Artbooks

Z

zeldafreak

Brigade Leader
Don't know where this would best fit, but seeing as the artbooks I am talking about are anime related I'll put it here =]

Do any of you guys collect artbooks? I have just started buying them and have got "Uzumaki: The Art of Naruto", "All colour but the Black: The art of Bleach" and "Okami: The complete works" (game i know...).

The Bleach one is brilliant if I do say so. It's finally nice to see Tite Kubos work artwork in full size. The Okami Complete works though is my favourite. I would recommend it to anyone, gamer, art fan...alike!!

What, if any would you guys recommend? I'm eyeing up the 3 FMA artbooks, the Samurai Champloo artbook and most of UDONs Capcom artbooks as my next purchases, but other than that I am drawing a blank.
 
Are they english?? I know the first one was released by Viz and if the quaity of the Bleach and Naruto ones are anything to go by I know they'd be good.
 
Get what you like, I have a few artbooks lying around. If you have a series that make you go, "this would look awsome as a decent print on A4" get it. Things like all the CLAMP artbooks are great if you like their art (reproductions of the colour chapter title pages from their manga).
 
I own the Vampire Hunter D one that Darkhorse released. I only bought it for Yoshitaka Amano's art, it's so... amazing.
 
Has anyone got the "Naruto Anime Profiles" books? They seem to cover about 37 episodes each but can't find a decent review so don't know if they are worthwhile....=[
 
Stop collecting now, you can't beat him. (And that's just the Asian page). This page makes me wish there were more background art collections easily available here.

Ok, so I have a few easily obtained ones myself.

Ghibli:
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Kiki's Delivery Service
- My Neighbour Totoro
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind Watercolor Impressions
- Porco Rosso
- Spirited Away
- Ponyo

Pixar:
- Finding Nemo
- The Incredibles
- Pixar Short Films
- Ratatouille
- Up
- Wall-E
- Toy Story 3
(Also the fantastic 'Story of Pixar' book, "To Infinity and Beyond")

Disney
- The Art and Flair of Mary Blair (retrospective on the career of a Disney concept artist and Imagineer... Mid 40s to 50s / Small Small World. Disney is the next big investment in my collection).
- Beauty and the Beast
- Princess and the Frog
- Tangled

Games:
- Bioshock (the full-sized 'developer's edition' one)
- Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar (Probably the first book of this type that I got)
- Halo

Reaper gI said:
If you have a series that make you go, "this would look awsome as a decent print on A4" get it.
Click to expand...
That's pretty much all there is to it. There is a little variability to what you get: those Pixar books for instance, are 99% concept and production art, whereas the Ghibli ones tend to be about 30% finished product. I don't really mind either way, but it bothers some. Game art books are typically a little inept. The Halo one is pretty awful (rendered weapon models? It's not a manual ffs). Though to be fair, a lot of the Halo 1 / 2 production art was destroyed in an office flood.

But the link to Parka above basically gives you an idea of what's in all the most obvious books. Curse that Singaporean devil!
 
In anime terms I have:

Yoshitoshi ABe:
Lain: Omnipresence in Wired
NieA_7 Scrap

Kenichi Sonoda: Garden Party

Rei Hiroe: Barrage

Dirty Pair Complete Artworks
Gurren Lagann Yoko Portraits
Gundam Character Encyclopedia (old version with Amuro cover)

Will be buying more Sonoda once I know which books overlap and which don't. I'd really like the Haibane Renmei and YKK artbooks as well, but they are like gold dust to find now and almost as expensive. That reminds me I want the Kino's Journey ones too. Artbook spending spree time!
 
Yeah, parkas blog has been my internet home for the past week or so lol.

The problem with me is I don't have a large range of anime i'd buy for. Bleach, FMA and maybe some clamp ones. I'd love the death note one as well!!

Udon's Okami release completely blew me away though, it helps that I love the game, but finding something as authoritative on another game and released in English is hard to do!! I want the Shadow of the Colossus and Ico ones, but they're only in Japanese and with them I'd like to read as well as look!!

Interested in selling that Half-Life one? I had the taster book that came with the LE release of HL2 but never got round to buying the full one, this is a long shot i know because it is so awesome lol
 
zeldafreak said:
Interested in selling that Half-Life one? I had the taster book that came with the LE release of HL2 but never got round to buying the full one, this is a long shot i know because it is so awesome lol
Click to expand...
Not a chance :p I always wished I'd got a second copy, because once the print-run dried up, the second hand prices became pretty ridiculous. It has enough value as a plain decent book though. The stuff they didn't use is fascinating (and why they didn't use it is pretty well justified).

A lot of the content is out there on the net, mind you.
 
Bugger me, I also have a hardback copy of Raising the Bar... is it really going for the kind of prices Amazon leads me to believe? I like it, but I'm not sure I like it more than having £90 in my pocket.
 
Haha, no prob mate. If I had one i'd keep my hands on it. I remember seeing it in Ottakars shortly after it was released and I literally fell in love with it but couldn't afford it at the time, and then it was gone =[

Just been looking at the books available from Amano. Very interested in:

Dawn: The worlds of Final Fantasy
The Worlds of Amano
The Collected Art of Vampire Hunter D
Coffin:The Art of Vampire Hunter D *This looks absolutely amazing*
 
Dawn looked interesting, but I gather it's mainly just stuff from the earliest of the Final Fantasy games (1 through to 4. Unless that Amazon reviewer is a Roman Numeral Tard). The book I have in my wishlist is called 'Amano: The Complete Prints', but I couldn't tell you exactly why I have it in there (been a while, also out of print). It is a 300-odd page book though, whereas Dawn and Worlds are about half the size.
 
Yeah, I saw that one and saw its unavailability lol, but t would be nice to have under the old coffee table!!

With Dawn, yes it's all pre FF7. Amano did all the character sketches for the early titles and I must say, I really do appreciate his art style.I remember getting my EGM subscription with this on the cover;

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/File ... usYuna.jpg

I literally jizzed in my pants lol.
 
I shelled out for the Evangelion "Der Mond" some years ago, but I wouldn't consider it a particularly essential purchase.

I like the idea of having artbooks, particularly as reference when I'm drawing, but they're big, hefty tomes and I grudge giving up what little shelf-space is left to me for something of such dubious practical worth.

Perhaps if the content was available as a digital download, I might be willing to buy more of them.
 
Not got many yet - currenly own the following,

Yoshitoshi Abe Lain Illustrations Book (L) (Hardcover)
Ai Yori Aoshi Complete Works art book (includes cd with illustrations)
Chobits Your eyes only Artbook
Fate/Stay night Visual collection
Aria the Origination Perfect guide book (includes drama cd)

I hope to get a few more in the near future though.
 
i'm going after a range murata artbook right now called futurythm. I love his last exile and blue submarine 6 stuff. Look for a set by him called form-code. The package looks amazing, too pricey for my liking though lol.
 
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