Substrata: Open World Dark Fantasy

The media could not be loaded.  This book was inspired by  The Art of Darksiders II  and the artists at Vigil Games, the company that produced Darksiders. Vigil Games was closed down in 2013 and there was this idea of getting reconnecting with the artists to come up with an artbook. SUBSTRATA is that book.There are 80 artists featured in this book and that includes artists from other top game studios. Hats off to illustrator Paul Richards for putting in the serious effort of curating so much artworks and getting all these artists together.The artworks featured are fantastic. It's concept art galore. There are lots of character and creature designs, and to a lesser extent art for environments and other miscellaneous subjects. There are sketches, many full-colour full-page illustrations, and even 3D models. The ideas and designs are gorgeous, which makes it a nice book to flip through occasionally for inspiration.All the works are very detailed and look amazing. In some way, SUBSTRATA feels like a portfolio book for these artists, a random display of top notch art. There's no narrative, and there's no fictional game that these artists are designing for. The only text you'll see are the artists' names and their website.Other similar books that come to my mind would be the artbooks from Massive Black, Feng Zhu but SUBSTRATA represents better value for money because it's more affordable, there are more pages (240 in all) and the art is great.Udon mentioned that proceeds from the book will go to the charity organization Gamers For Good.This is an awesome concept art book. Highly recommended.(See more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

I was spoiled by Darksiders I and Darksiders II art books. In fact, I bought 2 copies of each book and ripped apart the bindings of the 2nd copies and spiral-bound them so that lay flat. Now....this "substrata" book was supposedly done by the same artists instrumental for bringing Darksiders to life. I AM SO DISAPPOINTED.What can I say? I am speechless. What's good? It's a collection of artwork. Some cool, some interesting. It's a great reference if you want to study styling. What's bad? Not what I expected, not coherent, not polished, and not really a package. I feel mislead. If I wanted a package of rambling artwork, I would go to Artstation or DrawCrowd. I don't see how this would be a benefit to your personal art library. I tell you what's absolutely good about this book: The table of contents. Here's why: You look at the pieces of artwork in the book you like and you link them to the artist that made them. Then, you search the internet for their artworks to see what else they got. That's the only value I got out of this book. I'm sure there was supposed artful purpose to the creation of this book. Seriously, look for a used copy...or see if you're library has it. Somebody loves this book. I don't.

I'm a big fan of artbooks, especially when they're related to game production. The idea of a game that never was being the basis of one such book intrigued me. The art is beautiful, but a part of me wishes there was a greater work that actually fed into what is here. With multiple illustrators and little direction beyond the title, the styles are all over the place and may not cohere into a memorable narrative, since there technically isn't one. That said, it's an enchanting piece of work and likely to grow in value for me over time as I let my imagination fill in the blanks.

I suppose I was expecting concepts a little more outlandish and bold than what would reasonably be expected to make it into a game - the art is wonderfully rendered and the quality of print is nothing to complain of, but most (I emphasize most) of it suffers the pitfalls of the industry, these being rehashed, unsubtle, and done-to-death themes (like the goblin or orc-type creature, putting skulls on everything for some reason, wearing armor which exposes parts of a female which would be incredibly impractical to expose in battle, being able to look at a character and know immediately whether you should kill them or talk to them, and making everything so angular and pumped up on testosterone that it tosses away any semblance of reality, to name a few). In short, a lot of the work I could see in almost any video game, and that takes a lot of the excitement out of it.

This book contains some excellent fantasy art. Each artist's name and website are clearly visible if you want to track additional work by them. The book showcases tons of different styles and approach to the concept of dark fantasy. I purchased this book for inspiration with my writing. If you're a visual artist you might be disappointed at the lack of sketch or progress pictures included (if that's what you were hoping for). Otherwise I really enjoyed flipping through this book (there are no words beyond links and credits for the artists).

Awesome variety of style and subject matter. Its a good reference on the level and different styles at play in the realm of contemporary entertainment design. It gets 4 out 5 stars because it has CGHUB links which are dead.

This book has so many amazing concepts from a lot of really amazingly talented concept artists. It's rare to find a book with as many good images as this one provides, as well as the range. There is an excellent amount of everything to see, be it environments, characters, props, etc. There's definitely something for everyone to see in here, and it's all done exceptionally well.

Some of the best, most stunning character designs and fantasy artwork I have seen in a long time. This book is gorgeous from front to back, I highly recommend it to any concept art fan. Proud owner of dozens of art books? Don't worry, this one is sure to please.

I do not think any ammount of gushing could do this fantastic collaborative piece of art justice. It took me far too long to get round to buying this beautiful thing. A fantastic selection of designs from places to people to creatures, some more expanded than others, all very different yet some how fitting with one another. Some artists only have but one item of contribution, where others have a few pages worth.It is a book certainly for those with a taste for the slightly darker lean of fantasy and those that enjoy looking at things such as concept art for games.Darkly charming and fun.

If you are a fan of concept art then this book is a must. Containing the work of roughly 80 game artists for a game that doesn't exist, Substrata is a feast for the eyes.I brought this when it came out in November. It sits right up there with the likes of Naughty Dog's art book in terms of quality and print, only missing out on the hard cover. I've also been finding it a brilliant source of inspiration for art pieces and creating stories from the characters.Just to be clear there are no tutorials or guidance included in this book. Just art.Definitely worth the £20-25. This book is AMAZING!!

