Art of Mass Effect, The [SPECIAL EDITION] (Hardcover)

by Dan Birlew (Author), Fernando Bueno (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Mass Effect is set in a rich and diverse universe hundreds of years in our future. The challenge of creating a plausible vision for humanity and a galaxy of ancient and exotic alien races was given to BioWare's talented art and design teams. They began in a formless void and shaped their worlds, their races, and their civilizations to finish with a living breathing setting exclusive to the Xbox 360.

From a massive space citadel whose origins are lost in time to the utilitarian clothing of frontier colonists, each component, whether small or colossal, anomalous or common, within Mass Effect's universe need to be brought to detailed life.

In this stunning volume, take an exclusive step back to when this universe was still forming in this compilation of art, images, and commentary taken directly from the artists' sketchbooks as they created the universe of Mass Effect.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Prima Games; Limited edition (November 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761558519
• ISBN-13: 978-0761558514
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #115,170 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice, but not as much content as I would have liked., November 26, 2007

By	J. Voss (Metro Detroit, Mi) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a decent art book with a lot of nice work, but I was hoping for more rough concept sketches of characters, weapons, and armor. There's a lot of nice environmental artwork here, though.

If you're an artist, and are interested in getting this to learn more, then this isn't really good for that purpose. It's good for inspiration, but you're not going to learn much about character construction or anything like that.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Nice Volume, but not Earth Shattering, March 14, 2008

By	CB - See all my reviews

I found this book by chance at the local bookstore and decided to take a chance on it. I wasn't disappointed; however, the art isn't phenomenal. It offers a nice variety of designs for settings, vehicles, gear and, of course, characters for the video game Mass Effect (which I haven't played). Most impressive, form my standpoint, were the character designs, but these were not spectacular - just nice. This is, however, a very well-produced book, and would probably be best for fans of the game, rather than someone looking for a good "Art of..." book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very polished concept art, March 27, 2009

By	Parka (Singapore) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Length:: 0:16 Mins

This book was published in 2007 and so I have the chance to read through a few reviews on Amazon before I bought mine. After reading the book, I'm surprised that their reaction were pretty mixed.

There are five chapters in the book. The first two chapters are on the design of characters and creatures in the game. Chapter Three: Transport is on the different vehicle and airship designs. Chapter Four looks at concept art of objects like furniture, equipments and weapons. The last chapter contains matte paintings for the environment.

This book packs a lot of full colour illustrations with a few pencil sketches. All the art shown are very polished, as in they can be shown to any director who would then give the go ahead order. There are short captions on each page.

The very few game screenshots included are used mainly to compared the final rendering with the concept art. For example, there will be 3D model renderings compared to an actual set which is rendered with texture. There are plenty of matte paintings to look through, with several 3D models to go with some.

What's missing are the individual credits for each illustration. So we'll not know who did what. However, there's a list of artists who worked on the project are at the back of the book on a page. They are:

* Derek Watts
* Matthew Rhodes
* Sung Kim
* Adrien Cho
* Fran Gaulin
* Mike Spalding
* Mike Trottier
* Michael Jeffrey
* Sasha Beliaev
* Mike Higgins

This is a nice book for concept designers, sci-fi and game artists.

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