Digital Beauties: 2D & 3D Computer Generated Digital Models, Virtual Idols and Characters

by Sandra Bocola, Julius Widemann

Here you'll discover a host of digital beauties from all around the world and a dizzying array of styles and techniques-moody black-and-white nudes, surreal portraits, Lara Croft-style adventure chicks, sleek ultra-futuristic babes, etc. Both 2D and 3D design are covered, with an emphasis on the latter; some images are so stunningly lifelike it's hard to believe they're 100% computer generated.

Genres: Art

572 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2001

Reviews

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the art is amazing, others were... picked to make up the numbers?
Profiles on lots of pionieers in this field of art.
Like most computer-related things, because technology changes so quickly, this has become fairly dated, though.

[Christian Molenaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goes about as deep as any of these Taschen books focusing on a diverse group of creators instead of one particular artist, which is to say not very. “Diverse” being the operative word, of course, because unfortunately so much of the art here (in spite of technique ranging from impeccable to... low-poly, let’s say) focuses solely on lovingly rendering detailed 3-d pubic hair or enormous tiddies. Some of the artists featured created incredible work, but a lot of the material highlighted wouldn’t be out of place on any DeviantArt profile. I guess it’s neat to see a fine art institution as unimpeachable as Taschen democratized at this level? Works well if you pretend it’s an in-universe document from Olivier Assayas’ Demonlover or some kind of meta-novelization of Peggy Ahwesh’s “She Puppet.”

[Dainey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the introduction makes a big deal about how digital art is tied to the advanceent of computer technology, looking at this book now, over 15 years later, I'm going to have to slightly disagree.

The quality of the tools does not define an artist's skills, and this medium is no different. The masterpieces of back then still look good today, even if you can spot where the technology has macrhed onwards, and the ones that were a poor showing then look just as hideous today.

If anything, the contrast brought on by time only highlights who had the determination to succeed in the long run.