Customer Reviews

Beautiful Creatures: The Art of James Ryman (v. 1)

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Sal Quartuccio Productions has released two volumes in the Beautiful Creatures series collecting the fantastic art of James Ryman. While the front and back covers to theses volumes have been produced digitally, the interiors show off Ryman's outstanding pencil work in both preliminary sketch and finished examples. Beautiful Creatures doesn't really tell the whole story however. Ryman's women are sometimes bold and ballsy, sometimes dark and seductive, and sometime playful and demure. His gorgeous women are often in contrast to the Hellish creatures that surround them.

Ryman's beasts are some of the most imaginative I've ever seen. Grotesque demons, gargantuan insectoids, and ravenous undead populate his art, sometimes serving; other times being served, by lovely women. There are several eye-popping, two-page spreads in the book. One of my favorites shows a nude captive female being led by two slug-like creatures to their immense leader...perhaps as a meal or something worse!

Another great two-page spread depicts a spider queen accompanied by a brutish half-ape, half spider beast, surrounded by a horde of smaller spiders. I also love the piece of the nude woman riding atop the back of a giant crocodile. Ryman can also do some fantastic pin-up-style art but with his own gruesome twist. One in particular shows his female subject holding a devilishly leering pumpkin. I also love the drawing showing a chaotic warrior in the foreground with the burning "wickerman" in the background. By the way, the Wicker Man is a great film!

There's a lot of work in this 64 page book. While Ryman has worked in video game development as well as for the RPG industry, many of his sketches look like the kind of production drawings used for designs in film. I would not be surprised if that is the next media format he decides to conquer. If you never seen his work before I highly recommend picking up both this and the second volume in the series.

I love Ryman's style, but way too much of this book is dedicated to NOT beautiful creatures; various monsters and undead critters and the like. The women that ARE in here, though, are beautifully drawn, and very good for art reference and (ahem) other reference.