Bold Visions: A Digital Painting Bible: For Fantasy and Science Fiction Artists Paperback – January 1, 2008

Beautiful images, great price, and a good overview of the steps Gary Tonge uses to create his spectacular fantasy and science-fiction paintings.I keep looking for a book, or DVD, that will provide very detailed step-by-step directions for creating digital drawings and paintings from scratch using Photoshop. One that is designed for the beginner, but advances rapidly. I guess my unrealistic hope is to find material that takes me through the process in "baby steps" with directions like "I used this specific brush, with these settings, and this color to paint this area. Then I switched to this specific brushe and color and painted this here."While this book doesn't get that specific--it does provide a good overview of the steps Mr. Tonge uses to create about a dozen different images. For example, his chapter on "Bringing a Fantasy Landscape to Life" includes 15 steps along with screen shots. In addition he has included useful information regarding composition, lighting, scale and perspective, with illustrations on how these are used in his work. And for the price--I don't think you'll find a better book. If you do, let me know!One recommendation I have for the second edition of this book would be to include a CD or DVD with a video showing the step-by-step processess for one of his paintings! I'd pay double for that!

This book not only showcases beautiful and inspiring works of art, it provides advice and guidelines for artists hoping to develop their talents further. Be aware that the book does NOT provide step-by-step instructions, lists of tools, etc. on how each piece is done; that's to its credit. Rarely do artists do things in the exact same way. Gary Tonge simply presents his work and explains the concepts and processes that went into it. There are some examples of composition provided, although not with concrete rules, and an explanation of how light diffuses in some of his pieces, as well as sections on the importance of color, scale, perspective, and texures. This is not a rulebook or a stiff outline of steps. This is a guidebook. It offers suggestions and leaves the interpretation up to the reader. If you want a step-by-step tutorial, this is not for you. If you want inspiration and an understanding of what makes Tonge's art so dynamic, it's an invaluable text regardless of your choice of medium.

I was excited to get this book, although it did not mention the artist I was hoping it would feature. The book was fun to read and along the way helped to provide inspiration to do some exploring myself. The chapters are meant to resemble tutorials, but are not really step-by-step guides. I was able to purchase this title used for under $10, so it was worth it to me to have this included in my library of digital art books. My overall rating is good for this text.

This book is so beautiful that I chastised myself for getting finger prints on the pages, which I'm afraid is hard not to do. The images in this book alone are worth the price, but the author's walk through of each painting makes it priceless.A quick note, this book isn't for beginners (not that it claims to be). It goes over some basics of how to paint in Photoshop. Unfortunately, there's an artistic jump from the basics that are covered, to the paintings that are presented later in the book.Again, the book doesn't claim to be for beginners, but as a beginner myself, I appreciate the topics covered and, once I advance enough to be able to draw from my imagination, as opposed to only what I can see, I will refer to this book often. Until then, the images within will serve as great inspiration and a benchmark to aim for.

This book completely fails to live up to either its title or subtitle. Its not that the book is that bad, it is just terribly mistitled. Although it provides some useful process tutorials and some tips for beginners, it comes nowhere close in scope to biblical proportions.However it is in the big claim of "bold visions" that it so miserably misses the mark. While the artwork is fairly good and even quite good in some instances, technically and compositionally; the content is for the most part an uninspired rehash of worn out futuristic themes particularly in its supposedly visionary architecture. What we get here, page after page, are cringingly cliche pointy towers spreading out radially at the base into an otherwise banal 1970s griddy boxey cityscape sometimes with a few streamlined forms added here and there for excitement. Please just go to any architecture magazine or do some sightseeing and you will see that the world is already lightyears beyond this. And very rarely do these buildings compose well into their settings. Even the implausible structure on the cover is a sorry stab at the overdone heavy metal/industrial theme. No originality here. In fairness, this problem infects much of futuristic visionary art world. But there is some great stuff out there.

I bought this book hoping it would have some far out imagery to inspire me. I was not disappointed. Gary Tonge is a talented digital artist and his creative streak really shows through. This is not, however, much of a how to book. The examples are brief step by steps. If you're looking for a PhotoShop how too book, this is not the book for you. But if you love SciFi art and like to have desk top references handy of some fascinating art, this is a great book.

Good book, I'd say it goes hand-in-hand with Digital Painting Tricks & Techniques: 100 Ways to Improve Your CG Art. Get both for a good intro and skill development in digital painting!

This book is awesome! it really helped me as a novice Photoshop user. It has good examples and i Love how in depth he gets with his explanations and the "science" behind how he goes about doing his work. I definitely recommend this book.