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EUROPE'S MOST VISITED SF/F WEB SITE |
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Digital Art For The 21st Century Renderosity
by John Grant and Audre Vysniauskas check out website: www.aappl.com and www.renderosity.com
The one thing a computer screen has over them both is that there is no drying time and also possible re-manipulate or correct problems far faster. Digital painting can also do things that would be impossible on a conventional canvas like under-laying multiple images. It can, as be shown with this book, be as good an anything you’ve seen elsewhere and avoid the plastically look poorly ‘painted’ computer images have had in the past. This book is a showcase for 21 digital artists off the Renderosity website. Even more remarkable, there is no country preference as these artists come from around the world. I did note one thing for all you budding digital artists out there that many of these artists use PCs as opposed to Macs which can be encouraging to those who want to develop along this route. I’ve also heard in the pipeline that there’s likely to be a follow-up book regarding creating a digital picture if you want to emulate the talent here and learn how to do it. Choosing favourites from this book would be a tough decision and not something that I would want to do because the quality is so good. What surprised me most was the number of instances where there were pictures of normal reality. I have nothing again that. If anything, it has its advantages if the medium is to be taken seriously. If someone pooh-poohs fantasy pictures, these more normal pictures are likely to win them over so this book has something for everyone. The diversity of style and technique surely makes this an important book to have in your artbook collection. This is also the tip of an iceberg of people coming to grips with these techniques in exciting ways. Whatever the medium used, it is the talent and imagination of the artist creating it that brings a picture to life. If I have to be overtly critical about anything with this book, then it’s the decision to have the text boxes for each picture on a different page. Editor Paul Barnett says he followed the technique used on other artbooks as people like to see pictures uninterrupted. From this reviewer’s perspective, I found there wasn’t that much text there and I wasn’t making that much connection between it and the actual pictures once I’d read past that point, especially as the art cameos were so small along side them. It would also have been a nice touch had we had pictures of the artists involved as well. Having faces to be associated with art can always make good impression and no doubt help those of you who want to meet them at conventions as to who you’re looking for. Aside from that, this is a beautifully put together book that richly deserves to be seen and read by many of you out there as possible. I’m sure many of the artists involved in this book are likely to end up with books of their own at some point and you’ll be hitting yourself by not owning their first appearances in hardcopy print together. Get while it’s still in a first edition. GF Willmetts
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OTHER REVIEWS - July 2004
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There
is a lot of division between artists as to whether or not painting
through computer software should be held in the same regard as working
on canvas with oils or acrylics, although oddly enough the latter
was considered sacrilege once upon a time. Enough people start using
a medium tends to earn it a respect unless it’s declaring store
items as expensive pieces of art. 
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