Customer Reviews

Evolution

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It seems to me that Royo has reviewed his earlier works. Some of his illustrations (or as he prefers to say: _illuminations_) reminds me of those in "Dreams", others continue on the sombre, end-times scenery of "III Millenium" and of "Prohibited Book".

The new phase I was referring to in the title of my review is his focus on the central figure of his book "Malefic", which is now quite extensively explored in "Evolution". This art-book, as everything Royo hitherto touched, is high quality work. He is the master of light - almost etheric, otherwordly, shimmering light - and a creator of female bodies on canvas which even God would approve to manifest. With this book you will get an insight of this artist's vision of the trials and tribulations of the Third Millenium.

I bought this second in my royo collection. It took my breath away. Mostly complete works by the artist, a few sketches, little comentary. It was, simply, captivating.

This royo book is in the same class of book as his earlier books prohibited and 3rd millinium but it is first off full sized(not small like prohibited) and secondly it has a few pages of book cover art like dreams. When I first ordered it I wasn't sure I would like it as his style has been changing since his earlier work and although still very good has drifted a bit from my favorite fantasy style, still this book I thought was very good and I certainly didn't regret getting it. Overall I would think that any royo fan would enjoy it.

SPECIFICS:
Page Count: 80
Number of images: 71
Small images: 27
Half page images: 16
Full page images: 20
2-page spreads: 8
BW images: 11

TEXT:
1 page introduction
Small paragraphs on some paintings throughout the book.
Title and year of each painting

ART:
19 images: 5 stars
23 images: 4 stars
27 images: 3 stars
2 images: 2 stars
0 images: 1 star

Overall: 4 stars

This is a review of the first 57 pages.
Pages 58 to 80 are about the character Malefic, with many small sized sketches, 4 half page drawings, 2 full pages paintings and 1 double page.

There is one thing I didn't like in this book and that's the essays in the end (some are not by Royo, far as I can tell). I would like Royo to make more direct (less cryptic) explanations of his art, but the longer essays in the back didn't make much more sense.

Otherwise, this book has more of the usual fare: beautiful paintings of women and men. It has a great deal of cover art for novels and other works (e.g. books by Czerneda, Haydon, and Gemmell, and some novels in the Shadowrun and Dorsai series), and these helpfully include the publisher and year for the books. This rounds my rating up to 5.

this book has some great images, but i wouldn't spend money on buying the photo book unless you just want the soft cover to protect the artwork, i say this b/c yer better of just finding the pictures on-line and printing them from your computer. save you time and money. i say that b/c most of it is just writing in the beginning and @ the end of the book. but if yer a hard-core Royo fan then, yea, i would recommend getting this. hey, i did:)