Alasdair Morrison

Fantasy Art Magazine Comparison

During a recent visit to WH Smith I came across a few interesting looking bookazines, one of which was titled “Fantasy Art Genius Guide 7th Edition”. A quick flick through later I decided to buy the book and enjoyed reading the tutorials.

After a while of reading I decided to see if I could purchase the other 6 books, as if they are as high quality as this then they would be a welcome addition to my bookshelf.

However after a lot of searching the net I could only seem to come across volume 1,2,3 and 7, where had issues 4,5 and 6 gone? There seemed to be no trace of their existence.

Fantasy Art Genius Guides

Volume 1 (Genius Guide) [2012]

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Volume One says it is part of the “Fantasy Artist” bookazine series by Imagine Publishing. Where Fantasy Artist was a monthly magazine published by Imagine Publishing in the UK (https://gb.zinio.com/www/browse/issue.jsp?skuId=416229481#/ ). The magazine was formally known as Digital Artist and sister title to Photoshop Creative. (https://blog.photoshopcreative.co.uk/general/create-your-best-ever-fantasy-art/ ).

Features

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  • The rules of fantasy art (Unknown)

Portraits

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Character

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Concept

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Guznan) (Advanced Photoshop issue 83)

Landscapes

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Creatures

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Free with this issue…

  • Disc packed with tutorial files and resources.

Volume 2 (Genius Guide) [2014]

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Volume Two says it’s part of the “Advanced Photoshop” bookazine series by Imagine Publishing. Where Advanced Photoshop is a monthly magazine published by Imagine over in the USA, it is called Photoshop Creative in the UK and Australia.

Features

  • 22 Fantasy Tips and Tricks (Unknown)

Characters

Creatures - Bring mythical beasts to life

Landscapes - Create stunning fantasy worlds

  • Paint colourful terrain (Joe Cummings)

  • Paint a fantasy snowscape (Eduardo Lopez Mustaros)

  • Compose a magical mountainscape (Tobias Roetsch) (Advanced Photoshop 114)

  • Create space art (Sebastien hue) (Advanced Photoshop 106)

  • Create a fantasy matte desert landscape painting (Eduardo Lopez Mustaros)

  • Sculpt an epic sci-fi terrain (Tomasz Strzalkowski)

  • Create fantasy landscapes from photos in photoshop (Jennifer Cirpici)

Concept - Compose magical scenes

-Build matte paintings (Dark Hoffman)

-Design robot mechs (Israel A Carrion)

Free with this issue…

Resource CV packed with assets, video tutorials and high-res textures

Volume 3 (Genius Guide)

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Volume 3 says it is part of the “Photoshop Creative” bookazine series by Imagine Publishing. Where Photoshop Creative is a monthly magazine published by Imagine over in the UK and Australia, it is called Advanced Photoshop in the USA. I guess by this stage the magazine known as “Fantasy Artist” no longer existed, as it finished with issue 39 in 2012.

Concept

Character

Landscape

Free with this bookazine…

• Source files to follow tutorials

• 150 Photoshop brushes

• Over 8 hours of professional video tuition to improve your skills

Volume 1 Revised Edition

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Tutorials marked as NEW! Are new to this revision and were not in the original volume 1. But these are not completely new as they are still reprints from monthly magazines.

Features

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  • The rules of fantasy art (Unknown)

Portrait - Add effects to your portraits.

Characters

Concept

Landscapes - Create huge fantasy worlds.

**Creatures **- Bring mythical beasts to life.

Free with this issue…

Resource CD packed with assets and high-res textures

  • 2 Video Tutorials:

    • Premium Digital Painting Portrait Effect in Photoshop (Andrei Oprinca) 1 hour on PSDBox

    • Digital Art: Rules for Good Shapes (Charles Bernard) (OnlineArtAcademy.com)

  • Tutorial files

  • 33 hi-res textures (Go Media)

  • 13 stone and blood text styles (Ultimate Bundles)

Volume 2 Revised Edition (Genius Guide) [2015]

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**Character **- From magical to steampunk

Identical to the original volume 2 but seems to be missing the Weta character tutorial.

**Creatures - **Bring mythical beasts to life

Only the first 2 of these were also in the original volume 2.

  • Master the art of creature creation (Benjamin Erdt)

  • Master expert creature renders (lliya Atanasov) (3D Artist 63)

  • Build your own creature mech NEW!

  • Create a robot in Blender NEW!

