Book Review: Steampainting: Spark

Steampainting: Spark is the second art book from Steambot Studio. The first was the brilliant Exodyssey art book.

The contributing artists here are Thierry Doizon (Barontieri), Joel Dos Reis Viegas (Feerik), David Levy (Vyle), Sebastian Larroude (Rainart) and Manny Carrasco.

This book covers speedpainting, and is the first in a series of five educational books. It's a 98-page (hard) paperback that comes with a nice slipcase. There are three sections namely stepbystep, 3ch? and bonusgallery.

The first chapter looks at the process of speedpainting with examples from each artist. There are step-by-step screenshots and commentary on the creation process. On the screenshots are little icons representing the actions taken. The book comes with an instruction card to decode those icons. They are basically Photoshop-related actions like distorting, adding layers, erasing, etc. There are plenty of themes covered, not just sci-fi.

The second chapter is quite interesting. It's about 3CH, an automatic theme generator for speedpainting themes. It would generate strange ideas and you would have to draw it. You can try 3CH on their website. This chapter is similar to the first but uses ideas from 3CH.

And finally, there's a beautiful art gallery showing even more work created using techniques taught.

The book has many tips and ideas floating around. You can gain a lot from the walkthrough of their process, and learn how to quickly create striking images or concept art. The examples are pretty cool. I like the textures going on, which they create using their own brush. But this isn't a technical book so it doesn't go into stuff like brush creation.

I can't remember if there's any already published on speedpainting techniques, so this might be the first one I've read. It's an inspiring book.

You can get the book at steambotstudios.com and Amazon US via a third party merchant.

You can get the book at steambotstudios.com and Amazon US via a third party merchant.