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DIGITAL
LIGHTING & RENDERING
By Jeremy Birn
Probably the best book on how
to light digital 3D renderings! WOW! A real must have, seriously
:) WIsh I had this one years ago!.
It's not "Platform specific", but address the
vital topics common to nearly all 3D render app's when lighting
your scenes, which is vital to good looking art.
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ANATOMY
FOR FANTASY ARTISTS
by Glenn Fabry
This one's real good book, a
large paperback. About how to build musculature, the looks,
bodies etc of different types of folk / characters.
Really very useful for any character work.
Even if you do 3d stuff, i'ts great because it can show
you how muscles and bodies should look
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FANTASY
ART WORKSHOP
by John Howe
He's one of the 2 fellas who
did the major art work for LOTR films.
His work is very "Painterly", really
impressive masterpieces. Book explains lot of his work
preocesses and sketches etc. Damn he's good!
John makes a point about gathering resources
;) Hardback book.
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HOW
TO CHEAT IN PHOTOSHOP CS3
By Steve Caplin
This is lot of great tips for
Photoshop (and to fair extent similar apps, like PaintShopPro).
Mostly about how to do effects like making montages, blending
images etc, but very damn smart stuff and useful. Although
I do 3d work, 2D stuff is needed a lot to either make
textures for 3d models, or improve a final image. Paperback.
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3D
Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art Using Photoshop
by Luke Ahearn
This is about how to make textures
for 3d objects, mostly for games, but same stuff applies
to "art" work as well. making textures to make
3d objects look believable, is an art all itself, believe
me!
This book rocks, it's in colour
(*), and is full of practical
tutorials,demonstrations on how to build for sci-fi, fantasy,
etc scenes. Lot of neat tips and tricks. paperback.
* OMFG, by
comparison, I hate art tutorial books that are
in black and white, as you cannot see what is going on
in many images or tutorials !!
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3DWORLD
MAGAZINE
A great monthly magazine on
3d art, it covers all topics but mostly middle to high
end apps. It does do Poser, Bryce and such, but not as
much as Lightwave, Maya, 3DMAX etc.
Each issue has a CD or DVD which
usually has 3d models, textures or other freebies, so
it's damn nice way to build up resources.
Lots of great tutorials and explanations on
different packages each month, lots of genuinely useful
tips folk ask about.
I really like this mag!
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IMAGINEFX
MAGAZINE
Fantasy/sci-fi digital art mag.
This is nearly all 2D work, alas it had more 3D work too
but seems purely 2D currently, sigh. It is still fantastic
though and 2D artists will lap it up! Lot of famous artists
and their work is shown and examined, like Josh Kirby
(Discworld covers), Frank Frazetta etc.
Lots of great work showcased, tons of tutorials
and projects in Photoshop, Painter etc. Interviews with
artists, some reviews of apps, books etc but it's not
stuffed with 'em (i.e. it's aimed at artists, not selling
you stuff as much as some mags are)
Also, if your a subscriber, you get a neat
feature: the magazine covers do not have print on them,
so the gorgeous artwork isn't ruined ;)
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LORD
OF THE RINGS WEAPONS AND WARFARE
by Chris Smith
This is a great resource book
for fantasy and historical art! Lots of large pics of
armour, weapons, creatures and so on. Also good in how
they designed each type of armour for each race and people,
which is good point about designing.
Helps a ton when trying to make a fantasy
sword texture, to see a pic of one, ya know ? :)
Large paperback.
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OSPREY
MILITARY HISTORY BOOKS
This company produces lots of
smallish-sized books on historical warfare. They are great
resources for fantasy and historical art. I've got several
of their books on Romans (legions, fortresses, Hadrian's
wall, seige machines etc). I like books on seige weapons,
fortresses etc and they have plenty of colour illustrations
and archeaological images of them.
It's important to understand how a seige engine
worked, if you want to make one look real in a close shot.
Or build a castle, if you know how they really are, it's
easier to make believable recreations or fantasies. A
great, but hard to get book on seige weapons is: "Ancient
and Medieval Seige Weapons, by Konstantin Nossov"
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THE COMPLETE DIGITAL ART
CREATIVE HANDBOOK
by Future Publishing
"The Complete Digital Art Creative Handbook"
is a nice intro to the entire field of digital art for a
newcomer, *if* you can find that magazine (it was a special).
