Beginning Illustration and Storyboarding for Games (Premier Press Game Development) [Paperback]

Les Pardew (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2004 | ISBN-10: 1592004954 | ISBN-13: 978-1592004959 | Edition: 1

Creating enticing game art can mean the difference between getting a game published or rejected. This book is ideal for many, including beginning art students who wish to learn the fundamental techniques used in creating concept art for game design and artists looking for a new challenge. Readers will learn how to create game art and design clear, concise storyboards as well as how their art is used in a game design document. This book will appeal to today's artists looking for challenging outlets for their creativity and artistic skills. Traditional artists and animators have flocked to the field of game art upon discovering that it offers exciting, rewarding, and lucrative opportunities to bring their creative vision to life through games. This book also will offer game programmers a look behind the scenes of the "other side" of game development so they can better understand how game art is created and works with their own programming code.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Les Pardew is a video game and entertainment industry veteran with 15 years of industry experience. His work in the industry includes more than 100 video game titles. He currently serves as president of Alpine Studios, which he founded with Ross Wolfley in the fall of 2000. He was the founder of Saffire, one of the industry’s preeminent game developers. He built the company from humble beginnings in his basement to a thriving group of over 120 programmers, artists, musicians, and other creative people. In 1995, Saffire was named by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of America’s hottest new companies and in 1999, it was 32nd on the Utah 100 list. Les started his career in video games in 1987 doing animation for Magic Johnson Fast Break Basketball for the Commodore 64. He went on to create art for dozens of major games including Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Star Wars, Wrestle Mania, NCAA Basketball, Stanley Cup Hockey, Jack Nicholas Golf, and Where in the World/USA is Carman Sandiego to name a few.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (October 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592004954
• ISBN-13: 978-1592004959
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,319,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not really much to learn, June 8, 2007

By 

skelettmensch (Düsseldorf, NRW) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Illustration and Storyboarding for Games (Premier Press Game Development) (Paperback)

I bought this book because I was searching for a book on drawing, maybe some photoshop instructions and a clear relation to game design, so I thought this would be a suitable pick, but after reading it I have to say that the author covers a lot of topics, but none of them in any detail.

Furthermore the author keeps on telling tons of stuff which anyone interested in game design should know or which is rather self-explanatory or asks kind of dumb repeating questions (i.e. he asks and answers the question "Are storyboards important?" In the chapter covering them. If they were not, why the hell is he giving them a whole chapter or why should I bother reading about it?).

Another big flaw: The illustrations in the book are black/white, only those on CD are colored, which is a big disadvantage if you want to redraw/repaint the sketches without a monitor in front of you.

So, in the end I would advise anyone interested in the topics this book tries to cover to buy other books focused on illustration, drawing or game design only.