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| Thread: ARTBOOKS - do you collect them? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted January 01, 2020 02:02 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 14:12, 01 Jan 2020.
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For all it's worth I would like to give some reviews for the books I've got for XMas (those aren't exactly artbooks, but I figured I won't spam the boards with additional threads):
Commodore Amiga: a visual Commpendium - while the book isn't a sort of compendium in the classical sense as it doesn't describe the games per se, but rather gives a few tidbits from their original designers at most, it definately works as a reference to look further into things, a nostalgia trip and a looking glass to how games were made back in the day. I would say only for the fans or past owners of Amiga systems.
The CRPG Book: A Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games - from what I can gather from interests of people frequenting this boards most of you owe yourselves this book. It's basically a series of fan-made reviews (but most of the people writing them have some backgrounds with CRPGs), put together chronologically (since the genre earliest days with the PLATO system) into 5 year-long chapters from 1975 to 2015. Each chapter starts with a sort of an intro to the context of that period in time in gaming (it also mentions other things like consoles and popular genres of that time, dates or technological leaps etc). While my impressions of the reviews is that they focus more on the actual gameplay (quests structure, mechanics etc) rather then talking about things like story or particular happenings (although they do mention a bit of those without spoiling too much), they seem to be written with love and personal findings (the author of the book, a Brazilian, has said he played most of the 300+ games listed in the book, and he also mentions how hard it was to play this games back in his youth in Brazil, something I can refer to as in Poland we also had a lot of limitations). What's interesting in this book is that it also gives some information on how to play/emulate some of the older games, suggests mods that try to fix some of the games shortcomings/bugs, or lists their available versions (like remakes, even if those were released after 2015). And even some content mod sugestions (Neverwinter Nights for example has two extra pages focusing only on the Aurora editor with suggestions of the best fan-made campaigns to try out). This book is definately a CRPG's, or even a gamers in general treasure vault. I definately recommend this book, it's available on Amazon for instance. And for those who like to feel good, all the profit from this book goes to a charity organisation. It's the ultimate trip down the memory lane, a good point of reference, and something that can even inspire you to search for some older games  Oh, and it also covers some jRPG's for those interested
BONUS: As a sort of comic geek, because I was fed up with looking into internets each time a Marvel character is mentioned somewhere, I requested this book as a present: Marvel Encyclopedia New Edition. The book contains an astounding list of 1000+ characters from across Marvel universe and even descriptions of some of the main story-arcs or fictional organizations. It contains great art and a lot of helpful information. My only problem with it that a lot of descriptions are chaotic and confusing, but that is probably because over the years some plots became so convoluted (for ex. characters dying and ressurecting a couple of times) that it's probably impossible to keep it in logical fashion (as much as a book about comic book characters can be logical that is...).
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Oddball13579
Supreme Hero
Grandmaster of the Hunt
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posted January 01, 2020 11:59 PM |
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I just got Doctor Halsey's journal from Halo! 
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"Just slide her down a bit farther. I could wear her like a hat." - Gnomes
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Celfious
Promising
Legendary Hero
From earth
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posted January 03, 2020 02:19 PM |
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Edited by Celfious at 17:22, 03 Jan 2020.
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The gate of paradise in florence. I need to keep this book lol
Ten huge panels made out of bronze biblical reference too
1 adam and eve
2 able and cain
3 noah
4 abraham isaac
5 jacob esau
6 joseph
7 moses
8 joshua
9 david and golliath
10 king solomon queen sheeba
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What are you up to
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted January 06, 2020 02:24 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 14:32, 06 Jan 2020.
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You would probably need a big display case for it Celfious 
I'm picking up the 5 book (3+2) Elder Scrolls collection from Titan Books because there's a nice price cut on them. The first one, Skyrim Library basically contains many of the books you can find in-game Skyrim. I do remember those being pretty nice to read (Lusty Aragonian Maid anyone? ).
The second one, Tales of Tamriel does basically the same but this time with Elder Scrolls Online. Interestingly, although the Skyrim one reuses the same art from the Skyrim CE artbook which I own (plus adds some art from older games), the ESO one is pretty unique as the MMO itself didn't ever have a collectors artbook to go with it. And there are some really good art pieces there. I didn't play the game itself yet, although I'm pretty interested in it, especially now after they added Elswyr and Dragons
Altogether the books are some really nice examples of artbooks themsleves, with stylized covers and high production values.
Here is a link for those interested
Belive it or not I'm not a Elder Scrolls lore geek, but the setting or rather worldbuilding is one of my favourites in any games that I played, and Skyrim is probably my favourite RPG of all-time, so those books are no-brainers for me...
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted February 19, 2020 12:39 AM |
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Dies_Irae
Supreme Hero
with the perfect plan
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posted February 19, 2020 12:57 PM |
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One
Two
Three
To answer the topic's question: no, I do not collect Art Books. Well, not yet, anyway. Currently I only have two, of which one is the book that came with the Collector's Edition of Might and Magic Heroes VII.