Dunno where to get that in USA, sorry, it was
sold in WH Smith here in UK, for short time. Very good.
Large paperback.
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Digital
Horror Art: Creating Chilling Horror and Macabre Images
By Martin McKenna
This is great resource and tips for making
eerie pics, also on general lighting image tricks.
Personally, I get very bored seeing yet another
"Naked female in a temple with a sword"
that looks bland as heck! Known as "NVIATWAS",
Naked-Vicky-In-A-Temple-With-A-Sword, to Poser artists,
lol.
Often, the figure, setting and postwork of such "NVIATWAS"
are superb, but, lack of good lighitng, or a "story"
to it, wastes great effort :(
Good lighting and atmosphere totally changes an image.
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Digital
Fantasy Art: Creating Chilling Horror and Macabre Images
By Martin McKenna
By the same author as "Digital Horror" above,
this is a good intro and help on digitally created fantasy
art.
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INTRODUCTION
TO ZBRUSH 3
By Digital Tutors (Video)
Zbrush is an amazing, but very hard to get
used to, 3D app: it sculpts and details more like working
with clay and a brush, than normal cosntructing 3D objects,
so you can create some fantastic things.
While I used to be smart, I find it hard to
pick things up nowadays (grrr!), so good tutorials
are a must.
I found this the best tutorial for picking up
Zbrush for a newbie, as it is tricky to get your head around
it.
Mudbox is a similar app but much easier to get to grips
with, but doesn't have as many features.
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E-on
Software's Vue 6 Revealed
By Richard H. Schrand
Vue is my fave 3d app by a mile! It's not uber
professional, but for us mere mortals , it's soooooo
much easier to get into, and can do amazing work (nearly
all my work is done in Vue in past 3 years).
This is a great book to learn from, but it
has the one flaw I mentioned earlier: it's bloody well black
and frikkin' white, gah!!!
Paperback.
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PHOTOSHOP
CREATIVE
UK Magazine
Good magazine on Photoshop,
I just buy it now and then when they have an article or
tutorial I like. They also sell large "Bookazines"
which are collections of some of the best articles, highly
recommend those, if you can get them (they sell out fast).
The company also sells collections
of the magazine in DVD format, which is really handy!
Sorry for non-UK people, I don't know similar,
USA-based magazines, but hey, they can ship to you, I
guess? :p
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ADVANCED
PHOTOSHOP
UK Magazine
Sister magazine to "Photoshop
Creative". Again, I buy it now and then when they have
tasty articles :)
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WWW.RENDEROSITY.COM
Very great resource, as it's one of the largest
digital art sites on the net! Never overlook how damn useful,
and fun, communities are. *lots* of freebies, tutorials
etc.
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WWW.SCIFI-MESHES.COM
A site mostly about building 3D models and
renders of sci-fi scenes. They have 3D models, lots of tutorials,
forums etc. Great site.
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WWW.CORNUCOPIA3D.COM
Cornucopia3D is the official site for Vue (my
fave 3D app). Forums, freebies etc.
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WWW.DAZ3D.COM
One of the largest sites for Poser content.
A commercial site, it does have a large community with help,
freebies etc.
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A
GOOD DIGITAL CAMERA!
In my case, a Technika SH-A366
Ok, real camera buffs probably won't class
that as a "good one", but for me, it's good ;)
A light, handy, easy to use digital camera is a bloody useful
thing, believe me! You want large megapixel size, 5 or more,
so you can get large, detailed images which make working
with them far more accurate. For example, taking a pic of
a tree up close with this, yields huge images, which have
tons of details, thus great for making textures from.
Such cameras make taking of pictures to use
as textures, reference or even video, easy. So are a definate
"must".
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A
GOOD GRAPHICS TABLET
In my case, a Wacom Graphire MK4
When doing digital art (of a 2D or sculpting
type), a graphics tablet is vastly superior to a mouse for
many things, as you get a more natural feel of using a stylus,
pen or brush.
Wacom, Genius and Trust produce different types.
Wacom is generally regarded as the best quality but expensive.
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