From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-A visual feast, this book is a required purchase for any library inhabited by teens, artists, computer programmers, serious or casual gamers, or all of the above. More than 500 color illustrations dance around a text that's written in a style slightly more sophisticated than Wired magazine. More than just an art book, the volume is full of interviews with game artists, programmers, and other computer luminaries. Discussions outline the process that game design teams go through when choosing the point of view of the player character, interiors, and the "feel" of the games, from proto-mythological to urban noir, and the visual choices that govern the experience of the gamer. The book briefly covers the use of 3-D-rendering programs, the mathematics of shape and scale when designing physical locations and nonhuman characters, the differences inherent in writing for games as opposed to TV and movies, the various subgenres, and where games may be going in the future. The only drawback-readers will want to play all of them.Sheryl Fowler, Chantilly Regional Library, VACopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

With an industry on the scale of Hollywood and an audience of millions, computer games are big news in the world of popular entertainment. They also provide the medium of choice for a new generation of creative talent, fusing incredible technical know-how with imaginative brilliance to create a thrilling new form of art. Game Art is a celebration of the best that games have to offer, with the emphasis on the brains behind tomorrow's blockbuster titles.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In Toon Art, Withrow, who draws a weekly digital comics series called Crackles of Speech, begins with a visual time line from Lascaux to tapestry, newspapers, television and computers. The second section walks a reader through digital sketching, with sections on flash animation and toon typography. Withrow goes "behind the scenes with the experts," men and women of the new generation of independent digital cartoonists "who are attempting (to varying degrees) to go it alone without corporate sponsorship..." A third section showcases "the best in the business," and a fourth discusses the future of comics. With 450 color illustrations, a wide cross-section of artists is represented in a playful design that gives a nod to cartoon sensibility (text bubbles and brightly colored, pointillist chapter openers), yet the overall look remains clean and comprehensible. In Game Art, Morris, creator of the PC game Warrior Kings, and Hartas, a children's book writer and illustrator, take readers from Pacman and Pong to real-time strategy games like Age of Empires or Ico. Each of 14 chapters contains "Insider Secrets" that have industry artists explaining in detail things like how to create a 3-D world or cinematic sequences. Dozens of games are picked apart, with their creators telling how they fashioned the styles and stories of their fictional worlds. With more than 500 digital images and explanatory text running throughout, the pages are busy, but offer a comprehensive examination of highly imaginative technological territory. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

VOYA - Shari Fesko

This eye-popping glance into the high-tech world of computer games should win over even teens who barely ever click a mouse. From page one, the reader becomes completely immersed in both the artistic and technical aspects of game design. Morris and Hartas used their connections in the gaming world to interview a vast array of experts from every field of game creation. Designers, marketing executives, software engineers, and many others comment on what it takes to keep computer gamers glued to their screens. Their explanations sometimes get a bit too technical, but a glossary keeps the pages turning. Despite the well-written content, the incredible full-color examples are the real stars of this coffee table volume. The illustrations, including several two-page spreads, highlight the best the gaming world has to offer, inviting the viewer to look closer and quickly become convinced that this work is not just fun and games but represents a true art form. Perfect for school reports on this seldom covered topic and sure to attract reluctant readers with its stunning visuals, the book is a definite purchase for both school and public libraries. Glossary. Index. Illus. VOYA Codes: 4Q 4P M J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2003, Watson-Guptil, 192p,

Library Journal

These two books analyze two forms of art introduced in the late 20th century: digital art produced solely for computer games and the digital graphic art of cartoons and animation. Game Art is an entertaining history of everything from William Higginbotham's primitive tennis game of 1958 to the cinematic worlds created for games like today's Prisoners of War. More a history than a how-to manual, the book offers in-depth features on the many genres of game art and interviews with major contemporary practitioners. Also discussed are such 3D techniques as model building, texturing, and animation. Toon Art is a definitive popular guide to the digital art we're now all familiar with from films like Toy Story and The Lion King. A "Toon Timeline" traces the art from cave drawings through William Hogarth, Hokusai, Disney, Yellow Submarine, and Shrek. In remarkably clear language (for such technical material), one is taught how to create digitally, with reference to vector-based drawing, pixel-based painting, and flash and 3D animation. Experts in the field offer personal insights, and a portfolio of innovators, like wunderkind Raf Anzovin of Anzovin Studio, provides inspiration. While Game Art is a good survey of the quickly changing art of the computer game, Toon Art is an essential purchase for collections serving those who want to join the fast-growing field of digital cartooning and animation. For a similar book, but one based on the work of a single studio, see Peter Weishar's Blue Sky: The Art of Computer Animation. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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