Do you have/collect/read any artbooks?

[Tonberry]

And by artbooks I mean specifically books full of art pieces that's originally meant to appear in something else, like games or films, you get the idea! Concept art, promo art, design sheets, all that fun stuff!

As someone who's does illustration both as job and for fun as my lifelong passion, it's easy for me to gush about the artbooks I own (not nearly as many as I want to!) and to dissect all the tiny little details I obsess an unhealthy amount over (I'll save that for another post if this thread takes off), but I'm also super interested to hear from people who aren't as "critically" focused on the art, and what they like about the stuff they own.

Everyone's welcome to share their artbooks and talk about them!

(not my photo!)

 

[ZengarZombolt]

Yes and I wish I had more. I have the Gundam 00 Movie Mechanics, Masterfile ASF-X, and The Magnificent Kotobuki art books.

 

[bixo prego]

downloaded recently that concept art book from the hr giger inspired visual game, shit rly got ma atention , theres people who say that game was a mess in all senses but for me it is like a visual novel and is totally worth it ya know
cant attach any physical product cus dont have the props for acquire those haha

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

I own a small handful of Hatsune Miku/Vocaloid art books, but regarding games/movies I own the Fire Emblem Awakening Artbook

 

[Tonberry]

downloaded recently that concept art book from the hr giger inspired visual game, shit rly got ma atention , theres people who say that game was a mess in all senses but for me it is like a visual novel and is totally worth it ya know
cant attach any physical product cus dont have the props for acquire those haha

Oh, Scorn? Yeah that game had amazing art.

I own a small handful of Hatsune Miku/Vocaloid art books, but regarding games/movies I own the Fire Emblem Awakening Artbook

View attachment 79282

Those all count!
I don't know much about the modern Fire Emblem games, but I remember liking the cool promo art for Awakening a lot when it was around.

 

[Lg42inchtv]

The only artbook I have is an artbook for the first six Final Fantasy games.

 

[bjork]

I used to have some Phantasy Star Online ones, but I think the only artbook I still have is one for Kiki's Delivery Service.

 

[nobitakun]

I have only few artbooks, as I specialized more on guides back then. One of my favourites is Tony's Artworks, from Tony Taka. I have another one that I bought in Japan and it came with a DVD. It's another ecchi artbook. The rest I don't remember, they are in the closet with all the guides and I feel really lazy to look for them right now lol.

 

[Zerohour2k12]

I have a folder with all the PDF Artbooks Included on some games as well as from various sites but not any physical. Though I almost got one free from Mihoyo, Unfortunately they don't ship from where I'm live at that time.

 

[Facesforce]

I used to own a Yoshitoshi Abe artbook like this one.
I always loved his artstyle, so interesting with the mixed media and the rough sketchy look.
But the book I owned had a brown cover with a different illustation on top in monochrome.
Don't know what happened to that book, such a shame to have lost it.

 

[fake-kun]

I have scans of all Mega Man Official Complete Works artbooks.

 

[funkyrol]

The non-game related Artbooks I have in my studio are Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing - For What It's Worth! which is basically the "holy bible" for Illustrators, 3 of Frank Cho's books - Drawing Beautiful Women - The Frank Cho Method, Ballpoint Beauties and Liberty Meadows - Cover Girl Vol.1, coz I like his pinup work. Kim Jung Ji's Sketchbook Collection 2018 that I got signed by him in a Art convention back in 2020 (RIP)

Technically, I also own these "comic omnibuses" but they can be classified as "artbooks" since like a "behind the scenes" type of books: DC's The Dark Knight UNWRAPPED by David Finch, DC's The Art Of Darwyn Cooke and Marvel80 - 80 Years of Marvel Comics Cover Art Collection.

As for game-related artbooks, I have The Art of Naughty Dog (First Edition), CAPCOM Street Fighter 20th Anniversary Art Collection, CAPCOM The Art of Okami, Tetsuya Nomura - Final Fantasy X Artbook (Japanese Import), Square-Enix Final Fantasy XI World Concept Journal, CAPCOM Resident Evil Remake Artbook (from the PS3 Collectors Edition), Cave-Atlus Dodonpachi SaiDaiOuJouuSama Artbook (from the Xbox360 Box Edition), CAPCOM 30th Anniversary Character Encyclopedia, Shantae Half-Genie Hero Artbook (Vita Collectors Ed), Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus Artbook (Another Vita Collectors Ed)

And a bunch of comic books, of course

 

[diet_orange]

I was incredibly tempted to buy the one for Samurai Pizza Cats, but such is life

I did have Peanuts: The Art Of Charles Schultz and Meet Mr. Product growing up that were given to me by my mother. Meet Mr. Product was fun in that it helped grow my curiosity towards doing clean and simple artwork

I also loved Jim Henson: The Works and frequently borrowed it from the library to the point where I just went ahead an bought a copy second hand. Such a great history of Jim's output

 

[carb0n0x]

They are technically games but I don't really consider them so, still I got these artbooks because I just love the artstyles and atmosphere of both fantasy and near-future sci-fi.

Also the importing costs of these are quite steep as these artbook often weigh over 1kg most of the times... please Cygames kill Granblue already so I can stop buying these...

 

[SpcDaicon]

Artbooks are my favourite piece of memorabilia to collect.

Aside from the obvious high quality art, they always come with the artists commentary or interviews. Unfortunetly, many artbooks I own are in japanese and I can't porprely read them without the help of Google Lens