Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The companion volume to Game Art that explores the methods and tools and that offers both a historical perspective and a glimpse of the future.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

These two books analyze two forms of art introduced in the late 20th century: digital art produced solely for computer games and the digital graphic art of cartoons and animation. Game Art is an entertaining history of everything from William Higginbotham's primitive tennis game of 1958 to the cinematic worlds created for games like today's Prisoners of War. More a history than a how-to manual, the book offers in-depth features on the many genres of game art and interviews with major contemporary practitioners. Also discussed are such 3D techniques as model building, texturing, and animation. Toon Art is a definitive popular guide to the digital art we're now all familiar with from films like Toy Story and The Lion King. A "Toon Timeline" traces the art from cave drawings through William Hogarth, Hokusai, Disney, Yellow Submarine, and Shrek. In remarkably clear language (for such technical material), one is taught how to create digitally, with reference to vector-based drawing, pixel-based painting, and flash and 3D animation. Experts in the field offer personal insights, and a portfolio of innovators, like wunderkind Raf Anzovin of Anzovin Studio, provides inspiration. While Game Art is a good survey of the quickly changing art of the computer game, Toon Art is an essential purchase for collections serving those who want to join the fast-growing field of digital cartooning and animation. For a similar book, but one based on the work of a single studio, see Peter Weishar's Blue Sky: The Art of Computer Animation. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

In Toon Art, Withrow, who draws a weekly digital comics series called Crackles of Speech, begins with a visual time line from Lascaux to tapestry, newspapers, television and computers. The second section walks a reader through digital sketching, with sections on flash animation and toon typography. Withrow goes "behind the scenes with the experts," men and women of the new generation of independent digital cartoonists "who are attempting (to varying degrees) to go it alone without corporate sponsorship..." A third section showcases "the best in the business," and a fourth discusses the future of comics. With 450 color illustrations, a wide cross-section of artists is represented in a playful design that gives a nod to cartoon sensibility (text bubbles and brightly colored, pointillist chapter openers), yet the overall look remains clean and comprehensible. In Game Art, Morris, creator of the PC game Warrior Kings, and Hartas, a children's book writer and illustrator, take readers from Pacman and Pong to real-time strategy games like Age of Empires or Ico. Each of 14 chapters contains "Insider Secrets" that have industry artists explaining in detail things like how to create a 3-D world or cinematic sequences. Dozens of games are picked apart, with their creators telling how they fashioned the styles and stories of their fictional worlds. With more than 500 digital images and explanatory text running throughout, the pages are busy, but offer a comprehensive examination of highly imaginative technological territory. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Adult/High School-A superb, comprehensive guide to the realm of Web-based cartoons, comics, and animation. The brief history of cartooning begins 35,000 years ago with the cave art at Lescaux and traces a time line to today's developments. The book takes readers on a creative trip from initial sketches to posting a finished product on the Web and covers the basic processes of creating a cartoon, choosing a format, developing a character, and writing a story line. Withrow discusses sketching backgrounds, composition, coloring of characters, lettering, editing, and posting the work. All along the way, readers find invaluable suggestions and comments from leading digital cartoonists. The book is also visually rich with photographs of cartoons and animated characters, and illustrations on how to produce digital animation. This is a satisfying read for anyone interested in state-of-the-art animation, and it is sure to be popular with young adults.-John Kiefman, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.