Contest: What are your favourite art books from 2012?

1. The Art of Marvel's the Avengers - I've seen the book many times. Great art, great concepts! A huge fan of how Marvel create and execute their works :)

2. Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book - always been a fan of Feng Zhu Art. I really love his style of digital painting. Inspiring art.

3. The Art and Making of ParaNorman - I've seen the movie, and it was great! The animation of Paranorman's stop motion style really amazed me. I want to see how it was done so if ever chosen, I want to have the book :)

1. The Art of Rise of The Guardian.
A lovely book. I love this one because the artstyle of the character. The environmental designs are amazing too. And the decorative illustrations for each character are awesome.

2. The Art of Journey
The art is amazing. The use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology is super awesome. I wish more artbooks using this technology come up next.

3. Star Wars Art: Illustration
Great artists with high detailed illustrations.

Art of Mass Effect Universe: I know the games very well and the book is a great way for me to return to the world of Mass Effect without having to play through all the games. Great balance of art illustration and orthographic archival of weapons etc.

Art of Assassin's Creed 3: Loved the appropriate painting style for the period - a kind of contemporary watercolour aesthetic.

Blast: A book which delivers on both rough conceptual sketches and the more polished painted pieces.

^ I would not have been interested in the last two if it wasn't for this blog. Thanks!

1- Art of Journey
Basicaly the most perfect mix of text and art, beautifuly done art and the use of the phone app enriches the experience in a ways that could not be done otherwise.

2-Sketchtravel.
To hear the story and to see the HUGE diference in art styles all masterfully crafter makes this book one of the best "artblock cures" of all time

3- Hyrule Historia
Could have more art and I could known how to read japanese, but my love for the zelda series is so huge that seing those sketches for the first time just gave me pure joy in my heart. I will probably double dip the USA version

1) The Art of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Improves what we saw in the original trilogy artbooks. It's a breathtaking weta stuff!!

2) The Art of Mass Effect Trilogy
Massive character desings & superb drawing style, simply outstanding!!

3) The Art of Halo 4: Awakening
The 343 studio concept artist have had a hard work in expanding the Halo universe
and they've done it extremely well!

I probably have choosen them because of being a fan of the franchises, but overall
it has been an amazing year for artbooks: Gears of War 3, Assassins 3, FZD, Massive
Black 2, Expose 10... really epic!!

My favourite artbooks of this year :

A Disney Sketchbook : Beautiful, just beautiful, make by masters.

Artbook Cromwell: Quelque Part : Discovered Cromwell by the review on Parka Blog. I bought it immediately. I love it. Characters with lots of personality : Wild, Punk, Rock... Fun.

Mattias Unfiltered : I already have this first artbook, The First In Line (with an original drawing). Very imaginative, poetic and inspiring.

1. The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Hyrule Historia. Bring back memories of the legend.
2. Art of the Hobbit [Deluxe Edition] [Hardcover]. Great imagination from Tolkien. Beautiful indeed.
3. The Sky: The Art of Final Fantasy Boxed Set [Hardcover]. 10 years of Yoshitaka Amano!

My favorite books of 2012 are:
-"Expose 10: The Finest Digital Art in the Known Universe" - as with the other books in the "Expose" series it pictures a wonderful execution of details in the artworks. My favorites are the portrait- and the steam-punk sections.
-"Brian Froud's Trolls" - I simply love the art of Brian Fround - be it fairies, goblins or trolls.
-"Drawing and Sketching Secrets - 200 Tips and Techniques for Drawing the Easy Way" - the book explores lots of different styles and methods and the wonderful examples of all the artists inspire to draw for yourself.

My favorites from 2012

*EXPOSE 10: The Finest Digital Art in the Known Universe
Amazingly put together, huge collection of photos. Covers a variety of different artist.The name says it all. It is in fact some of the finest digital art in the known universe.

