This Artist's Library

When people get to know me better and find out that I am a bookworm, I often get asked what books about art and animation I have in my library. If they're my friends in Facebook I tell them to just check out my photo albums as there is one where I posted pictures of some books. But for fellow artists, I'm always a bit more forthcoming. Let me tell you about some of the titles that I consider as the most important ones in my collection.

The Titles That Helped Solidify the Foundation of My Profession

These first five titles were the ones that I referred to heavily, in the two years before I began my animation career. There were more of them but these are the ones that remained in my possession. Some were destroyed in the various floods throughout the years, eaten by termites, or lost in some way, either at work, or borrowed and never returned. I will replace all those I've lost and rebuild my library again someday, no matter the cost. I would like to note too, that this isn't a list of recommended titles to have in your bookshelves. I have them because they were the ones available in the bookstores at the time.

Drawing is all about the ability to represent three-dimensional form onto the two-dimensional flat space of a sheet of paper, and about knowing the form of the subject one wants to draw. There is no other way to become good at it than by learning the art of drawing realistic human figures. This skill is what was required of us who wanted to enter the world of traditional animation, and these two were just some of the five that I had on the subject. I definitely recommend these two books to those who want to learn how to draw humans.

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If the two figure drawing titles represent the more serious aspect of the business of drawing, these two books deal with the more fun side of it, especially with regard to their purpose of helping me become a cartoon animator. I must admit that I initially spent more time dealing with the Marvel book, as it allowed me to exercise more of my figure drawing skills and how to pose them more dynamically.

Then I realized that I needed another book that dealt with the subject of cartoony figures, which a cartoon animator would spend more time drawing, than the realistic exaggerated physiques of comic book superheroes that the Marvel book taught me how to draw.

The red book by famed illustrator, Jack Hamm, did get a lot of use while I was in training to become an assistant animator, and throughout my cartoon animation career. It is, hands down, the best cartooning book I've ever read. I also had some of Preston Blair/Walter Foster "skinny" series of cartooning books, and they were the ones that were destroyed in the floods. Good thing this red book survived, and helped me in my goal to become an animator.

Nowadays, as a 3D animator and character/creature modeler, I find myself poring through its pages again. If you're aspiring to get into cartoon animation, I strongly recommend this book for the gems you will find in its pages, particularly about facial expressions and its emphasis on exaggeration and humor. Highly recommended. Buy a copy of both if you're serious about comics, cartooning, and even animation.

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If there is a book in my library that I could say that it helped me the most in the process of becoming an animator, then this book is it. It was ordered from an animation supply store in California by my aunt, as a birthday gift to me.

Acquired just after finishing a 3-month graphics and animation short course, and right before I entered the industry, this book allowed me to continue practicing what I had learned in school, and also offered information not covered in the short course.

This book would be supplemented later on by two heavyweight titles, The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, and The Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams. Both books were borrowed by my cousin who is studying animation in one of the big universities here.

Those two books are more expensive than this one by Tony White, had to be ordered from abroad too, and also too heavy to lug around, so they remained in my bookshelf as references for more in-depth studies. This is a title that I highly recommend to those who are getting into 2D animation, and even for 3D artists who want to become 3D animators.

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Digital Graphics and Animation

Just like Tony White's book, these two titles became my bibles in my transition from traditional animation to 3D, and throughout my 3D animation career. Both books deal heavily with the subject of character creation, from modeling and texturing, and on to rigging and animation.

Both were acquired at about the same time. The Maya book was bought in a bookstore nearby, while the XSI book was requested from a relative in Canada, who immediately bought it for me. My aunts loved to spoil me a lot back then. LOL!

But my favorite is the XSI book, as SoftImage|XSI happened to be my favorite 3D animation software at the time, due to the groundbreaking use of its predecessor, SoftImage 3D, in Jurassic Park. It was the most capable 3D character animation software on the planet, until Autodesk decided to kill it off in 2015.

My library wouldn't be complete without a Blender title, so I got myself one in 2017 after seeing it in the shelves of my favorite second-hand bookstore. This book is for the old version of Blender, but I still decided to buy it for the still relevant information about texturing with Blender and GIMP, video compositing, and sculpting.

1997. A year before I entered the traditional animation industry, I was also entertaining the idea of jumping straight into 3D animation. There were already a few 3D animation studios here at the time, but they were all hard to get into if you didn't have any relevant work experience yet. So, I just bought these two blue books, 3D Studio MAX Fundamentals, and LightWave Power Guide, to learn 3D Studio MAX and LightWave 3D.

2005. After almost six years in traditional animation, I finally got my first job in 3D. I was still open to the idea of being a professional 3D Studio MAX artist, while being trained on Maya. My boss at the time decided that Maya would be the software we would concentrate on, as it was already the industry standard back then. Maya would be my tool until 2012, in a game development job I was lucky enough to spot in an online job search two years prior.

My first forays into 3D were not actually on the art side of things, but on the programming side. I wanted to write games back then, which was one of the reasons why I decided to take Computer Science, instead of Fine Arts, in college. These two books were purchased around 1996, and gave me my fundamental knowledge of 3D graphics. The one on the left, by Alan Watt, is the programming book, and is heavy on math programming, while the one on the right is sort of a 3D graphics glossary, providing the reader with definitions of the things that make up a typical 3D scene.

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It's Not Always A Job, Art Is My Hobby Too

Before all that flashy graphics and animation stuff that my life and world revolves around on these days, I was just like every artist who loved to draw with graphite and colored pencils. I never really needed to buy these books in 1996 as I already knew how to use colored pencils by figuring things out on my own. Knowing color theory from all those years being taught about it in grade school, I just worked my way from there, as well as a lot of good old fashioned trial-and-error. I still have some Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils left over from the late 80s, as well as a fresh set of 48 Classic Colour Pencils begging to be used. It's been a long time since I made a colored pencil artwork, and I will definitely make new stuff to post here someday.

I'm a compulsive buyer when it comes to books, and this is one of those titles that I just picked off the shelf and brought to the cashier to pay for. I'm already quite good with realistic rendering with graphite, and the way the artist does things in this book is just like how everyone else does, including myself. That said, it's still an ok title to recommend to people who are interested in learning realistic pencil drawing.

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Ok, that's all for now. I will be posting more about the other kinds of books I have in my library, and also new artworks, and art creation demonstrations soon. Stay tuned for them.

If you liked this post and found it helpful, or informative, please consider giving an upvote, a resteem, and a follow. God Bless, and rock on, people!

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All pictures are mine. This blog was created with eSteem Surfer and GIMP.