» Digital Horror Art: Creating Chilling Horror and Macabre Images

Digital Horror Art: Creating Chilling Horror and Macabre Images Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Surprised. A great find!
Comment: I was surprised at the level of detail and great organization of this book. I mainly do sci-fi/fantasy digital art in PS and this book delivers on some intersting techniques and workflows. This books is very organized and in most cases shows layer organization or explains it with many color illustrations. It has enough PS tutorials to get you started and has other 3D tutorials for programs such as Bryce.

Don't let the 2006 date fool you. This book is still relevant and very helpful.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: book review
Comment: the delivery of this book was on time .. but, i thought i was ordering a new book (i paid full price). when i opened the book i found some pages bent and one page acutally ripped out.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Inspiring!
Comment: I'll be honest with you, this book is NOT for a complete beginner to art--there will be no line-by-line art instruction in here. Rather, this is for someone who is already an artist but would like to try creating a different genre of work--horror and macabre. And it does a wonderful job! The chapters are filled with information about the contributing artists, step-by-step tutorials on how they created certain pieces with the finished piece shown at the end, specifications for what software was used to create each picture, and galleries of professional horror and macabre artwork.

I am impressed by the wide array of different digital mediums that have been covered--photo-manipulation, painting and drawing from scratch, 3D landscapes and people, and even the skin textures for 3D model characters. It's an impressive book with many, many different styles of artwork inside, so as long as you want horror and macabre artwork (and if you bought a book with this title you must) then there's bound to be something in here that appeals to you.

Just looking through this book inspires me to create more art. =)

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Customer Rating:
Summary: not what i expected
Comment: it's a good book if u know your way around photoshop. the artist featured in this book do this for a living so they don't waste the time in getting in detail on the techniques. if u are hoping for this book to teach how to draw horror characters u r for a surprise. this book it's towards to artist that can draw and they want to add special effects and enhance the image.
definetely not a teaching draw book. most of all the examples here were drawn in pencil and then scanned. so this book is aimed for those who has a good foundation in design.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Techniques Can Be Applied to Any Subject
Comment: Once you have mastered the basic tools of digital art software such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, Autodesk Maya or NewTek LightWave 3D, you might become curious about going beyond the basics when creating your own digital art. I discovered this book by Martin McKenna while I was searching for new books to review for BellaOnline. I was especially looking for books that did go beyond the usual drop shadow, bevel and other special effects and filters. I found what I was looking for in this book. As the title suggests, this book is about digital horror art and showcases the original artwork of several 2D and 3D digital artists. Each artist takes you step-by-step through their artistic process, from inspiration and conception to rendering or print, discussing the techniques they used to achieve their particular artistic style. But, don't let the macabre subjects dissuade you from considering this book. The techniques discussed here can be applied to any subject.

For those interested in expanding their skills in 2D digital art and photo manipulation software such as Photoshop and Painter, there are several examples in this book which will introduce new digital art techniques that you may not have considered before. For example, in his digital painting entitled Party Ghoul, Mark Gibbson used underlying gradient layers and blending modes to create subtle lighting. In a second example, Felipe Machado Franco discussed how he added texture to his painting using layers and photographs of textures from the world around him. On the other hand, in his work called The Forgotten Spell, the author of the book showed his traditional approach to digital painting in Photoshop which began with a rough sketch, then flat color was blocked in and finally texture and detail were added.

For 3D artists, there are many techniques showcased in this book. For example, in Medieval Resurrection by Sony Computer Entertainment's Cambridge Studio, the final image was made up of several 2D background layers and 3D foreground layers which were complied in Photoshop. Richard Force had a technique that I have never encountered before. In his work entitled Vampire Wretch, Force first modeled his subject in traditional clay and then photographed the sculpture. Once in digital form, he continued to work on his piece in Photoshop by adding texture layers with blending modes. In a third example, Howard Swindell worked totally in the 3D environment using several 3D software including Maya, LightWave 3D and Pixologic Zbrush to create his final work called The Creature.

Martin McKenna is a 15 year veteran illustrator and has been working in the game industry for some time. He is the author of Digital Fantasy Painting Workshop.

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