*ImagineFX Sci-Fi: The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Digital Painting Techniques
Very helpful when stuck on something. Easy to understand. Right to the point step by steps.

*Book Review: The Art of BOOM! Studios
Amazing illustrations, it has all the different genre of comic styles from the gore to kid stuff. Everything in the book is just beautifully done.

I would just like to say if it wasn't for parkablogs i would not have purchased the large variety of books i did this year. Thank you!

This is such a nice opportunity you are giving to people like me who can't always afford art books although I crave it !
I had the chance to borrow art books from friends or read in libraries so here are my top 3 in no particular order:

- The Art of Rise of The Guardians : I think this is a beautiful art book that covers the whole process of the animated film and the thought behind each scenes. I love the character designs in these kind of animation with mystical and well known character, I get see how they interpreted these common figures that we usually see but with a great twist ! The best fart is that the book is rich in not only colors and line but in words too! We earn a lot of knowledge and understand the movie in depth.

- The Art of Assassin's Creed III : I haven't yet played this game but I've seen a lot of short animation from the game and fanarts. I've always loved the design of the main characters: how the hood give so much mystery and give us the urge to know more! This art book is filled with beautiful landscape too, with stunning composition and lights. Something that I can learn a lot from. We can also find breathtaking work from William Wu too!

- Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book : FZD... one of the school I would like to attend the most! And Feng Zhu is such a great teacher although I only learned from him on youtube, I think he taught me too much for no gain. And for that I would like to repay him. In this art book, we see the stunning work of the students at the school and I think it's a great motivation for the readers to work harder!

1. The Art of Rise of the Guardians - Absolutely loved this movie and the compelling visuals. It was great to be able to the concept art behind this great movie.

2. Sunny Side by Pascal Campion - One of my favorite vis dev artists ever, his use of color and shapes to tell stories is simply astounding!

3. Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book - I've admired FZD for many years now, and while it's great to see his work again, it's also inspiring to see the work of his students. Knowing that students can achieve this level of work is inspiring to me.

My favorite art books of 2012

-The Art of Journey. The explanation into their thought processes regarding the game is fantastic. Every piece of art book is beautiful, and there is a lot of emotion behind everything they made.

-The Art of Wreck It Ralph. It's amazing to see how this films story developed, and how very different it was going to be. Excellent view of character development through visuals.

-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles: Art & Design. It was great seeing the thought process of film. From the costumes to the environments.

1. Awakening: The Art of Halo 4, i love this because the art is fantastic, the concept of the master chief, vehicles, and the landscape are really captivating.
2. Mass Effect, the designs,and concepts are fan-flipintasic
3. SOUL CALIBUR New Legends of Project Soul, i loved playing the games,and really love the characters. the designs/ concepts were just awesome!

First, The Art of Rise of the Guardians because it’s filled with wonderful and colorful pictures (little, medium and full pages). The author explains the choices made to shape the characters and the landscapes. There is also an arborescence which shows the links between people for the creation of a critical sequence in the movie, that’s really interesting.

My second choice is The Art of Paranorman. Every chapter covers a department. The author is I literally guiding us through the place. And he describes the work of everyone of them by interviewing the head of the department. That’s amazing to discover that the cape of a ghost needed armatures (like the skeleton of the puppet) in order to give it a natural movement. We learn a crazy amount of stuff and there are great photos of workshop and tools that’s exactly what I wanted to see.

My third choice is The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy. I’m a fan of the trilogy and I was frustrated by the bonus in the DVD…And this artbook comply with my expectancies! We learn a lot about the shooting and preparation (material for the costume, building of the sets, etc..)
For example, in Batman Begins the scene on a frozen lake when Bruce Wayne and Heni Ducard are training was shot in one day even though the ice wasn’t really thick because they knew that the ice might not be there anymore the next day.