You know, the game that I was so eager to play but couldn't due to not owning a proper PC. And then I got the PC, played MMH7 for a bit, until Dark Souls III came around (bought during a sale). I haven't gone back to MMH7 for more than a year. Dark Souls III has taken up pretty much all my game time, save for a few other games like Subnautica and Blasphemous. I'm completely blown away by the game, so much so that I acquired some corresponding merchandise, like The Design Works. It's a complete overview of the designs for the game: weapons, enemies, bosses, NPCs, etcetera. Even the things that didn't make it into the final game (or designs that were altered as the development progressed).
There are Design Works for Dark Souls 1 and 2 as well. The lore of all three games, along with every piece of dialogue, maps and whatnot, are combined in a massive Trilogy Compendium which I've bought too. I still have to play DS I and II though, I have them in my Steam library.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted February 19, 2020 02:16 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 14:18, 19 Feb 2020.
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It's a good time to be collecting artbooks (well, NOT if you're looking from your "wallets perspective") as almost any noteworthy game, artist, movie or computer/console system has at least one artbook on it and it seems there is a high demand for those as more and more are created.
The choice and availability is greater (internet shopping) as in my youth, because in those times the only real way to get artbooks was through buying collector editions... My countries market was "late to the party" and only now I can see the possibilities.
I always liked "visual" books, maybe because I liked to draw things when I was younger, I even at some point thought of a career related to art. Well I'm long past that, but at least my fascination for art and especially artbooks (which many times present the thought process behind a piece of art/illustration/concept which is also fascinating, especially when you really like a particular style/artist) stayed. They say in a book you use your own imagination, but I always liked to see what is an artist take on sth, that's why I especially like books that also convey things with art.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted May 12, 2020 11:10 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 15:14, 06 Jun 2020.
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New s*it:
DnD Art & Arcana
Final Fantasy Ultimania v2
Metal Slug: The Ultimate History
EDIT: Only a few pages in DnD Art & Arcana, but I can already tell there is something magical in reading about the beginnings of a game that inspired so many (even if I generally had an idea how it all began). I never played a proper D&D campaign, but I've read, played and have seen many things that come directly from it. It's not Tolkien level of influental (especially when you think even Gygax himself was hugely inspired by him), but it's influental nevertheless and it's a joy to read how it began and in what it evolved, especially now when geekism is not shunned anymore, and so many succesful people openly claim being fans of D&D (which the foreword of the book mentions ofc).
And the art... even if your not into artbooks this is one book any fantasy fan should own.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted June 06, 2020 03:32 PM |
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I thought you were referring to books about painters works. Those I do collect or at least possess a large number of them.
My favorite is an Escher book with geometric figures you can cut out and assemble. I have two copies of that one, one fully assembled and one still on the book.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted June 06, 2020 05:46 PM |
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bloodsucker said:
I thought you were referring to books about painters works. Those I do collect or at least possess a large number of them.
Those also count I think
But I'm mostly focused on lorebooks/artbooks with a lot of lore that have something to do with game franchises or fantasy.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted August 11, 2020 02:39 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 10:21, 03 Nov 2020.
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So I recently got into collecting Warhammer 40k codexes. I always thought those are simple rulebooks and... it's only half truth. Yes, around 1/3 of the books are datasheets related to the miniature tabletop game itself but the rest is actually a f*cking badass lore book (and 40k universe is awesome) with epic battles and all possible english synonyms of either the words "badass" or "over-the-top". It's chock full of art and what I enjoy the most: almost all possible miniatures you can collect as part of the titular armies are depicted here with cool paintjobs so you don't need to spend milions of $ and your time to get them to look this way. Not to mention the fact you have them all in one place (the detail and size of photos is just right) so you can skip searching websites to find all of them entirely.
Reading it I feel like I'm growing a second beard.
EDIT: Bought a few more codexes, I really got into Warhammer lore.
Other then that I ordered the third instalment in the "Art of Hearthstone" book series (Year of Mammoth), War of the Spark artbook (which unfortunately seems to be the last chapter in the "Art of MtG" series  ) and MtG Legends: A visual history book (which is another entry in the very own Wizards of the Coast little series covering their art). Ah yes and I bought The World of Cyberpunk 2077 book because it costs 10 dollars around here
My artbook collecting does not show any signs of stopping, alas it's perfect for the corona situation. I almost stopped buying any other stuff, so have a bit of money to spare on my hands
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted January 02, 2021 06:19 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 13:55, 03 Jan 2021.
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Ok, time for a New Year confession and resolution 
Corona year 2020 was actually record breaking when it comes to me buying books. Probably because I saved some money due to not driving to work and paying off my car finally... That extra money allowed me to go a bit wild and I kinda need to put a stop to it this year. Would do good for my economy. My latest craze is "D&D" but I only bought monster manuals so far 
What started as only a few books has grown into quite a collection - two full shelves of various lore/art/manual books. This is all thanks to a bigger availability of these kind of products nowadays. A lot of specilized stores or webstores have popped up near me so getting my hands on this kind of stuff has never been easier.
What can I say, I love to read about fantasy (and sci-fi also it turns out) trivia and I'm especially fond of the physical format.
I will continue with my hobby this year, but hopefully I will be less greedy
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