Length:: 1:13 Mins

Heroes & Heroines is a 208 page book that features character designs from Japanese video games and animation. Only titles from 2009 to late 2011 are included.

The illustrations are grouped by the 69 artists who created them. Since so many artists are included, only a selection of their works are featured. Those would be the main characters they designed.

The character designs are wonderful. The variety is incredible, especially for the costumes. It's also quite a good reference for poses too.

Some of the titles included are Persona4, Shining Force EXA, Eden of the East, Fate/Zero, Bayonetta, and more. I've not seen many of the titles before. Many of the Japanese titles are not exported for sale overseas.

The work on the cover is from the video game Catherine, designed by Soejima Shigenori, whose interview is one of the two included. The other interview is with character designer Kaneda Eiji and producer Yoshizawa Junichi for the Rezel Cross PSP game. All text in the book are in both Japanese and English.

If you like Japanese characters and art, this book is highly recommended.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Length:: 1:08 Mins

This is a wonderful artbook filled with beautiful concept art. All 160 pages.

When I first saw the movie trailer, I was really tickled by the monsters. Hotel Transylvania has certainly given not just a new life but also new looks to classic horror monsters.

Majority of art are on the characters. The character designs are funny. Monsters that used to be scary now look comical. The fat Mummy, Werewolf in a shirt with short tie and a hydra with six dog heads are among the many monsters living in that resort hotel.

It's amusing looking at the monsters and reading their stories. Each character comes with many cool variations. Kudos to Carter Goodrich, Annette Marnat, Carlos Grangel and other character designers for the wacky monsters.

Much of the production design are of the castle interiors and props. Different areas and rooms are showed, like the library, kitchen, spa and steam rooms, etc. It It's enjoyable looking at the details that went into the furnishings to make this a cozy hotel.

This is one of my favourite artbooks for 2012.

Highly recommended to art and animation fans.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Length:: 0:56 Mins

Nuthin' But Mech is the book from the blog of the same title. The blog was founded by Lorin Wood and has been updated regularly by a group of talented artists, of which 31 are featured here.

This 128-page paperback features a nice variety of mech designs. Many are weapon equipped mechs but there are also those for utility purposes, some animal inspired designs and two that actually play basketball. These are all original concepts from the artists. As with mech designs, there are lots of details to see.

The art is top notch. Only a handful of pages are devoted to 3D models and renders. The rest are painted, some with sketches.

The book mentioned that this is the first installment so there's more to come.

Highly recommended to those who like robots and mech designs.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Length:: 1:10 Mins

I always find books on optical illusions fun to read. There's that certain delight you get when being tricked by an image, and also the sense of wonder when looking something improbable while trying to figure out what's wrong.

The Art of the Illusion, a 224-page hardcover authored by Brad Honeycutt and Terry Stickels, looks at the several forms of optical illusions such as drawings, photos, geometric shapes, 3D-like street paintings and others. Other than some of the more famous illusions, there are many new ones that I've not seen before.

Websites for the artists featured are also listed so you can explore more online.

It's a nice book to get if you like illusive art.

Length:: 1:14 Mins

This is Udon's translation for the Japanese artbook (ISBN 4862333443) that came out in April 2012. The video game came out in March 2012.

For some reasons, the Japanese artbook reviews were not very favourable.

The character illustrations are mainly by Kazuma Teshigawa from Polygon Pictures. Only a handful of artwork are from old time Street Fighter artists like Akiman or Kinu Nishimura. The style is different. Kazuma Teshigawa likes to mix his illustrations with some sort of 3D water effects which looks a bit weird.

42 characters are featured in the book, not including the 12 extra ones from the downloadable content. Those video game companies like to release extra characters after the game hits retail shelves. As a result, artbooks are unable to feature the whole cast, especially for Street Fighter.

I've not played Tekken before so some of their characters look a bit unusual to me. There's Kuma the bear, King with the leopard head, the non-human boss Ogre, Pac-man and Mega Man who's some cheap looking middle age guy in costume.

There's a section on character splash art, and another on the character designs. The latter has many weird costume swaps for the characters. It's the fat-Rufus-in-angel-costume-with-fluffy-wings-and-halo kind of weird. The 3D character models are great but printed too small. It comes with the character profile and interesting commentary from the staff.

Other art included are screenshots of trailers and endings. The art for stages are again printed too small.

There are four interviews with the staff. The first is with Polygon Pictures that talks about the game's visual design, such as the use of water over the sumi ink style from Street Fighter IV. The second interview is with DIMPS who are in charge of character modeling and the game mechanics. The third is from Akiman and fourth from the Tekken team.

The characters are alright but the art direction of the game feels different compared to Street Fighter IV.