The art of Journey, the Art of Darksiders II and the art of Halo 4 are stunning artbooks. I specially enjoyed the art of Journey. Its use of RA is quite impressive and I think it should be implemented in more artbooks :D

My favorite artbooks for 2012 were :

1.The Art Of Brave, this Disney Pixar book gave a lot of insights to the Scotland scenes.And coined the word legend in a new meaning. Love the drawings and beautiful characters.
2. The Art of Wreck it Ralph- I love the concepts and the characters and the idea from video game. Your nice review made me purchase this book.

3. The Art Of John Carter- even though the movie was a big flop, I still went to buy this book and very expensive indeed. But I am a fan of Andrew Stanton thats why I like it.

Thanks for all the reviews. I've based quite a few of my purchases on them. Keep'em coming!:)

These are my favorites:

1. The art of Journey: I'm a big fan of the game and the concept art is so beautiful and inspiring. It's nice with the augmented reality and the fanart section.

2. The art of Rise of the guardians: Colorful and strong pictures. Love the background and character designs.

3. CFSL.NET: Café Salé (CFSL) Artbook 06: Like the variety of art. Nice with the categories giving it more structure. Very inspiring.

The Art of Journey - A great mix of style, atmosphere and minimalist approach.

Awakening: The Art of Halo 4 - 343 Did a fantastic job relaunching Halo and building an amazing team of artists

Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book - Feng Zhu is an amazing tutor. Inspiring, dedicated and always sharing.

I found 3 artbook of 2012 particularly interesting and useful, that inspired me a lot.

1 The art of Rise Of The Guardians: I really liked the style of the design of scenarios and characters in this book. I find it very nice and tidy the idea of ​​dedicating a specific space for each character in the movie. Those who I preferred, and I have been most useful are those dedicated to Tooth Bunny and Pitch. Very inspiring, really.

2 ° The Art and Making of Hotel Transylvania: They are beautiful studies of the characters in this book. Very impressive the amount of material containing. One of the best I've ever seen.

3 ° The Art of Brave: I love the style of Pixar, and this is no exception. I like the designs of the backgrounds and the special care of the character. The pages dedicated to the storyboard of the movie I found really excellent and also very useful.

1) Naughty and Nice: The Good Girl Art of Bruce Timm - Amazing book that showcases Bruce Timm's unique simplistic but very expressive style. I was lucky to grab a hardcover but I'm contemplating picking up the pocket edition to have around that I can look through more easily. Highly recommended.

2) Dark Souls Design Works - Incredible monster design and world building. The designs of the monsters are highly imaginative and are downright terrifying. (Especially if you plan on playing the game).

3) The Art of the Mass Effect Universe - I'm not too into the games but I will admit to it having a really great sci-fi aesthetic. Very distinct and varied alien races and amazing locales.

Thank you for this opportunity!

My BEST 3 would be

The Art of Journey:
Really love its vivid and warm art style.
The book's layout is simply great, very comforatble to read.
The AR page's amazing, too, one should definetly try it if he has a tablet.

The Art and Making of Hotel Transylvania
Brilliant character design, very well-developed.
I'm glad they put the interior and props and those details in it,
which really helps you realize how diligent and talented the staff are.

The Art of Wreck-It Ralph:
With a wide bunch of video game style concept arts and cute little characters, it indeed is a book every gamers would like to have one.

1- Foundation 1: FZD Art of Book-Because we all love concept art.
2-The Art of Rise of the Guardians
3-The Art of Wreck-It Ralph

Here are my three favorites (though really, it's hard to choose just three).

DISGAEArt!! - I've always loved the simple art style of the Disgaea-verse, and although I've missed out on most of the art books, this is one I've looked forward to getting.

Pixiv Almanac Vol 1 - A collection of different artists in one giant book of gorgeous art? Check! One of my favorite books in my collection, as I love having more than one artist in a single book to just gaze in awe over.

Naughty and Nice: The Good Girl Art of Bruce Timm - Apart from anime / manga art, I love pinups and Bruce Timm's work are some of my favorites.