Okami Art Work book

Recently I have decided to try and find as many video game art books as possible to go with my animation art books. This because I want to understand better just how concept artist progress and show their work in a professional and coherent manner. Now there are a great many but I came across the art works for Okami which is one of my favourite games.

I can say with no hesitation just how amazing this book is. It is very in keeping with the came and from page to page it progresses just like a story. It was designed to read in the Japanese style of starting at the back and through to the front. It is all extremely well annotated and presented. Full of concept art, level design sketches, character reference models and even some mangas.
One touch I like about it in particular is the some amount of interactivity is has. Apart from turning the pages, reading and studying the images, there are little numbers on each page of the book. These number correspond to a disc number and track number which is for the OST for the game. I thought this was a fantastic touch to make the book seem more connected to the reader. Listening to the tracks that add emotions to the images on the page.

From going through the book a many of times, it give me food for thought on how to actually present and design my pages of concept art.