Book Review: Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games

Submitted by  Teoh Yi Chie on  March 18, 2013 - 1:14 pm

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 01


Set the Action is a book on creating backgrounds authored by Elvin A. Hernandez.

It's text heavy with plenty examples and they are well explained. Focus of the book is on it takes to make the environment believable, and hence the story believable. For example, if a character is a dirty fellow, his home should not be spotless clean. There's stuff on what props can be put into the scene, coverage on the different art styles, textures. The perspective section is surprisingly quite brief.

There's not much on talk specifically on animation and games. In particular, games nowadays feature such realistic environments I suppose there would be something to talk about.

This book is more for the intermediate and above artists who already know how to draw characters and just missing information on how to create backgrounds.

I've found some preview pages from Google Books and have embedded them below. Read some pages to get a clearer idea of the book.

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This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook or visit their website.

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 02

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 03

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 04

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 05

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 06

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 07

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 08

Set the Action! Creating Backgrounds for Compelling Storytelling in Animation, Comics, and Games - 09

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.co.jp | Amazon.cn

This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook or visit their website.

Tags
perspective drawing
background art
focal press
elvin a hernandez
basheer sponsored

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