Recommended more to fans of the game.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Length:: 1:28 Mins

This large 352-page paperback reminded me instantly of an earlier book called Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World's Great Graphic Designers. It's also not a coincident that the author is the same Steven Heller.

Comics Sketchbooks features the sketchbook pages of 82 artists. There are comic artists like Jim Steranko, animator Bill Plympton, illustrator Peter de Seve, political cartoonist Ann Telnaes, underground comic artist Robert Crumb and more.

Those are some of the artists I recognise so it's fun to discover a new bunch of them, each with a short profile provided.

A peek at their private sketches reveals the other side of these artists. The sketches show us what they think of and draw while they are unguarded. There are sketches of people on subways, comic ideas, doodles, some literally from dreams and a lot of other weird things. The sketches are rough, some are unfinished, and they all represent some random thought. The artists' hands are like mind seismographs.

The artists' websites are included at the back of the book.

It's a nice visual book for the adventurous reader to dive into.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Length:: 0:48 Mins

Trail of Steel: 1441 A.D. is the graphic novel by Marcos Mateu Mestre. His previous book Framed Ink covers storytelling in graphic form.

This graphic novel uses the techniques he has taught. The story happens in the winter of 1441 A.D. in Spain. A father and his son are on a mission to find some people who pissed off the lady.

The tale unfolds in a cinematic and dramatic manner. Art is amazing. It's in black and white but with the masterful composition, it really gets you close to the action. Characters are carefully placed, directed, and every panel is like a study of tonal value. This book is a good example how powerful composition can be used for storytelling.

At the end of the book are some sketches and his thoughts on the story.

Highly recommended. And definitely check out Framed Ink if you haven't.

The book is available in paperback and hardcover.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Length:: 1:02 Mins

This art book is a visual treat to Disgaea fans.

It's a 192-page paperback filled with illustrations from all four Disgaea games, namely Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice and Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten.

There are illustrations from all sorts of merchandise like game covers, books, soundtrack, other promotional materials and in-game illustrations as well. It's not a concept art book.

The art is beautiful, printed in mixture of sizes from quarter page to full page. It's shonen manga style with very pastel colours throughout. The bulk of art comes from Takehito Harada. However, there are many illustrations drawn by other artists who were not credited. The index page have info on where the art came from. The artist commentary appear for only three illustrations.

This book is translated by Udon from the original Japanese edition (isbn 4048706373) that was published in 2012. That book had mixed reviews, citing the lack of artist credits and duplication of work from other books such as Takehito Harada Art works (isbn 475806265X) and Disgaea 3 Official Design Works (isbn 4797351519). If you don't have those books, then it's not a concern.

If you like the Disgaea series and the style of art, this is a great buy.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Length:: 0:31 Mins

They should have titled this 'The Storyboard Art of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' but that won't be accurate enough either.

This book is a graphic novel made of storyboards from the film. The hardcover is even sized like a normal trade paperback. The movement arrows remain in some storyboards. Storyboards are also cut up to fit into comic panel shapes you typically see. There are no speech bubbles but the whole story is narrated. The story isn't too bad, at least it's complete.

The art is rough as you can expect from a graphic novel. If you're an artist, maybe you can learn a thing or two about staging the scene.

Overall, this book is a like a weirdly mixed cocktail. It's more of a graphic novel than artbook that's for sure. I wish publishers and authors would stop putting "Art of" in book titles when they clearly are not artbooks.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Length:: 1:32 Mins

The Art of Gears of War 3 is one whopping 320-page art book. Not a lot of art books come at this size. It's incredible.

The book is split into two parts, featuring the concept art and production art. There are art for characters, monsters, weapons, vehicles and environments, together with quotes on selected pieces.

The concept art is amazing. They are painted with high levels of detail and look really great. Everything looks gritty real and has weight. That's the art direction of the game. The characters and monsters are bulky but always look believable. There are many variations including discarded concepts. The best ones are then chosen for production.

The second half of the book shows production art version of the concept art as they are used as game assets. The high-res renders and textured mapped models are really amazing. All of them deserve to be made into collectible figures. In particular, the monster models are wicked. They are painstakingly sculpted with mind-blowing details to show all sorts of imaginable contortions.

The environment art are beautiful haunting scenes of ruins and other locations, such as the grandiose interiors of Azura.

The amount of art that goes into making this game is unbelievable. One thing missing is the artist credits. There must have been a lot of artists working on the game.

It's a terrific book overall. Highly recommended for fans of the game, concept artists and collectors. More video games should come up with books like these.

This art book is also available as special and folio editions, both available only from Ballistic Publishing website. An A3 poster comes free for the first 100 customers.

Also check out the earlier video game art books from Ballistic Publishing, namely The Art of God of War III and The Art of Uncharted 2.

(There are more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)