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Drawing Basics and Video Game Art: Classic to Cutting-Edge Art Techniques for Winning Video Game Design
"This book supports my own 30-year crusade to demonstrate that games are an art form that undeniably rivals traditional arts. It gives detailed explanations of game art techniques and their importance, while also highlighting their dependence on artistic aspects of game design and programming.”
— John Romero, co-founder of id Software and CEO of Loot Drop, Inc.
"Solarski’s methodology here is to show us the artistic techniques that every artist should know, and then he transposes them to the realm of video games to show how they should be used to create a far more artful gaming experience ... if I were an artist planning to do video game work, I’d have a copy of this on my shelf."
— Marc Mason, Comics Waiting Room
Video games are not a revolution in art history, but an evolution . Whether the medium is paper or canvas—or a computer screen—the artist’s challenge is to make something without depth seem like a window into a living, breathing world. Video game art is no different.
Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is first to examine the connections between classical art and video games, enabling developers to create more expressive and varied emotional experiences in games. Artist game designer Chris Solarski gives readers a comprehensive introduction to basic and advanced drawing and design skills—light, value, color, anatomy, concept development—as well as detailed instruction for using these methods to design complex characters, worlds, and gameplay experiences. Artwork by the likes of Michelangelo, Titian, and Rubens are studied alongside AAA games like BioShock, Journey , the Mario series , and Portal 2, to demonstrate perpetual theories of depth, composition, movement, artistic anatomy, and expression.
Although Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is primarily a practical reference for artists and designers working in the video games industry, it’s equally accessible for those interested to learn about gaming’s future, and potential as an artistic medium.
Also available as an eBook
— John Romero, co-founder of id Software and CEO of Loot Drop, Inc.
"Solarski’s methodology here is to show us the artistic techniques that every artist should know, and then he transposes them to the realm of video games to show how they should be used to create a far more artful gaming experience ... if I were an artist planning to do video game work, I’d have a copy of this on my shelf."
— Marc Mason, Comics Waiting Room
Video games are not a revolution in art history, but an evolution . Whether the medium is paper or canvas—or a computer screen—the artist’s challenge is to make something without depth seem like a window into a living, breathing world. Video game art is no different.
Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is first to examine the connections between classical art and video games, enabling developers to create more expressive and varied emotional experiences in games. Artist game designer Chris Solarski gives readers a comprehensive introduction to basic and advanced drawing and design skills—light, value, color, anatomy, concept development—as well as detailed instruction for using these methods to design complex characters, worlds, and gameplay experiences. Artwork by the likes of Michelangelo, Titian, and Rubens are studied alongside AAA games like BioShock, Journey , the Mario series , and Portal 2, to demonstrate perpetual theories of depth, composition, movement, artistic anatomy, and expression.
Although Drawing Basics and Video Game Art is primarily a practical reference for artists and designers working in the video games industry, it’s equally accessible for those interested to learn about gaming’s future, and potential as an artistic medium.
Also available as an eBook
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
75 people are currently reading
415 people want to read
About the author
Chris Solarski
4 books3 followersChris Solarski is an artist-game designer and author of the seminal book, Drawing Basics and Video Game Art: Classic to Cutting-Edge Art Techniques for Winning Game Design (Watson-Guptill 2012), which has been translated into Japanese and Korean. Chris' professional background--which mixes game art development at Sony Computer Entertainment and fine art figurative painting--has led him to lecture on emotions and storytelling in video games at international events including the Smithsonian Museum's landmark The Art of Video Games exhibition, SXSW, Game Developers Conference, and FMX. Chris' personal projects at Solarski Studio continue to explore the intersections between video games, classical art and film to develop new forms of player interaction and emotionally-rich experiences in games.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 17, 2018
I'm an indie comic book writer/illustrator and I got this book mainly for its information on character design and environments--and I was not disappointed!
There is a lot of territory covered in this book and I was glad to see it managed to be both interesting to read and a useful reference afterward. Even though I consider myself having advanced past the need for basic anatomy drawing lessons, there were great little insights that I had not seen elsewhere that made it worth revisiting.
Because I plan to turn my comic book story into a simple game (in a few years' time), I read this section with interest from both a print and a digital perspective, and I'm pleased to say that it satisfied both. I got plenty of ideas that will help my comic book take a better defined shape, as well as some thoughts on how I'll proceed with a video game.
The book's many excellent examples from all over the gaming world easily shows how the principles he describes actually come into play in professional designs. This knowledge then becomes one of those great moments in life where you see an idea in action everywhere. You'll never take video game design for grated again!
There is a lot of territory covered in this book and I was glad to see it managed to be both interesting to read and a useful reference afterward. Even though I consider myself having advanced past the need for basic anatomy drawing lessons, there were great little insights that I had not seen elsewhere that made it worth revisiting.
