Ouch … the website needs a serious update, and the blog some articles.

I’m not dead, but very busy indeed.

This morning one of the emails in my mailbox was from a Spanish art student who was asking for a list of five books she should purchase to improve her fundamental skills. I took a photograph of one floor of my bookcase where I keep the books I recommend to my students. I thought it might help some of you.

Click on the picture to get the full size !

From left to right:

– Some ImagineFX Magazines

– Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth / Andrew Loomis

– Creative Illustration / Andrew Loomis (Must read !)

– Digital Art Masters + Digital Painting Techniques (Thank you 3DTotal !)

– Frazetta’s sketchbook

– How to Draw (Don’t get fooled by the title, it’s a book about technical drawings. Vehicles and architectures. Recommended for concept artists !)

– ART Fundamentals (3DTotal / A really good book about fundamentals. It just talks about it all, with cool samples inside. Traditional and digital.)

– The New Artist’s Manual / Simon Jenning / Chronicle Books (Excellent book for traditional painting and drawing. An encyclopedia of tools and basic techniques !)

– Beginner’s guide to Digital Painting / 3DTotal (The title talks for itself. A good book with a bunch of good tips to start with digital painting)

– Le Roi et l’Oiseau (Art book) (Just a book I personally had to have …)

– Bloodlust (Do not buy this book, you won’t find it anyway)

– Memories of Retrocity (Buy this one !)

– Paradise Lost / Doré (Work on your values !)

– Rackham / Faery tales + Wagner’s Ring (Look at those)

– Applibot’s Artbook (Great samples of master works inside ! / Thanks Pierre !)

– Spectrum Fantastic Art Live catalogues 1 + 2 (Nice books, but really, just buy the Spectrum every year ! )

– Imaginative Realism / Gurney (No need to present that one, just read it !)

– Framed Ink / Marcos Mateu-Mestre (Excelelnt for composition and story-telling !)

– The Art of Perspective / Metzger (A great torture tool !)

– Color and Light / Gurney (Same here: a must have ! Light is everything)

– Drawing from the Imagination / 3DTotal (An amazing compilation of sketches from master artists !)

– La Technique de la Peinture a l’Huile / Xavier de Langlais (It’s about oil, and it’s in french, and deal with it !)

____ This should keep you busy 😉

Cheers,

B.