Giles

technically not a book, but a magazine from imagineFX (UK) that I saw yesterday at Barnes and Nobles (MSRP: $19.99)

review from Parka Blogs

Book Review: The Art of Film Volume 1: Star Wars

I found this good stuff at Basheer Graphic Books yesterday, selling at SGD $25.

The Art of Film is a special edition of ImagineFX magazine. A spin-off, I should say. Somewhere inside, it says that Volume 2 is coming.

In this particular volume, the focus is on Star Wars art. This is probably the franchise that generates the most number of artworks in film history, or at least that's what I think.

I only discovered after buying this paperback edition that there's a limited hardcover edition available. For people buying to collect, you should get the hardcover which is said to have premium stock paper, whatever that represents. The paperback version I have uses the same paper quality as the ImagineFX magazines. Paper is thin but at least there's very little show-through from art from the pages behind.

Artwork in this magazine/book is wonderful. This could actually be one of the better Star Wars artbook that I've featured so far. So good that I was wondering like crazy at first why wasn't there a hardcover released. You might have seen some of the artworks in other Star Wars artbooks but the curation is done really well here.

50 artists are featured, such as Greg Hildebrandt, Ralph McQuarrie, Andy Fairhurst, Dave Dorman, Iain McCaig, Jon Foster, Dave Seeley, Terryl Whitlatch and many more. Strangely, the movie poster master Drew Struzan is not included. What?!?

Most of the artworks are printed satisfyingly huge. The paintings are beautiful and the details will hold your attention. There are even pictures of physical models of the spaceships. Terryl Whitlatch's creature designs can also be seen. And there are the posed model shots by Stephen Hayford. Majority are just the artist's own interpretation of the films. It's a diverse showcase of style. Each of the artist featured also has and interview alongside that talks about what it is like to work on Star Wars.

Mostly highly recommended!

I don't see this selling on Amazon though.

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it's a damn impressive for a one-off publication.