I'm considering picking up Jim Gurney's painting handbooks.
What's /ic/'s opinion of them?
How well do they help with shit like composition, palette creation, figure lighting, etc.?
color and light is fucking excellent, imaginative realism is alright if you were interested in understanding gurneys particular processes and habits more but it has little instructional value (or at least i didnt feel like i got a whole lot out of it)
>>2293479
color and light is an absolute necessity in my opinion
imaginative realism has some great points to it but literally 75% of the book is "make maquettes to paint better" so its up to you really if the smaller amount of information is enough to pick it up for
color and light though get that shit
>>2293520
very well only a small portion is about setting up traditional materials
most of the information is concepts on how color and light behave together and work in different scenarios
its more theory than technique
>>2293536
Sweet, thanks!
Just placed the order. 16.43 after shipping. Shit yes.
>>2293545
nice dude youll learn a lot from it its definitely worth it
>>2293479
There's good info I guess but I feel they try to cover too many topics and barely even counts as an introductory thing for most of them. Like every page has a new topic and some might only have a couple paragraphs. He literally just took some old blog posts and published it with some of his art next to it. Like he will say toned paper with white pencil is a good method for doing a drawing and have two pictures next to it. Most of the information in both books is rather beginner level imo. They're by no means bad, but if you are expecting something thorough that explores anything deeply then you will be disappointed.
I think Gurney is pretty masterful, and probably the best resource for a student or person starting out. He really values quality and the intrinsic value that classical art contains. Hes not the most out-there or visionary artist with his own work (he's not a Moebius or R.Crumb) but Dinotopia is really masterfully realized. He is really great
One of the best things about C&L is that it has so much information that a beginner won't quite understand that you can really pick it back up at any point and get something from it. A year or two after I bought it I still find new things when I re-read it that I didn't understand how to implement the first time I read it.
>>2293479
Okay. Just ordered Color and Light. Thanks for sharing it.
>>2293479
As everyone else said, Color and Light is actually useful and instructive, IR is about how sculpting a realistic dinosaur maquette will help you with reference.
