Structura 2

by Sparth

Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier, has been an active Artistic Director and Concept Designer for the gaming industry for over 15 years. In Structura 2, he delights us with what he has been imagining for the last three years since the release of his first best selling book, Structura. This visually stunning book includes images from HALO, over seventeen new gorgeous books covers (for authors Greb Bear, Michael Flynn, L.E. Modesitt, Paul mcauley, Frank Herbert, Jonathan Strahan, Peter Watts and Christian de Montella, to name a few) and never before published personal science fiction pieces that will have your imagination running to the future!  Not to ignore the past, Sparth also shares his world of fantasy art pieces influenced by medieval times. In addition to the amazing images that you will want to devour over and over, Sparth shares his expertise with several step by step tutorials focusing on specific Photoshop techniques using custom brushes, custom shapes, clone stamping and the smudge tool, to name only a few. Be swept away into the imaginative and gorgeous world of Sparth’s imagination and then pick up a few Photoshop tips to assist you in improving your digital artistic knowledge and visual communication skills!      

Genres: Art

160 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2011

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally managed to obtain a copy of Strutura 2 (only to discover there is in fact a third volume out as well!)

And I have to admit that it feeds my love of all things science fiction very nicely. The artwork at times can be rather sketchy and stylised (very reminiscent of the late great Syd Mead) while at other times there is no doubt as to what Sparth (not his real name) is wanting to convey.

This book is part show case and part flight of fancy considering the range and scope of the art it contains. Rather unsurprising that he currently works for Microsoft in their games devision - you can certainly see a number of influences present.

This is a book which can be read in isolation or along side the first volume but I have to say that either way the creativity and imagination here is astounding and I guess this means only one thing - I have to start hunting down book 3!

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures on my blog)

This is a nice sequel to the first Structura art book. It's slightly thicker with more content.

This book focuses on concept art for sci-fi and environment. There are spaceships flying off from the many sleek locations conceived by Sparth. The environment paintings are mainly of desolate but exotic landscapes.

I notice he likes to use a lot of dark colours and black to make other colours stand out. Even for the cover, it's mostly black with blue tint as colour.

Some illustrations use a different but refreshing style. There are some experimental sketches done using Alchemy drawing software which look very much like manga style because of the outlines. Those look great. There are also some beautiful paintings created using just squares and rectangles.

The last chapter features 4 insightful examples complete with steps showing his process.