Mechanika: Creating the Art of Science Fiction with Doug Chiang

This book is incredible! I followed Doug's methods, and now I am turning out work that is leagues better than before.Firstly, the book teaches you to draw sci-fi machinery. Maybe you thought you had to go to engineering school to work out the drive-train for a walking tank or a rocket-powered aircraft? Well, the book teaches you to invent and draw all the mechanisms and pseudo-engineering that make sci-fi machines look realistic. And Doug makes it fun. It takes practice, but he gives you simple guidlines to work it out. For example, you would use an actual photo of a tractor engine and drive-train construction to develop the design for the leg mechanisms of a walking robot, etc.Secondly, this book does not cover 3-D digital imagery/auto-CAD/computer-generated-imagery. It does cover digital painting, but only as a method to color render designs; usually first rendered on paper in black-and-white. The book focuses on developing designs on paper, first.The author often draws the designs on paper with full tone rendering, and then he scans them into the computer, and renders effects, color, texture, background, error correction, and much much more.There isn't a great depth of technique discussion on digital painting, but the book does much to specifically detail many fundamentals of digital painting, with screen-shots to teach many tools and tips and tricks of digital painting. Still, it is the focus on paper-drawing that is exactly what I was looking for.The methods are easy and versitile; yielding quite varied styles.The author varies the sequence and combinations of mediums and techniques depending on the subject to be rendered. The mediums covered are blueline pencil, varied strengths of cool-grey markers (20%, 40%, 60%), a simple airbrush technique for background haze effects (optional), and finally digital painting 101. I was able to follow the majority of the digitial painting methods without using a computer drawing tablet! But, I have now purchased one, so my quality should improve all the more.The paper-based methods covered in the book have been staples in concept-drawing for decades, apparently. After viewing the book, I now recognize the techniques in concept-design drawings going back to the 80's.The book covers many wheeled machines, space-ships, an ornithopter, 2 jet-fighters, and more, but the author is obsessed with walking machines/tanks/robots of all sorts. Personally, I think walking machines are a silly concept (1 leg down, and it ceases), but I have no complaints about this book!The author discusses the impracticality of walking-machines, and windows on a spaceship, and a steam-powered tank, but his focus is on aesthetic design, iconic design, and sellable designs. He's got to sell his designs to get them on the big-screen, afterall. You will appreciate and learn and enhance your own design ability!Lastly, the book has a really strong plastic-coated dust-jacket that seems to hold up against abuse of all sorts, and the pages are printed in super high quality resolution of strong paper.

Doug Chiang's book, Mechanika, is a book I'll be recommending to both my College and private classes. In it, Mr. Chiang shows not only his eloquent mastery of logic-in-technique when creating a great variety of Sci-Fi imagery, but as well he shows us the basic step-by-step sequence to accomplishing the task. It's so well done! There is no doubt Doug Chiang possesses great expertise in creating visually stunning Science Fiction Art, and his credentials prove it, and now we the fortunate can see behind the scenes, you might say, into how Doug Chiang brings his visions to life. A must-have for any and everyone's library. I proudly have it in mine. I'm sure many of my student's, and students-to-be, will have it in theirs.

While it isn't necessariy a bad book, it's appearance is in line with more intermediate-advanced tutorial books. In actuality, it's simple a paint by the numbers setup to replicate an existing drawing. Pretty much useless in developing your own working method or gaining any real understanding of the technical illustration techniques required to actually create original artwork along the same lines.What really made me dislike this work is that a majority of designs are roughly the same, crab or spider like lower half with what appears to be an alienware computer tower glued on top. The author frequently claims that it's not important to create working designs as long as they look cool and that photoshop is an adequate painting program. This made me cringe as an illustration student. Photoshop was never intended to be used for digital painting, and there are far cheaper and better alternatives out there for digital painting and illustration.Everyone has their own view on the subject, yes, but I believe that striving to create believable fantasy is better than just creating something with the "deal with it" attitude.I was expecting a technical manual geared towards working creatives and instead got the how to draw manga equivalent of science fiction illustration.Less like this and more like color and light by james gurney please.

This book is exceptionally well illustrated with clear lessons on how this master creates his art. It is a fantastic value and loaded with How-to's for anyone interested on how the design process flows. It's packed with fantastical designs and very inspirational. After going thru this book, you will want to pull out your markers and pens and attempt to create your own designs using Doug's techniques. The instructions are clear and once you get into the flow, the results are amazing. It's soft back so the value is wonderful and stays within the budgets of students and everyday people. I recommend it highly!

I have a small library of similar "how-to" books on digital and traditional illustration techniques. Mechanika is among the best. Doug Chang spares no detail in sharing how he achieves his often breath-taking results. My only caveat, given Chang's obsession with detail and time-consuming process, is that if you aspire to following in his footsteps be prepared to give up hobbies, exercise and sleep. If you're in a relationship best to have an extremely patient partner.

If you are someone who's interested in concept art, or concept design, you should check this book out. The author goes through his design process step by step. He gives a good methodology for the successful development of the project from the initial stage, through the finished product. Usually all we get to see is the finished piece, and where this book really shines is in how it demystifies the process that the author goes through to create the final piece. A highly recommended read if you wish to create your own designs.

I got this on my Kindle (the only drawback to this is it's in Black & White ....Note#0. Should have got the Kindle Fire !)... In saying that the illustrations are still outstanding to look at.i've not had chance to explore it properly but i've flicked through it ...(so to speak) and find that it is very imformative.with great reference of the kind of materials you would need to use to produce some fantastic Sci-Fi artwork.I've read the Illustrated book 'Robota' in which Doug Chiang did the artwork and i think wrote or co-wrote and I go to say the artwork is magnificent and of a very high standard... And i'm hoping to get some inspiration from this book also as I love to draw Sci Fi pictures and illustrations myself. And though a Novice, up to Doug Chiangs' standards, I think I and alot of other 'budding' sci-fi artists could learn alot from Mechanika ....Espcially if you like Robots and Space ships etc !

This book as absolutely incredible. Dough Chiang explains every single step in creating simple but effective concept art for science fiction artists. I have just completed a degree in computer games design, and if I'd known about this book earlier in my studies I believe it would have helped me immensely. It covers both marker based art and photoshop work, and the two together blending traditional and digital styles. His own works are broken down to many stages to make each step clear and very easy to follow.I've read plenty of similar books which didnt go into half as much detail. This is a MUST BUY for any concept artist in training.I'd go so far as to say this really deserves a 6 star review

I bought this book after I saw the making of Beowulf and the concept art produced by Mr. Chiang.Then I looked more about this artist (Star Wars and so on) and I took this book.The book has great and inspiring images in terms of mech design and composition. The steps to create those images are clear, but be aware: you have to know how to draw in order to achieve same results, it's not a tutorial step by step, they are in general terms, but they are very good.I'm not a drawer, for example, I'm a 3d artist and I love science fiction, so this book was a must for me.Enjoy!

I'm slowly getting into my digital art work, as I use to enjoy doing allot of art back in my school and college days. But the ideas and potential for what you can do in the digital art world now is just amazing. If you want inspiration or any possible ideas for good concept pieces, then you need to buy this book. It's a massive book and full of fantastic designs from various artists, and this includes examples as well as tutorials. Buy it, you'll love it.

For those into concept art, this book is worth having. There are concept art exercises in the book for you to start building up a portfolio and challenging designs. A good book to have for inspiration and to put in your collection of concept art bookshelf.