Book Review: Blood Sweat & Tears

Strong, bold and confident brush strokes. That's about every illustration in this book.

Using a lot of black and a very limited colour palette, each image created is stark but strong. Such is the style of Benjamin Gudel.

In this book are a lot of portraits and ink sketches. Benjamin Gudel is exceptionally good at capturing character expressions, making the characters even more authentic.

There are also plenty of random scenes. One page could be plate of spaghetti, next could be a bikini skateboarder babe, and next could be a man drenched in high contrast silhouette rain.

It's a great compilation.

Here's the product description from Amazon:

Benjamin Güdel is a freelance illustrator and comic artist based in Zurich, Switzerland. His bump and grind style is reminiscent of pulp fiction covers and cult film posters of the 1950s with a distinct contemporary, politically incorrect edge.

Güdel’s striking drawings are collected in Blood, Sweat and Tears, a rollicking romp through pop art portraits, pin-ups, pirates and more. Featuring commercial illustrations for clients including Berlin’s renowned Schaubühne Theater, Burton and innovative Swiss magazines "Du" and "soDA" as well as personal projects, this book is an entertaining whirlwind ride through Güdel’s work.