The Art of Dead Space
The Art of Dead Space book cover

The Art of Dead Space

Hardcover – February 5, 2013

Price
$25.97
Format
Hardcover
Pages
192
Publisher
Titan Books
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1781164266
Dimensions
9.37 x 0.85 x 12.15 inches
Weight
3.14 pounds

Description

"An incredible collection of art, with a good amount additional background information that gives you lots of perspective into the amount of work that went into this series." - Bricks of the Deadxa0"Titan put this book out and it looks goooooooood." - Ain’t It Cool Holiday Gift Guide"As far as video game art books go, this has to be one of the best that I have seen. It is jam packed with beautiful content. Fans of the Dead Space franchise are going to love this book." – Examiner "Hot Damn, this Deadxa0Space concept art is stunning" – io9 "You don’t have to relive to horror to fully appreciate the design thanks to the gorgeous Art ofxa0Deadxa0Space hardback, featuring over 300 images, sketches and concept art." – SFX Short Review "Your backstage pass to the nightmare that is Deadxa0Space , and fans of the series are sure to eat up every page." – Delta Attack " Full of gruesome delight." – Goozer Nation "This lavish hardcover is filled to the brim with never-before-seen concept art" – Destructoid “As far as video game art books go, this has to be one of the best that I have seen. It is jam packed with beautiful content. Fans of the Dead Space franchise are going to love this book.” – Examiner “The ultimate Dead Space resource.” – Wired.com “Every bit the prestigious coffee table book we wanted.” “One of the nicest art books I’ve seen in awhile.” “Titan Books has created a gorgeous, old school offering which is sure to impress your gamer friends.” – Forbes.com “Packed with just the right quotient of horror and science fiction to satisfy either fan base. Definitely worth checking out.” – Strange Kids Club “A great collection of sci-fi/horror art.” – TG Daily “The book provides amazingly detailed conceptual renderings of key characters, creatures, environments, and props while explaining the thought process that allowed the artists to arrive at the final product.” – 4 Player Network “A phenomenal collection of art.” – Total Gaming Network “A beautiful collection.” – Unwinnable “The fresh ink smell and the stylish cover tell you to get ready to see some wonderful visuals. The book goes over every little detail from the series. How the universe was designed and conjured up. You get some glances at early designs. You also get some lengthy info on each piece of art be it plasma cutter to just doors in the game. It's more than just tidbits, it more like a cultural guide book to the Dead Space universe.” – Things To Do In LA “Very few companies are putting out art books of this quality these days – my hat is off to Titan for making a book worth owning. xa0It is an amazing peek behind the curtain.” – Gaming Trend "Titan Books has done its usual stellar job on this volume, from the embossed, glossy black covers to the Rorschach-like endpapers to the stunning amount of work between them. “Take it from a guy totally unfamiliar with Dead Space – liking the videogame is not a prerequisite for enjoying this book." – The October Country “From carnage-filled hallways to desolate planetscapes, this book will transport you into the Dead Space universe and immerse you in its depth.” “This book is epic in its scope and lavishly illustrated.” – Shattered Ravings “The artwork is also positively stunning.” – Horror News “For anyone interested in the art behind the video games, this is an amazing glimpse into the detail, the creativity and the effort that comes before we get to sit and play.” “This is a great addition to anyone addicted to the Dead Space trilogy, as well as a very interesting look at the inner workings of a video game from an art perspective.” – Hearts on Fire Review Martin Robinson is an award-winning journalist and author of Halo: The Art of Building Worlds for Titan Books.

Features & Highlights

  • The Art of Dead Space
  • is the ultimate gallery of the
  • Dead Space
  • universe, with over 300 images including sketches and concept art by acclaimed artists from breathtaking spacescapes to terrifying necromorphs, character designs to creating a religion, plus commentary from the artists themselves. Includes art from
  • Dead Space
  • ,
  • Dead Space: Extraction
  • ,
  • Dead Space: Ignition
  • , and
  • Dead Space 2
  • .

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(553)
★★★★
25%
(230)
★★★
15%
(138)
★★
7%
(64)
-7%
(-64)

Most Helpful Reviews

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High quality, in content and production

