Art books: how many and the oldest?

[mariusthered]

over the years I have acquired a number of art books, I still cannot go into a book shop without looking at the art section even though my collection covers most areas of art and drawing. now I know in this new age having things on shelves collecting dust is not as popular as keeping them on a drive or cyber cloud but the fact is a paper book is reliable ( not including flood or fire)

q: how many art books do you own and how old is the oldest?

my answer: I have ...53 my oldest being fantasy art techniques by Boris Vallejo that I have had since 1985

[AnnaLandin]

I'm not sure how many I have, but somewhere in the region of 20-25, I think? Some of them are for specific artists - Alphone Mucha, Shaun Tan, etc. - others are more general for art movements - Art Deco, Impressionism, etc. - and yet others are for certain videogames and/or movies - Okami, Final Fantasy IX, Ghibli-movies, and so on.

I don't know how old the oldest one is, but the one I bought first was the Final Fantasy IX-artbook. This one:

... which might be out of print now, or at least hard to get ahold of? It's pretty amazing, anyway. It contains everything from character sheets to environment sketches to object designs, AND some nice Amano-painting right at the back.

Art books are nice, especially if they contain a lot of development-sketches and stuff - it's nice to peek at the process of other people - but most of my shelf-space is taken up by other books. Novels, poetry, non-fiction books, field guides to birds, etc. I'm a bibliophile, and I am perpetually running out of bookshelf-space.

[xo1]

I have 0 but I want some.

[mariusthered]

I know what you mean by running out of space shelf , it's one of the problems with collecting research stuff when writing. however my DvD collection is the biggest space eater ( so I caved and now watch most stuff off the net).

I don't know much about FF it looks nice artwork what i have seen of it. I do have the book about the artwork of Dark Watch and that is very cool (zombie cowboys rule).

[mariusthered]

second hand art books art very cheep but it gets addictive!

[Chopythes]

... 53 artbooks. Woah! That's quite a lot, I admire that! <3

I only have 2, Journey (from that Game Company) and the Art of the Reward (Sun Creature Studio) and I'm actually waiting for the Loish Art Book (which I backed on Kickstarter) so with that in mind I've got... 3 8D
The oldest is the Journey which I've had since 2012 (I believe?) ;D

Though my bookshelf mainly contains stories of the Nordic folk tales (I love them so much and the art in those are the best, John Bauer is the main illustrater for the books I've got as well as Alvaro Tapia who drew the Swedish Cover for the Harry Potter Books) and novellas, comics and horror stories.
It's quite the diversity on my shelves ;D

[Thesleepypencil]

I currently have 14. My latest one is the art of the book of life. My oldest one is the art of tangled.

My problem is not only space but art books are so heavy. Half of my shelves can't support all of them. Which i difficult because they are my biggest splurge. It's so addicting to get them and there are movies istill want books of.

[getsuart]

I don't have a lot (sold some because I needed money to buy materials when I was at school), but the oldest one might be my card Captor Sakura artbook. I think it's so old the images are flipped. Might be when i was 13? So merely 11 years ago.

[mariusthered]

breeze blocks and mdf ! ( cheep shelving )

[Kayke]

I've never really purchased art books for myself, so most of mine have been gifts or things I was required to get for classes in college. The only one I've ever actually bought for myself was a Jim Henson art book, since I admire him and love seeing his process sketches.

The oldest ones i have are these cool old animation books that were my dad's when he was a kid.

That one and a few others in that series including some how to draw animal books.

[mariusthered]

working at Jim Henson's creature shop was a dream of mine when I was younger. These old cartooning books are gold for old drawing techniques, but the paper attracts damp so you have to be sure to keep them dry. (I wrap my old in cling film when not in use.)

[joannekwan]

I love art books, I have about 10 with me right now, and a bunch more at my parents' place, will retrieve them once I move out of an apartment situation. Most of them are for various anime series, but I love the ones I have for traditional art as well; my favorites being Alphonse Mucha, JC Leyendecker, and I have 2 for Winslow Homer. For digital my favorites are Tomer Hanuka's Overkill, and the art books for Mass Effect and Dragon Age Inquisition.

Not sure which one's my oldest though, I didn't start collecting until freshman year of college.

[whydocowsfall]

I have a ton that are technically my mother's but live in my bookshelf so sort of feel like mine now... I can count 14 from where I'm sitting, though half of those are from the same series! The oldest one that's actually mine (not including illustrated books which I usually consider in this sort of thing) is a book on art galleries that I was given when I was little... I think for my seventh birthday? The oldest one that feels like it's mine is a book on how to draw horses that's covered in my and my sister's scribbly attempts to follow the instructions aged about three. They're awful and mean you can't see the ACTUAL pictures but ah well, I guess it's kinda cute. d:

[tableflipstudios]

My first 'art book' was a compilation of different arts from different ancient civilizations which my father got for me.
The recent purchases were The Art of the Mass Effect Universe and The Art of Destiny.

I think I have more or less the same number of art books as you do. xD - Grim

[Aetherwing]

I love art books but I'm unfortunately poor and only own a few of them! My favorite being Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. I also own two Avatar (like the scifi film. Yes I know, I know, but I still love the art) art books and a fashion design book.

I'd love to own the Mass Effect one and I'm definitely going to get my hands on the Battle for Zendikar art book when it comes out!

[mariusthered]

charity shops are a gold mine for books and lots have art books they have no idea of the value, a good place to find really cheap books.

[AnnaLandin]

@Kaykedrawsthings Oh gosh, Preston Blair's book is the best reference for animators! So many pictures, so many useful lessons! I've got a much later edition, one that's wider in format than the one you posted here, so there's more horisontal space to show the walk-cycles on and stuff, and it's just so great. <3

[phoenixrenaissance]

I've got an ever growing collection of art books. Not a lot of the "how to draw" sort of books but a lot of production art books.

I do have a few animation guidebooks that were needed for a couple college classes. Not sure of the names. Then I've got a couple books from the How to Draw Anime and Game Characters line.

As far as production books, I've got a bunch of the Disney/Pixar art books, namely Tangled, Toy Story 3, Monster's University and bunch more. Also collected art from Clamp and the artists for the Tales game series. The art of Bioshock Infinite, Dead Space 3, Valkyria Chronicles 1 &2, Okami. Art of The Hobbit and Narnia, Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Also some art books from artists on the Interwebs here. I've got sketchbooks for Coey and Shy Custism Budgue as well as a collected fan art book for Game of Thones and a monster anthology on the way.

And… there's probably some more that I'm forgetting. Art books I guess are one of my weaknesses.

@AnnaLandin Whelp, that FFIX art book is gonna have to go on my wishlist. I'm surprised I hadn't heard about it before.