Because I plan to turn my comic book story into a simple game (in a few years' time), I read this section with interest from both a print and a digital perspective, and I'm pleased to say that it satisfied both. I got plenty of ideas that will help my comic book take a better defined shape, as well as some thoughts on how I'll proceed with a video game.
The book's many excellent examples from all over the gaming world easily shows how the principles he describes actually come into play in professional designs. This knowledge then becomes one of those great moments in life where you see an idea in action everywhere. You'll never take video game design for grated again!
February 5, 2019
Incredibly broad and shallow; it covers a lot but only skims the surface of each topic, barely enough to convey any skill. Its pedagogical quality is virtually nonexistent.
Its primary thesis, that classical training greatly benefits the game art and visuals, is better served by actually going out and learning classical techniques. This book wouldn't even make a good "companion" to that undertaking, nor did it make a good case for it. The examples it gives with screenshots and concept art are kind of "yeah, kinda true" but doesn't really drive its points memorably.
It also felt very scattershot. The contents didn't have any discernible flow, with topics randomly varying in depth and connectedness. The contents of the book seems to have been designed to bait people who just flip through it (video game references and concept art of various kinds, seemingly pedantic topics), particularly supportive friends and parents who know a young artist is interested in both art and games. A very cashgrabby book in other words.
If it had any use, it would be to, by chance, introduce a novice artist to a concept they didn't already know and, let them learn that topic in-depth on their own from there.
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Also not worth the space it occupies in your shelf.
Its primary thesis, that classical training greatly benefits the game art and visuals, is better served by actually going out and learning classical techniques. This book wouldn't even make a good "companion" to that undertaking, nor did it make a good case for it. The examples it gives with screenshots and concept art are kind of "yeah, kinda true" but doesn't really drive its points memorably.
It also felt very scattershot. The contents didn't have any discernible flow, with topics randomly varying in depth and connectedness. The contents of the book seems to have been designed to bait people who just flip through it (video game references and concept art of various kinds, seemingly pedantic topics), particularly supportive friends and parents who know a young artist is interested in both art and games. A very cashgrabby book in other words.
If it had any use, it would be to, by chance, introduce a novice artist to a concept they didn't already know and, let them learn that topic in-depth on their own from there.
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Also not worth the space it occupies in your shelf.
April 10, 2016
I know absolutely nothing about video games, art, or design, or any of it, but I found this book to be quite interesting. It made me think about color and perspective and contours and shapes and all that stuff that I had never considered before!
I think if I were an artist or at all interested in video games, then I would find this an invaluable resource and inspiration. As it is, I only gave it 3 stars because this is not my area of interest.
I think if I were an artist or at all interested in video games, then I would find this an invaluable resource and inspiration. As it is, I only gave it 3 stars because this is not my area of interest.
November 27, 2020
my boyfriend was going to buy this for me for christmas but i, the fool, bought it for myself instead
(it was incredibly informative. there are a lot of things about art that i kind of take for granted now, having learned by eye, that reading the actual rules and rationalisations for them on paper resonated with me in a way that i really didn't expect. it's the type of book i think i'll return to over & over again, likely with sticky notes to mark the page.)
(it was incredibly informative. there are a lot of things about art that i kind of take for granted now, having learned by eye, that reading the actual rules and rationalisations for them on paper resonated with me in a way that i really didn't expect. it's the type of book i think i'll return to over & over again, likely with sticky notes to mark the page.)
December 29, 2018
Really enjoyed reading this book and just paging through it! I kept showing my teenage kids the illustrations and brief descriptions ~ had to share what I was reading. Made me pick up a pencil and start sketching the next day!
Nice book for anyone who enjoys art and is familiar with gaming characters.
Nice book for anyone who enjoys art and is familiar with gaming characters.
October 6, 2019
A fantastically diverse and in-depth book exploring wide range of the attributes contribute to the aesthetics of games with some rather insightful references in relation to drawing techniques and Mark making. This is definitely a book that I will be rereading referring too often.
December 18, 2020
Really great book. The author does a great job of combining classic art and video game design techniques to showcase the intentions of the art in both. I really enjoyed it. Pretty sure anyone interested in art and video games would get a lot out of it.
October 16, 2017
I expected much more depth.
May 7, 2023
Very good
July 28, 2014
Awesome book on the art of video games!
September 5, 2016
A book about the basics of drawing characters for videogames, beautifully designed with plenty of colour images, amazing game art, but that fails in really teaching anything about the art itself.
January 25, 2015
This is one of the best books that I have ever read.
(More of a review later.)
(More of a review later.)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews