketches. In addition, PaperBlue shares his techniques of using custom brushes, smudge tools, color theories, compositions, and many other techniques helpful in creating imaginative art works. This book features Sci-Fi environment paintings, fantasy paintings, vehicle designs, Mechs, ships, fighters, aircrafts and more. Get ready to be inspired by the gorgeous artwork of PaperBlue, all while learning his painting techniques via step-by-step tutorials.
Framed Ink – The ultimate guide to visual storytelling! How to make the audience “feel” the story while they are “reading” the story. Using his experiences from working in the comic book industry, movie studios and teaching, Marcos introduces the reader to a step‑by‑step system that will create the most successful storyboards and graphics for the best visual communication. After a brief discussion on narrative art, Marcos introduces us to drawing and composing a single image, to composing steady shots to drawing to compose for continuity between all the shots. These lessons are then applied to three diverse story lines ‑ a train accident, a cowboy tale and bikers approaching a mysterious house. In addition to setting up the shots, he also explains and illustrates visual character development, emotive stances and expressions along with development of the environmental setting to fully develop the visual narrative.
Spanish born Marcos Mateu Mestre is a visual concept, traditional animation layout, and graphic novel artist whose film credits include titles such as ‘Balto’, ‘The Prince of Egypt’, ‘Asterix and the Vikings’ and ‘Surf’s Up’ amongst others. With an extensive experience of twenty years in feature animation, working mainly for Dreamworks and Sony Pictures, he has also been teaching drawing, illustration and visual storytelling techniques for twelve years. His works as a film maker have mostly included both the design and cinematic aspects of film, taking care of frame composition, lighting and visual continuity of many key sequences in some major productions.
A tale from the Brothers Grimm provides inspiration for three gifted students from the world-renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Khang Le, Mike Yamada, and Felix Yoon were guided by their instructor, Scott Robertson, to create original design solutions for the environments, characters, props, and vehicles found within The Skillful Huntsman. The trio’s sketches and full-color renderings thoroughly document the creative process of concept design, revealing a host of intriguing places—from sci-fi cities to castles, and people—from giants to royalty. A must for artists, aspiring entertainment designers, comic aficionados, and anyone interested in the creative process, The Skillful Huntsman offers insight into the mysterious world of the imagination.