Bodies: His Photographic Art by Boris Vallejo
01/11/2002 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 

Pub: Paper Tiger. 128 page hardback. Price: £20.00 (UK). ISBN: 1-85028-268-4.

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In some respects, this book could be regarded as the equivalent of seeing Boris' shopping list.

This book is a selection of photographs he takes of various models that he then uses in his fantasy paintings.

This is the second volume of his photographs. The first, 'Hindsight', is no longer available.

I doubt if anyone here is not familiar with Vallejo's work enough to realise these models, mostly female, are mostly in a state of undress.

That being said, I also go along with his sentiments at the beginning that the pictures weren't selected for their erotic content. If anything though, there's far too many back and sideviews.

If you were going to use these photos as studies to practice your own life-drawings, then a lot more variety is needed. Saying that although there are some artist's model books available without resorting to the newsagents' top shelf, I doubt if those models would be quite so muscular or well-formed.

Looking here, I wish Vallejo had considered showing the paintings he'd used these models in as a comparison. If nothing else, it would show how much more work was done on the final painting.

With so many of these photographs in black and white, it looks like he was more interested in the chiaroscuro - the levels of light and shade - than skin tone itself.

Although I'm not sure this book will end up in every fantasy art fan's bookshelf - even if there are a couple of photos touched up by illustrating, I doubt if there'd be a softback version.

Inevitably in such situations, this book is likely to end up being collectable simply because so few will own copies.

GF Willmetts