Book Spotlight: Post your fave art books

[squiddysquiddysquiddy]

There's a shitload of HOW TO DRAW books ready posted, so how about some books featuring art now?

My favorite art book so far is the Dark Souls Designworks book. It's filled with gorgeous production pieces, concept art, level design... delicious goodies in the gorgeous dark theme of Dark Souls showing off the creative processes of making the game.

 

[UnwieldyRoomba]

High Focus Drawing is very good if you already have experience in life drawing with models, and have some art skill, and is mostly really helpful for pushing more movement and intensity into them. I personally found it really helpful in all the examples it has! Would definitely look at reviews as they explain it a bit more.

 

[DizzyDame]

The best one I've ever found for drawing animals is "The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals" the author really shows how to draw movement and volume with good anatomy like nothing else, even drawing them from life. I have it with me if people want photos inside. My uncle bought it for me a few years ago, so the book is very important to me.
The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals: Joe Weatherly: 9780971031418: Amazon.com: Books

 

[Sablesword]

No one else seems to have mentioned it, so I'll add Jack Hamm's
Drawing the Head and Figure

 

[S. Zissou]

Top left: Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing
- my favorite anatomy book for muscles and mass

Top Right:
Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection
I heard of Robert Capa through my favorite short story of Patrick Modiano's
His photos are some of the best photojournalism I have ever seen and I've been wanting to revisit
this book again after visiting my alum's art library,. Phaidon is a great
publisher and while this book could've been a smidge bigger, I think the size suits the photos.

Left:
Free Hand New Typography Sketchbooks by Steven Heller, Lita Talarico
Got really obsessed with typography again and this is a newer typo
sketchbook published recently Iwant so bad.

Middle:
Klimt and Schiele: Drawings
Accompanying book of an exhibition I saw at the MFA in Boston. I prefer Schiele's drawings over Klmits because of the energy he puts into each line.
It's a larger format (more coffee table sized) and the reproduction is amazing.

Right:
Alice in Wonderland, Illustrated by Lisebth Zerger
I can't get enough of her watercolors.

 

[Nozabii]

These books are great and all, but I think I found the holy grail of artists books.

It's called the... SKETCHBOOK!

 

[Uathúil]

 

[WXYZ]

 

[Cosmonaughty]

Any one of 'Chris Sanders sketchbook' series! The way he draws anatomy is delightfully sexy, yet remarkabley tastefull!

 

[ChozetsuDynamisch]

Welp, that's mine.

 

[Lyka Snowfiled]

 

[Furr-Fict]

View attachment 31906
Top left: Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing
- my favorite anatomy book for muscles and mass

Top Right:
Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection
I heard of Robert Capa through my favorite short story of Patrick Modiano's
His photos are some of the best photojournalism I have ever seen and I've been wanting to revisit
this book again after visiting my alum's art library,. Phaidon is a great
publisher and while this book could've been a smidge bigger, I think the size suits the photos.

Left:
Free Hand New Typography Sketchbooks by Steven Heller, Lita Talarico
Got really obsessed with typography again and this is a newer typo
sketchbook published recently Iwant so bad.

Middle:
Klimt and Schiele: Drawings
Accompanying book of an exhibition I saw at the MFA in Boston. I prefer Schiele's drawings over Klmits because of the energy he puts into each line.
It's a larger format (more coffee table sized) and the reproduction is amazing.

Right:
Alice in Wonderland, Illustrated by Lisebth Zerger
I can't get enough of her watercolors.

I Second, Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing. It has led me down the right path to learning and exploring gesture, in a way, I didn't think a book could do with art. I highly suggest anyone who is starting out and interested in character design/anatomy to pick this one up. After that I would suggest: Freehand Figure Drawing for Illustrators, by David H. Ross, if you're following that same path. It was a really good look, for me, into how a professional handles their characters and style throughout all their drawings. The main focus of the book is his "glass mannequin", which is also good for beginners to anatomy and perspective. What I really took away from it though, was how to develop my own shape language for characters; to create a cohesive style. Though, if you look at my "art" right now, that's not apparent, but I'll need it for when/if I start comics.