Sci-Fi: The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Digital Painting Techniques

by ImagineFX

Following the success of Fantasy Workshop , Fantasy Creatures , and Manga , the ImagineFX team turns to sci-fi! With reference to creative painting programs--including Photoshop, Illustrator, and Corel Painter— Sci-Fi presents step-by-step instructions and screen grabs to help artists progress from basic “pencil” roughs to first-stage line art and ultimately finished color art. Soon you'll be using the very latest techniques to design your own digital paintings and first-class sci-fi art featuring amazing characters, scenes, and close-ups.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 2012

About the author

ImagineFX is a digital art magazine that features workshops and interviews with artists from the science fiction, fantasy, manga, anime, game and comic disciplines.

Published in Bath, UK by Future plc since January 2006, its main focus is the workshops featured in the second half of the magazine. Artists such as Ryan Church, Jonny Duddle, Martin Bland and Henning Ludvigsen contribute to the magazine. The magazine comes with a DVD that includes workshop files that relate to the tutorials in the magazine as well as reader artwork, program demos, free fonts, textures, images and Photoshop brushes.

Reviews

[Lukas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ist okay, der Fokus liegt schon sehr stark auf dem SciFi-Aspekt, der "Ultimate Guide to Mastering Digital Painting Techniques" wird eher so nebenbei an manchen Stellen mit reingequetscht. Und ungefähr die Hälfte der behandelten Artworks sind mies ugly (das ist natürlich nur meine persönliche Meinung). Nur Kaufempfehlung, wenn mensch sich speziell für SciFi-Art interessiert.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! Imagine FX has gone over and above yet again!

Coming at sci-fi art from various angles, this book delves into the processes artists use in their work, step by step. Great, original artwork is dissected by the artists themselves to show you clearly how to frame your scene, develop characters, create exciting effects, add textures, and more, all using the most popular digital art programs. Screenshots, tools used, "pro secrets," and shortcuts make this a handy guide that's also visually stimulating.

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures on my blog)

Sci-Fi is the 4th book from ImagineFX on digital painting techniques. Previously, they have covered Fantasy Creatures, Manga and digital painting in general.

The tutorials from this book are those featured in the past issues of the magazine. They are in the form of demonstrations where the artists share their techniques and process to creating their artwork. There are 26 tutorials and a short artist gallery.

Here's the list of contents:
1. Characters
- Tap into A Sci-Fi Classic by Marek Okon
- It Came From Beyond Space by Aly Fell
- Creating Epic Sci-Fi by Marek Okon
- Paint Like Syd Mead by Francis Tsai
Creatures
- Monster Creations by John Kearney
- Quick Martian Concepts by Andy Park
- Symmetrical Designing by Mike Corriero
- Make The Most of Photo-Collage by Marc Taro Holmes
Environments
- Getting Composition Right by Gary Tonge
- Classic Sci-Fi Painting by Bill Corbett
- Light Your World by Ioan Dumitrescu
- Epic Space Batter by Dr Chee Ming Wong (aka Koshime)
- Dramatic Winterscapes by Sam Burley
Robots & Weapons
- 25 Steps to Building Better Robots by Christian Alzmann
- Create a Robot Concept by Keith Thompson
- Unify Elements of Your Concepts by Travor Claxton
- Creating a Giant Robot by Jess van Dijk
- Mecha's Heart by Saijin Oh
- Inventing Retro Weaponry by Patrick Reilly
Vehicles
- Paint a Light Cycle by Koshime
- Implying Detail by Thomas Pringle
- Designing Orion by Kevin Cunningham
- Making Fantastic Flying Creatures by Christian Bravery
- Dramatic Concept Art by David Levy
3D Art Skills
- Create 3D Models by Sunil Pant
- Take Your First Steps in 3D Glen Southern
Sci-Fi Gallery
- Marek Okon
- James Paick
- Ben Mauro
- Mike McCain
- Alex Broeckel
- Daryl Mandruk
- Monsit Jangariyawong
- Aley Fell
- Josh Grafton
- Christian Bravery
- Skan Srisvwan
- Wei Ming
- Joe Uinton

The tutorials are step-by-step with examples and commentary. In some tutorials, you need to know Photoshop to know the terms they refer to. The subjects are quite diverse and covers a bit on the different aspects of Sci-Fi, such as alien creatures, characters, environments, robots, etc. There are also tutorials on 3D modeling, but those are quite elementary.

It's a book good for beginner to intermediate artists who want to learn about creating certain effects and get tips on conceptualizing basic sci-fi paintings.