Customer Reviews

World Of Warcraft: The Art Of The Trading Card Game Vol. 1

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have to admit right off the bat that I don't play World of Warcraft - however, I've admired the visual style of the games for quite sometime and, as a fan of fantasy art, I decided to pick this book up and give it a shot. I wasn't disappointed. Within these pages you'll find a host of illustrations of humans, elves, dwarves, undead, orcs, and beasts fair and foul from the WoW universe, all in the traditional day-glow color scheme of the game. A number of the works are by well-known artists, including Todd McFarlane, Wayne Reynolds, and Todd Lockwood, among others. This is a hefty volume, printed on good quality paper and in full color. On each page the full-color art itself is printed, next to at least one preliminary sketch (which is artfully printed in the background so that it does not distract from the finished work). This is probably one of the best art books to come out within recent years. Highly recommended.

Length:: 0:22 Mins

There are a couple of art books for World of Warcraft already and this one's on the trading card game. The sets featured in this book are

* Heroes of Azeroth
* Through the Dark Portal
* Fires of Outland
* Onyxia's Lair Raid Deck
* Molten Core Raid Deck
* Magtheridon's Lair

It says on the cover that this is volume one so it's safe to say there's going to be more in the future.

There are over 300 illustrations in this thick 288-page book. The art is printed large at one to two per page. It doesn't contain all the cards but contains enough. Although I don't recognise any of the World of Warcraft characters since I don't play the game, I do see a lot of familiar artists providing art for the cards. Among them are Todd McFarlane, Alex Horley, Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, Clint Langley.

Here's what Samwise Didier (Senior Art Director of Blizzard Entertainment) says about the style of art:

- quote start -
Blizzard art (and especially that of Warcraft has a distinct style and feeling about it. It takes an artists months to get all this down to the point where it becomes part of his or her artistic nature. Some of the basics that Blizzard artists learn:

* Less is NEVER more
* Bigger is ALWAYS better
* All one-handed weapons should be (at least) as big as two-handed weapons
* If all else fails, add skulls and spikes and paint it red
- quote end -

Funny intro.

Anyway, I like the section on flaming beasts and lava monsters from the Molten Core Raid Deck. Aleksi Briclot's Lucifron and Clint Langley's Magmadar are very epic, definitely not beings you want to mess with. There are also plenty of other characters from The Alliance and Horde. It will take a while to absorb everything since the book is really thick.

It's a great book for fantasy art lovers and artists, or for those who want to nail down that Blizzard art style to get work there.

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

This book has proven to be so much more than I thought it could be upon my decision to order it. Honestly, I don't play either WoW or the trading card game, and the only reason I purchased it was because I enjoy the blizzard art books...and this one was ONLY TEN DOLLARS. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't this.


If you like the The Art of World of Warcraft books that are sold with the collector's editions of the games, I would bet that you would enjoy this. While it doesn's show as many preliminary sketches as the afore mentioned (though it does show a lot) or as many environments, it completely compensates in other ways:


(A) There are almost three hundred pages of very polished, very proffessional, and very ORIGINAL art.

(B) In contrast to the Art of WoW books I mentioned--whose preliminary sketches seem to have served as prototypes for the blizzard artists--these images are all independantly impressive (as many have different styles), finished, and all endowed with lives of their own. If you are a hopeless sketch-lover, however, many of these ARE shown with their gestures or preliminaries in the background; it's a very complete, very cool layout.

(C) Each image includes a respective caption revealing the image's name, the artist, and THE MEDIUM USED; anyone who dabbles in art of any kind would appreciate that and can actually derive techniques from many of these works.

(D) It comes with introductions by Samwise Didier and Glenn Rane (the Blizzard Entertainment Senior Art Director and the Art Lead, respectively), and both of them address the processes and challenges behind blizzard art, especially in relevance to WoW.

(E) It's a big book, and I mean a BIG one. You will absolutely not be able to absorb everything it has to offer after thumbing through it once, so I'm basically guaranteeing a kind of enjoyment warranty or captivation security with it.


