Books for learning basics of paintings?

#1

Hey all!

I’m more of a 3d modeller, and i always wanted to dive into painting as well. I’m mostly intresting in painting environment, especially fantasy or scifi where you can have a lot of freedom.
I mentioned environment and landscape, because that’s my fav 3d subject as well, so i’d would like to get better at drawing to help my 3d skills that way aswell.

I watched many feng zhu tutorials (i guess this is one i’m mostly aiming at, not so much as fantastic painter, but more as in concept artist, again, to help me with 3d modelling).

The thing is, he mentions many times one should learn the basics first, like lighting, color theory, composition, perspective and all that stuff. But he never really mentions any book or anything.

So i would like to see if maybe some of you have many some ideas what books are good to start learning these fields i mentioned. Especially with environment in focus.

I did have some books in past, but i was a bit confused, for example, bigger part of book cover traditional painting, while i have digital painting in mind (photoshop), so i’m not too sure then, how exactly does all these way how you mix various colors to achive some other color, exactly helping me with photoshop painting.

So while any book that helps would be cool, it would be great if maybe anyone could suggest book that’s more oriented towards digital painting (Again, any area such as lighting, composition, colors, etc).

Not sure about anatomy books, as that’s not really the area i’d like to focus just right now.

Tnx!

#2

Traditional painting books teach a lot of valuable lessons about the foundations–you just have to pick the bits that are relevant to all visual artists. But even the parts dealing with analog painting techniques can be very helpful to digital artists, because you can adopt many of them to the digital realm. Guys like Craig Mullins often take what they learned in the analog realm into the digital realm, and vice versa.

In the sticky threads, I have a list of recommended books–go take a look.

As far as books on the foundations dealing with only digital, I don’t even think that’s necessary, since all foundations of visual art are the same, regardless of medium, style, industry, or time period.

You can also take a look at the workshop I teach right here at CGSociety, called “Becoming A Better Artist” (linked below in my signature). It teaches everything you could possibly want to learn in your entire artistic journey–from beginner all the way to advanced professional. My workshop has helped students who were already working as art directors, all the way down to total beginners, and for many of them, the workshop changed their lives (just read the student testimonials and you’ll see for yourself how passionately the students loved the workshop).

#3

Ok, thanks a lot, will take a look at the books.

#4

I bought a Digital Art Masters book and its really useful.

#5

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