This is an impressive book. Its hard cover with a dust jacket and weighs in at 192 pages and almost all of the art is color. Many of the pieces are full blown paintings. Most of the material in this book (about 45%) is concept art from Dead Space 3. While around 35% being from Dead Space 2, 15% from the first game and the rest from the graphical novel and spin off games.
There are sections on Isaac Clarke, other characters, weapons, suits, the USG Ishimura, vehicles, Unitologists, Necromorphs, the Blood Moon, The Sprawl, Culture , Tau Volantis and the Wrecked Flotilla and the graphic novel.
All of these sections are filled with commentary which is great. Having something to read in addition to the pictures always makes for a better, deeper and longer experience in an art book.
I do have complaints. They all stem from one general complaint: I wish there was more! What's here is so amazing but there are some things missing. The other characters section only contains art from Dead Space 3. So no Nicole Brennan, Alex Stross, Hammond, Tiedemann or *spits* Kendra Daniels. There are a few suits missing from the second and third games. Some weapons are missing. I am sure this is because there is already an artbook for the previous two games and they didn't want to reproduce too much content but both of those are quite hard to come by. I hope they do another book with more art from the other games.
The Necromorphs section is pretty thorough and cool beans. Slashers, wasters, stalkers, leapers, lurkers, The Snowbeast, The Tormentor, tripods, The Pack, alien necromorphs, The Nexus, crawlers, twitchers, exploders, Hunters (from 1 and 3), The Ubermorph, brutes and pukers are all present. Weirdly missing are Feeders from the new game. No bosses Proper from the first game are present. And no *sniff* Dividers. A great section though.
Something else of merit to note is how large the environment sections are. Some paintings span two pages. This is great as in a lot of video game art books the environment sections are small and the art is reduced to puny thumbnail size. This book really lets these beautiful pieces shine.
I love Dead Space. I love this book. I have already been through the new game three times in two weeks and I have been through this book twice as many times. This book is essential for fans of the series. Horror/sci fi enthusiasts would find joy in these pages also.
13 people found this helpful
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Misleading Description

This artbook doesn't include art from Dead Space: Extraction and Dead Space: Ignition as described. In fact it is mostly art from Dead Space 3, sadly I didn't like DS3 as much as the previous games, so -to me- this is a drawback.
9 people found this helpful
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Fascinating Look at the Dead Space World

If you're a fan of the games (and like artbooks). this artbook is a must buy. It's an oversized hardcover, with a slipcover. Other reviewers have broken down the contents, but while the emphasis is on the later content of the franchise (i.e., particularly Dead Space 3), there's plenty of everyone here.

I especially appreciate the detailed commentary on nearly every piece of work. Very interesting. And while I might have preferred more focus on the earlier games, anecdotes such as buying a butchered goat to pull apart for artistic reference--apparently, fish guts are useful, as well--easily make the book worthwhile. I mean, pending the upcoming Art of Hannibal book, how can you beat the (mental) image of game developers elbow-deep in goat entrails?!
5 people found this helpful
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it's great but....

Overall dead space it's awesome, Love the art work and Layout is awesome, but lack of detail on how they implemented on their art production left me very disappointed, as a 3d artist myself i'm curious how they implement it on their 3d models, and they put nothing in it, none-zero....sigh*
also their dust jacket material is rather disappointing, it left your finger mark on it, and it's annoying....
2 people found this helpful
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Really good art book for Dead Space fans

Fantastic book, if you Love Dead Space, it's simply a must-have. The art is good but would have liked a little more definition and not so "blurry" some of the time. The info along with it is a great read though. The cover feels textured almost, very high quality. The only thing I'd wish for is the same as some other reviewers stated, I would have wished for more art from Dead Space 1 & 2 (particularly 2) and less from Dead Space 3, but it does have a good amount from all of them. All in all I Love it.
1 people found this helpful
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I really liked this book. Two complaints.

I really enjoyed this book. It's the first art book of a video game I've purchased. I like pretty much everything about it but there's a few criticisms I have:
1. It's organized in a bit of a weird way. It'll go back and forth between DS 1-3, and I got the sense it was more an error than purposeful ordering.
2. There was a typo in one of the descriptions. With a book that has relatively little text I wonder how that got past the editor.
1 people found this helpful
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A Beautiful Intriguing Journey...

I enjoyed the presentation of the book right off. The oversized hardcover with a dust jacket featuring contrasting texture on the details of Isaac's helmet and a lush yet distressed palette of red, black and gray is very appealing. I like looking beneath the dust jacket to find a different cover, with raised lettering front and back. The endpapers are of a Rorschach watercolour style suggesting necromorph elements.

I would have given this book five stars were the sections longer; some were two pages and I found myself turning the page and wanting more. On the other hand, despite the short sections in some places, the text was interesting, particularly in three areas: *comparing and contrasting aspects of all three games *citing influences ranging from subways to movies to Japanese malls *discussion of the work by various artists involved not just the directors.

While showing development of concepts isn't the main focus, the chance to really look at environments I was often too terrified to examine in-game makes up for that in spades. Elements are discussed that I admired or reacted to in the games but hadn't considered, such as the psychological effects of architecture and lighting, the mechanics of armour suiting machines, and necromorph anatomy.

I recommend this to Dead Space fans (obviously) as well as anyone interested in a visual exploration of world-building.
1 people found this helpful
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great artbook

as long as im a big fan for DS series i recommend al the fans to get this book which is contain a lot of great sketches and designs for this amazing game
1 people found this helpful
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A great collection

A good collection of concept art from the dead space series!
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If you wanna know how and why, this’ll tell you.

I’ve never seen the in depth of this game before this book. I like learning of how it came to be and this is just it.