These are just the most basic and meritorious qualities; I could definitely continue. I would recommend this to anyone who plays WoW and values the art and also basically to anyone who appreciates art in general (especially fantasy art). This is an excellent value, especially for some of the prices listed here.

I hope this helped, and, if you decide to make this purchase, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

This is an awesome book...The variety of work is great, different styles and techniques, not to mention the characters are really fun to look at. As an artist, it's one of those books that you crack open to get the creative juices flowing!!!

This book features many art styles and many impressive images. Anyone who likes fantasy work, Warcraft or not, should look into it. The book is big and well made, with hundreds of large heavy pages, with many full-page art pieces. The smaller ones are a bit too small, but the sheer volume of the art in here is enough to warrant several trips through this collection.
I would not have bought this at full retail price, but at the price paid, it is an excellent value, too.

I am another person who bought this book who doesn't even play Warcraft but is just a lover of Fantasy art. I've always loved the Warcraft universe, which seemed like an expansion of/variation on the fantasy universe first created by Tolkien.

When I got this book I was surprised by just what a hefty volume this is. This is a very thick book printed on the finest quality heavy-duty stock.

Not only did this book live up to my expectations, but I found that the great variety of styles and artists included has also helped me to clarify my own tastes in Fantasy art, and has even introduced me to some great new artists I had never heard of before.

The spectrum includes everything from the breathtaking photo-like hyper-realism of Clint Langely (check out his great new solo book "The Art of Clint Langely" by the way!), to the brilliant use of colour in the works of Jim Murray (very Bisley-esque) and Michael Komarck, to well-established artists like Todd McFarlane (--why are both of the pieces credited to him signed as "Greg Capullo"???) and Udon Studios, to the cartoony cuteness of the works of the book's editor Samwise Didier (sorry Samwise, but just gotta say YECH~!)

It was also interesting observing the differences in the variety of mediums used (--I found I preferred good ol' non-digital art.) And a few pieces of preliminary sketches are also included to give us a brief taste of the process from concept to finished work (In some cases I found I liked the initial sketch better than the finished product. Samwise Didier, you ninny, what were you thinking? [...])

The book is organized into sections according to Warhammer race of the subject of the painting. And in the back it also includes indexes of the works by title and by artist, making it easy to look up other works by an artist you may find you particularly like.

I am happy to highly recommend this book, and look forward to further volumes in this series (this book says "Volume 1" on it, hooboy!). I really feel like I got my money's worth with this one. Well done people!

And to all you publishers out there, I hope that other series of trading card art will be made into beautiful art books like this. (--Hear that Wizards of the Coast?) It's such a waste just having it on those tiny little cards. It deserves to be enjoyed properly like this!

And to you people over at Blizzard, how about some art books for Diablo and Starcraft too? I love them too!

Beyond the fact that the art in this book is incredible, the production quality is superb; the paper is glossy and thick. The book is a treasure trove of art goodness.

Whether you play the Upper Deck World of Warcraft Heroes of Azeroth Starter Deck trading card game or are simply a fan of great fantasy art, this is really an amazing book. I'm an online player and have heard about the card game, but I honestly didn't understand how a trading card game could possibly match the online experience. Well, if this book is any indication, it does a great job! Nearly 300 pages of full-color art, some done in oils, some in acrylics, and some purely digital, really give a flavor of the excitement and exhilaration of playing the online game (and I assume the card game, too). I wasn't sure what I was expecting (I received this book as a gift), but this definitely exceeded what I imagined the book would be!

How do I put this.... "WOW" as an artist and player of "World of Warcraft" the computer game (Not the card game) I have to say this book is an insperation.

With art from the 1st World of Warcraft, to Wrath of the Lich king.
it is a visual feast for warcraft players and non players alike!

A book well worth picking up.
I can't wait for Volume 2

I have many many art of books and fantasy and scifi art books and this is a great one. It is JAMMED with artwork of several styles from different artist's who have worked on projects and campaigns for World of Warcraft. There are some styles I prefer over others but the range represented is great.