4.75

5

Aug 15, 2017

This looks like the only mass market book on the subject so it's also the best! The section on curved reflections, the Fresnel effect, and general shading are pretty rigorous (though the shading needs more rigor). Unfortunately it's geared toward digital artists so they speak of various photoshop effects instead of paint pigments. The second half of the book is basically random stock photos for some reason.

If you want to teach yourself the subject, I'd pair this book with "Presentation This looks like the only mass market book on the subject so it's also the best! The section on curved reflections, the Fresnel effect, and general shading are pretty rigorous (though the shading needs more rigor). Unfortunately it's geared toward digital artists so they speak of various photoshop effects instead of paint pigments. The second half of the book is basically random stock photos for some reason.

If you want to teach yourself the subject, I'd pair this book with "Presentation Techniques" by Dick Powell, which is really for industrial designers but it has extra info on reflectivity. I'd also look up the website "huevaluechroma.com" by David Briggs, which has the shading info with a proper level of rigor (although also unfortunately biased towards digital artists) ...more

5

Nov 06, 2015

This book is actually not available. The book I read was called How to Render the Fundamentals of Light, Shadow and Reflectivity. I believe it is a later edition of the book above. It's fabulous. It really gives information that I haven't seen elsewhere. It goes beyond the usual highlight, core shadow, reflected light, etc. And it talks about passive highights and reflections and how to know/understand where to place them, how to plot cast shadows in perspective, etc. And it then deals with This book is actually not available. The book I read was called How to Render the Fundamentals of Light, Shadow and Reflectivity. I believe it is a later edition of the book above. It's fabulous. It really gives information that I haven't seen elsewhere. It goes beyond the usual highlight, core shadow, reflected light, etc. And it talks about passive highights and reflections and how to know/understand where to place them, how to plot cast shadows in perspective, etc. And it then deals with rendering those things on various surfaces such as chrome or matte, metallic, scratched, etc. This is done with great and thorough refinement and really makes it possible to understand e.g. the Fresnel effect and what happens to reflections on concave surface, etc. It's quite technical. It was a hard read for me. And it's 260+ pages. But I persisted and it's totally worth it. It's geared to very highend realism for vehicles and space and monster illustrations--and much of the info is for digital rendering. But the info is incredibly useful for any kind of illustration IMO. I'm glad I read it. And I will keep it by my work table. And I'm thankful to have such a book so packed with real information. Very excellent. ...more

5

Feb 24, 2016

Excellent book. However, you won't get far without the knowledge from the author's previous "How to Draw" book. You'll need to have a solid grasp of the fundamentals before tackling this bad boy.