Customer Reviews

The Skillful Huntsman: Visual Development of a Grimm Tale at Art Center College of Design

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Length:: 0:28 Mins

This is essentially a sketchbook. It also looks very much like a school project for art students. And the art students in particular are Khang Le, Mike Yamada and Felix Yoon.

The Skillful Huntsman is actually a story by the Brothers Grimm.

Based on the short story, the artists then came up with concept drawings for the characters, set, props and environment. As you can see in the video, there are lots of sketches on character designs. For every subject, there's comment from the artist on the thought process for the creation. And just beneath that comment is another one from the Scott Robertson, a teacher at the Art College of Design.

It's fun to see how the 3 artists interpret the stories and come up with their own unique concepts and designs.

Bear in mind that this book was published in 2005. These talented students have already gone on to work at major studios.

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

I just bought the book today after leafing through it at a local comic book store in New York. The concept art is great. All three artists are very talented. So why shockingly good? Here's why. These guys are young- very young to be this good. Art is a function of talent, focus, and practicing the craft. It's apparent that these kids have done all three.

Ever wondered what students work at art center looks like? look no further, both the skillful huntsmen and into the future are absolutely stunning books for the students at art center. For anyone who has ever dreamed of pursuing concept art as a career, these two books are amazing!

Amazing work for such young artists. It was interesting to see how Scott Robertson (the teacher) coached the students and explained some of the different methods they used for exploring ideas. I would also liked to have seen the instructions and techniques that Scott used to explain some of the ideation concepts to the students also. This is an amazing book - the drawings are so loose and beautiful - they inspire and astound.

The Skillful Huntsman is a sketchbook that takes the reader through the visualization process by analyzing the work of three artists.

It's important to note that this is not a book like, "The Art of Lord of the Rings" or "The Art of Star Wars," full of finished photoshopped paintings from the films. In this book, three artists and their instructor decided to turn the Grimm Fairy Tale, The Skillful Huntsman, into a sci-fi concept suitable for films, TV, or Video Games. The book includes the short tale, so the readers are familiar with the story.

The rest of the book breaks down the concept art for the project. The artists start with simple black and white silhouettes which are designed to catch the eye or leave an impression on the viewer. They move on to simple sketches, then facial drawings, and finally some finished work. Each page has a paragraph or two, describing how each artist approached the task. They talk about their train of thought that led them to the finished drawings. Their influences, their mediums, the function of the piece, why they drew the environment from that angle, etc...

One thing that you will definitely learn is that form follows function. Every sketch in this book had a good deal of thought behind it. The artist takes into account the impact on the viewer, the function of the item, and how it ties into the overall visual theme.

In this book, there are examples of sci-fi characters, organic environments, futuristic city scapes, and mutant creatures. It's a great book if you want to understand the creative process on a professional level and you can incorporate the silhouette, rough, sketch, final, process into your own work. It's inspirational and very creative. I'd highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn about visual development and concept art.

I purchased this book after it was recommended by an instructor of mine. It doesn't take much looking through to become both humbled and inspired. The ability to hammer out good and varied thumbnail images and refine them into an interesting cohesive finished piece of concept art is what this book is all about and it is full of so many examples it will make your head spin. After reading this book I have dramatically changed the way I approach creating characters and have been extremely happy with the progress I've made. There are lots of resources to aid you on your path to greatness but this is one is absolutely worth taking a look at.

This is extremely inspiring book to go back to for artists wanting to see the process of concept artist. Seeing the varied styles and techniques for how each student approached the same assignment gave me some ideas for how I can work out my character and environment design. Also, hearing the students and their teacher discuss the creative process and execution for each piece really went a long way to guide my own thoughts when constructing a scene. This is not so much a book about how they achieved the look using painting software, as much as what the final outcome was to fulfill each stage in the assignment. Great to look at when trying to decide how you want to communicate your ideas.

Felix Yoon of the writers is my best friend's brother so i got to read this book. and as an illustration student, it was amazing. its not a book on how to draw, but how to develop your ideas. really good for art students as an inspirational, idea books, as they develop their own characters, environments, and machinaries.

I ended up buying this book because a college course suggested it for class materials, but I've always had my eye on it. I don't regret this purchase at all! All of the images are stunningly done. I highly suggest this book to anyone looking for inspiration, or anyone looking to go further into the concept art developmental process.

It's a new twist on an old tail... as it says in the forward, "What you hold in your hand is something very old and very new..." and that couldn't sum it up better.

Personally I Love this book, it shows the level of creativity you've gotta have going on to be in the Vis Dev or Concept Art biz. It also really kicked my brain into high gear creatively as well as helped spark a newly found interest in environments... it's been inspirational to say the least!

I don't know what else to say that hasn't already been said... Defiantly something artist interested in Concept Art/Design or Visual Development should check out if they are serious about it.