Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14032 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781843404729
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
ImagineFX is the only magazine for Fantasy and Sci-Fi artists. Each issue contains an eclectic mixture of in-depth workshops from the world's best artists, galleries and interviews, features, community news, software and hardware reviews, and the latest sci-fi and fantasy films and comics.

Customer Reviews

Great variety of tips and techniques well explained
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3LOGBGPCP7NNS Here's a great tutorial style book for those interested in digital painting. Fantasy Workshop is a compilation of tutorials that have been published in monthly ImagineFX issues. If you are already a regular subscriber, you'll see very similar tutorials in Fantasy Workshop.

The tutorials are split into three categories, namely Characters, Scenes & Stories and Manga. At the end is a short FXpose section, which like the magazine, features illustrations from individual artists.

The tutorials are presented in a step-by-step manner with plenty of screenshots and well explained captions. Each artist will talk about their workflow, tips, techniques and shortcuts to creating digital art. More specifically for example, they will talk about how they create realism through texture, and also why they created it that way.

Since the book is about mastering digital painting, you'll see tons of examples on how to recreate paint effects using software. By examples I mean they will show the digital tools used, menus, and settings. The software used are Painter and Photoshop but the art techniques are usually easily achievable in either software.

There are also a few pages where the artists answer fans' questions relating to creating art.

This is a recommended book for anyone into digital painting. There's enough variety featured for everyone to learn a new trick or two.

Here's the list of contents:
- Mind's Eye to Digital Canvas - Jehan Choo
- Modern Classical Painting - Marta Dahlig
- Paint Realistic Ears - Katerina Sokolova
- Paint Realistic Lips - Katerina Sokolova
- Digital Hairstyling - John Kearney
- Paint Realistic Hands - Marta Dahlig
- Create a Heroic Valkryie - Lorland Chan
- Drawing and Painting Dragons - James Strehle
- Create 3D Illustrations - Loic Zimmerman
- Painting a Mythical Beast - Joel Carlo
- An Army Summoned - Mike Corriero
- Create a LOTR-Inspired Orc - Jeff Murchie
- Quick Character Design Concept - Francis Tsai
- Painting Creepy Portraits - Mike Mitchell
- Speed Painting a Zombie - Patrick Reilly
- Painting a Nightmare - Cyril Van Der Haegen
- Create a Great Background - Melanie Delon
- 25 Custom Brush Tips - Patrick Reilly
- Dramatic Concept Art - David Levy
- Create a Dark Urban Nightmare - Lee Carter
- Manga Character Illustration - Michael Chomicki
- Create Fantasy Manga - Cris De Lara
- Fiery Dragon Princess - Svetlin Velinov

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

Not bad, not great.
I am a little disappointed with this book. It is not terrible, but it is not loaded with hands on instruction or technique either. What it is is a bunch of reprints of "tutorials" previously found in the Imagine FX magazine. Sometimes these tutorials refer you to a CD, published with the magazines, but not included with this book. Not such a bad thing really, however, it is the lack of real "instruction" thats the issue. Mostly this book is just a bunch of artists talking in vague terms about how they accomplished a project. More detailed explanation would have been nice. Its really not much of a workshop at all. However, there are some gems in here, and some great artwork that can be inspiring, but for someone looking to break into digital painting/rendering . . . well, I'd still say this is a worthy purchase, but it won't live up to its claim of "Mastering Digital Painting Techniques." (I know, I know. Only time and skill will accomplish this. But they do claim it in the title. ;) ) However, for the price, it is still a nice to have. I personally found other books more informative, such as Hi-Fi Color For Comics: Digital Techniques for Professional Results

Lacking detailed instructions
I've explored a number of similar titles and most of them suffer from lack of detailed instructions, introducing you to concepts but not specific methods of realizing them digitally. If you haven't yet looked at any of the titles that promise to familiarize you with digital painting techniques this would be a good investment in comparison to other similar alternatives and it will be quite apt as you are mastering the digital medium, but so far, for me, the best title that offers good instructions on digital painting remains Creative Photoshop by Derek Lea. Second best being The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book by Threinen-Pendarvis.