**Landscapes **- Create huge fantasy worlds

  • Paint colourful terrain (Joe Cummings)

  • Paint a fantasy snowscape (Eduardo Lopez Mustaros)

  • Compose a magical mountainscape (Tobias Roetsch) (Advanced Photoshop 114)

  • Create space art (Sebastien hue) (Advanced Photoshop 106)

  • Create a fantasy matte painting (Eduardo Lopez Mustaros)

  • Sculpt an epic sci-fi landscapes (Tomasz Strzalkowski)

  • Create fantasy landscapes from photos (Jennifer Cirpici)

**Concept **- Compose magical scenes

  • Concept art for a heroine character (Simon Eckert)

  • Create dramatic lighting effects (Marco Nelor)

  • Compose sci-fi concept art (Christian Hecker)

  • Build videogame concept art (Ray Lederer)

  • Make a convincing spacecraft design NEW!

  • Master hard-surface modelling NEW!

Volume 3 Revised edition

		![image alt text](http://amorri40.github.io/public/ruva3WalLAnSS6kUEvsBHA_img_12.jpg)

Concept

10 Build your own dystopia concept (Tony Andreas Rudolph)

16 Design your own fantasy vehicles (Stefano Tsai)

24 Produce your own 3D concept (Tomáš Müller)

30 Sculpt dynamic forms (Daniel Bel)

38 Awaken a beast with ZBrush (James Suret)

46 Model and render a submersible drone **NEW! **(Colie Wertz)

54 Kitbash and model a mech NEW! (Tor Frick)

Character

62 Create a convincing cartoon character (Carlos Ortega Elizalde)

68 Texture distinct steampunk characters (Aldo Vicente)

76 Perfect colourised characters (Nicolas Delhelle)

82 Colour your fantasy composite (Kevin Lohstroh)

88 Develop your own mutant (Brandon Cawood)

94 Make your own steampunk captain (David Nakayama)

100 Retouch a fantasy sorceress (John Ross)

106 Render a cyberpunk character NEW! (Damon Woods)

114 Design an Elven archer (Aaron Hunwick)

120 Fashion pro key art (Davide Blanca, Andrea Mancuso)

126 Add drama with blend modes (Souflane Idrassi)

Landscape

134 Render a fairytale castle (Ben Simonds)

142 Construct a landscape from photos (Nadegda Mihailova)

148 Paint a digital landscape (Paul Scott Canavan)

154 Imagine epic fantasy landscapes (Tony Andreas Rudolph)

158 Work with matte painting (Tony Andreas Rudolph)

164 Master pro painting techniques (Andres Avaray)

168 Create a landscape with brushes (Paul Scott Canavan)

Free with this bookazine…

Volume 7

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Standard Fantasy Art Bookazines (Pre-Genius Guide)

There were two standard Fantasy Art Bookazines that pre-dated the “Genius Guide” versions both published by Imagine Publishing.

Volume 1

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A visual feast of interviews, galleries, tutorials and features, Fantasy Art Volume 1 showcases the very best in digital fantasy art and reveals the techniques you need to re-create the style at home. Unlock the secrets to stellar fantasy art and realise the limits of your imagination with this ultimate guide. Plus: a free CD.

Over 200 pages of…

  • Tutorials

  • Interviews

  • Features for using Photoshop and Painter

Learn how to…

  • Create characters

  • Paint fantasy portraits

  • Master light effects

  • Compose environments and much more!

On the CD…

  • Over 150 fantasy reference photos

  • Vital start files for following the tutorials

  • Six high-res fantasy wallpapers

Volume 2 [2008]

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Create works of art with no boundaries

and learn from the fantasy masters

Step-by-step tutorials

  • Create your own wondrous works of art

In-depth interviews

  • Speaking to the masters of fantasy art and learning how to follow in their footsteps

Image galleries

  • Inspirational images and beautiful designs

Cheat guides

  • Quick image fixes to add to your arsenal

Also inside…

  • Character designs

  • Create sci-fi environments

  • A guide to manga

  • Concept creations

  • Painting perfect portraits

  • Comic book art

Free with this issue…

CD packed with tutorial files and resources

Quick Summary

  • I was interested in finding out if all 7 issues of this magazine actually exist and if so where to buy them.

  • Sadly it turns out there are only 3 unique ones and the rest are revised editions or re-releases of previous content. Although the revised editions do have new content added it’s not enough to justify owning both versions of the same bookazine.

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