This was a really cool book in my opinion. Always been a fan of almost all things dark in nature. Being a long time Clive Barker fan and enjoying dark and somewhat macabre artwork this book really presented an interesting take on this style of art. With a mix of horror into the fantasy settings, it reminds you that beneath all the shininess of things there can be some really dark and unsettling things the reminds us of the monster that exist within fantasy. The books is solid in design and binding and had not issue with the pages curling, spine cracking, or the cover getting a fold due to being softcover. I do feel this book would definitely have been better as a hard cover and more sturdy, but the art was amazing the the book has a high quality finish and design really bringing the art to life on each page. Fantastic book I would recommend to any, especially fans of dark fantasy.

This is a beautiful book chock full of amazing concept and final art pieces. One can draw so much inspiration from these pages. I was itching so bad to draw again after going through this book, enjoying carefully pare per page.The book I ordered was on the day of release, I was anticipating the release of this book for quite sometime. I got the book a few days after ordering and immediately I noticed some pages that had very obvious, fairly bad 'ghosting'. It is a weird artifact on a few pages where the a negative of the reverse page was showing through. The bad pages were: 85, 213, 216-217 and 224. Was not sure if there was not enough drying time while printing or the satin coat penetrated the pages. I emailed UDON books directly and brought it to their attention.All I can say...UDON Books has one of the best customer service I've ever experienced. I am a fan for life of UDON.This is a great book and so well worth every penny.

Substrata wird als hypothetisches Triple-A Spiel "vermarktet" - was wäre, wenn alle Zeichner, die für das geschlossene Studio Vigil gearbeitet haben, zusammen und ohne Einfluss von aussen an einem Dark-Fantasy-Spiel gearbeitet hätten? Das Ergebnis soll Substrata sein und ich kann mir nicht helfen, ich hatte wohl nach all den Artbooks zu Spielen und Filmen, die ich in den vergangenen 15 Jahren gekauft habe, ein wenig anderes erwartet. Zutreffender wäre wohl gewesen zu schreiben "Die ehemaligen Zeichner von Vigil haben sich auf ein paar Bier getroffen und beschlossen, dass jeder für sich auf ein paar Stichworte hin einen Pitch für ein mögliches Dark-Fantasy Spiel zusammenstellt". Es handelt sich bei Substrata also um eine nicht direkt zusammenhängende Skizzen und Concept-Art-Sammlung und die Zeichner haben sich gründlich zu diesem Thema ausgetobt. Bei einigen Zeichnungen bin ich sogar recht froh, dass es reine Ideen geblieben sind, denn die Modelle wären ingame sehr verwirrend und unübersichtlich.Es spricht sehr für das Studio Vigil, dass sich die Zeichner überhaupt zu diesem Joe Madueria gewidmeten Tribut getroffen haben und es ist interessant zu sehen, wie die Zeichner die losen Stichworte umgesetzt haben. Einigen sind mehrere Seiten gewidmet, die mit reinen Skizzen gefüllt sind, andere haben volle Illustrationen geliefert,andere beides und einige wenige auch ausgearbeitete 3D-Modelle. Sehr wohltuend empfinde ich, dass im Gegensatz zu den beiden Darksiders Artbooks die Skizzen diesesmal nicht ganz so klein abgedruckt wurden. Dafür enthält das Buch so gut wie keinen Text, wenn man von handschriftlichen Anmerkungen absieht, mit denen einige Zeichner ihre Ideen umschrieben haben. Ein wenig schade finde ich es dennoch, dass man den Zeichnern kein Mini-Profil gewidmet hat und es bei der Linkangabe zu Webseiten der Zeichner geblieben ist, was in manchen Fällen sehr frustrierend ist. Einige Zeichner haben Links zu ihren CGhub-Profilen angegeben, was mit der Einstellung des Betriebes von CGhub leider hinfällig ist und man die Zeichner nun im Netz suchen muss. Natürlich können weder die Zeichner noch Udon Entertainement etwas dafür und es hat keinen Einfluss auf die Wertung.Der Druck ist hervorragend gelungen, auch wenn ich das Gefühl habe, dass einige Zeichnungen zu dunkel abgedruckt wurden. Farbintensiv sind die Drucke, aber feinste Abstufungen in den dunkelsten Farben bis hin zu schwarz sind kaum vorhanden, so wirken einige Drucke etwas schwammig.Wie mein Vorredner muss ich die Entscheidung für Paperback bemängeln. Mein Exemplar weisst bereits Knicke im Buckrücken auf und ganz ärgerlich: Das Buch muss wohl einem unaufmerksamen Amazonler heruntergefallen sein. Es hat einen eindeutigen Fallschaden am Buchrücken, denn er ist an einer Ecke stark gestaucht, aber der Versandumschlag war in Ordnung. Fast hätte ich mein Exemplar reklamiert und allein, dass ich keine Lust hatte, auf ein neues Exemplar zu warten, hat mich davon abgehalten. Sollte ich noch einmal ein derartig beschädigtes Buch erhalten, werde ich mich ganz sicher anders entscheiden.Substrata ist kein Artbook für jemanden, der sich Artbooks kauft um herauszufinden, wie ein Team gemeinsam an einem Projekt arbeitet und wie sich dieses Projekt über einen Zeitraum bis zum fertigen Produkt entwickelt hat. Es ist aber ein gutes Buch für eine kleine Moment-Aufnahme, denn ich kann mir durchaus vorstellen, dass man in 10 Jahren stilistisch komplett anders arbeitet. Bei 80+ Talenten ist für jeden Geschmack auch etwas dabei und die Klarnamenangabe dürfte es erleichtern, die Zeichner online zu finden, selbst wenn Links ungültig sind.Kaufempfehlung: eingeschränkt. Wenn man sein Budget lieber für Artbooks zu bestehenden Filmen und Spielen ausgibt, dann sollte Substrata eher unten auf der Kaufliste angesiedelt sein.