Customer Reviews

Mechanika: Creating the Art of Science Fiction with Doug Chiang

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Length:: 0:23 Mins

It's not very often you see a great concept artist come up with a tutorial book. Here, we have a great book by Doug Chiang. He's the concept artist for big movie hits like Star Wars, War of the Worlds and Terminator just to name a few.

In this book are 30 lessons and step-by-step tutorials for creating science fiction art, mainly robots. There are details and tips for using Photoshop.

Through these pages, one can see Doug Chiang's process of creating sci-fi concept art. It's always interesting to find out how other artist work, especially one of such high caliber.

His work has also appeared in other books like Robota, and The Art of Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

For those of you who've seen the author's art in print or person, the stars are no surprise. If you haven't seen his work, this book not only showcases his talents and skills as a designer/renderer in finished pieces, it gives direct insight and instruction on how he gets there. From pencil sketch to marker render to digital finished product, Doug takes you through his approach to getting an idea onto a medium.

What seperates this book from other "how-to" books in this design field is it's engaging simplicity in execution. Doug's broken the book into easy-to-browse chapters that cover different techniques and design subject matter in each. This is to it's benefit, as each step encompasses not only fundamental techniques of execution, but Doug's insights on the design of the subject matter. There is little, if any, over-explaining. The instructional images do the talking with simple text accompanying each.

Did I mention it's really hard to find a good (if any) book on marker techniques? This one's the best I've seen. So if you've been thinking about trying markers as a new style, this is a must have.

An all-out great purchase and true bargain considering you get a concept design, multiple-technique, step-by-step package by a truly exceptional and highly respected industry artist.

I've just finished reading this book, and I can confidently state that it is one of the best books available pertaining to the subject of creating science fiction art.

The author does an excellent job explaining both the technical aspects of the drawings, but also how he goes about the design process. There are dozens of designs explored, each emphasizing either a different approach or a different subject in a step-by-step manner.

There are other books of this nature available, but they are generally not as well thought out or organized as Mechanika. It seems like there was a real effort put into this book towards covering a wide variety of subjects in a detailed manner, and it really shows. The little tips sprinkled throughout the book make it invaluable.

This book should age well with the viewer, and long after all of the tips and techniques have been absorbed I imagine it will still be an excellent source of inspiration to thumb through from time to time.

After reading the author note at the beginning of the book the rest of the lessons fell in place. Chiang goes into concept design so clearly that I started to wonder,"Why didn't I think of that!" (Chiang's 20 years of experience will make you FEEL like that.) There is great insight into his process of science fiction design to the point where it made me eager to start some projects of my own. There is also a couple of great Photoshop tips you can use for digital painting which was made to be very simple. All I can say is that this is an excellent book/manual for anyone interested in creating their own science fiction art work.

I have a small library of similar "how-to" books on digital and traditional illustration techniques. Mechanika is among the best. Doug Chang spares no detail in sharing how he achieves his often breath-taking results. My only caveat, given Chang's obsession with detail and time-consuming process, is that if you aspire to following in his footsteps be prepared to give up hobbies, exercise and sleep. If you're in a relationship best to have an extremely patient partner.

While this isn't an in depth book on drawing, it does give some useful advice on how you can start to go about creating your own work, using the book as a reference guide. Written by someone with a lot of experience of working in a professional environment, Doug talks about some of the basic principles for producing good work. Always encouraging to see that something which looks difficult and complex started out as a modest sketch. If you're going to be able to draw as well as this you need to spend a fair bit of time doing normal observational drawing, Doug has an excellent eye for form and perspective. You don't get this good just from working from photos or spending all your time in Photoshop.

Doug Chiang's book, Mechanika, is a book I'll be recommending to both my College and private classes. In it, Mr. Chiang shows not only his eloquent mastery of logic-in-technique when creating a great variety of Sci-Fi imagery, but as well he shows us the basic step-by-step sequence to accomplishing the task. It's so well done! There is no doubt Doug Chiang possesses great expertise in creating visually stunning Science Fiction Art, and his credentials prove it, and now we the fortunate can see behind the scenes, you might say, into how Doug Chiang brings his visions to life. A must-have for any and everyone's library. I proudly have it in mine. I'm sure many of my student's, and students-to-be, will have it in theirs.

This is a great book! Doug is a master and shares all of his secrets on how to design cool robots and ships like he does. 5 stars.

If you are someone who's interested in concept art, or concept design, you should check this book out. The author goes through his design process step by step. He gives a good methodology for the successful development of the project from the initial stage, through the finished product. Usually all we get to see is the finished piece, and where this book really shines is in how it demystifies the process that the author goes through to create the final piece. A highly recommended read if you wish to create your own designs.

This book is right down my alley, robots and monsters, about 80% mechanical and 20% creatures. Lots of infomation jam packed into the 144 pages of this book. The printing of the book is top rate. Very clear instruction on various paths from sketches to finished product, you can pick and choose, or use all of them. And clean trasitions between the different steps in the process, I wish some of the steps where printed bigger. Digital painting is also covered. Doug Chang has his own style and process when it comes to digital painting, but you can get some great ideas and go your own way. Fanastic book!