[Review] artbook: Amber by niNNin
Title: 琥珀 (Amber )
ILLUSTRATOR: 年年 (niNNin)
RELEASE DATE: 04/2009
PRICE: 29.80RMB (4.5 USD)
PAGES: 168pg, color + bw
FORMATE: 6.5 in x 9 in; Softcover
ISBN: 9787535439796
SPECIAL: 1 Poster (depend on your luck you can either get a poster of the front cover or the back cover)
WEB: niNNin (Her official web site with preview to her books)
Overall Rating: 4/5
art: 3.5/5
content: 4/5
layout/packaging: 4.5/5
First, let me say, I absolutely love this artist, she's one of my top favorite artist out there. The only reason I gave the art a 3.5 because this book compiles a collection of her earliest work from 2003 to 2005. If you have seen her current work (the cover and back cover for example) and then flip through the images in this book, you'll get a bit disappointed like I was because the art work is less refined in the details, background, lines, color, etc. But who can blame any artist who just started out their career. We all start out as amatures, but we learn and grow with time and this is what I saw in this book; her improvements and the emergence of her own style.
I am going to focus on the materials in the book and forget about what her current art are like.
2003: She only included 7 pages of work from 2003 and I can see why, they were very 1 dimensional; large eyed characters, no real emotions in the eyes or the expression, cat ears, backgrounds made from the most basic photoshop brush, lots of sparkles and stars.
At this point I was getting nervous.
2004: Here is where you see the most improvements from in her work. She started to hand draw the backgrounds even though they might be as simple as bushes, grass, vines, plants, basic objects, it was enough to bring the pictures to another level. She also used colors to her advantage. She had a great sense of color to help her convey the tone and mood of the pictures. I think it's in these hints of color here and there that finally made me see the light of life in her work.
2005: All I can say is WOW. It's like seeing a flower bud blooming in front of your eyes. You definitely see the amount of commitment and effort in these pictures. Take an example of a staircase, in the previous years she might have just drew it out of using photoshop brush. But now, you can see every straight line she drew with a pencil and ruler. There's angle, shape, everything is right down to perfection. There are no more short cuts, only precision. Another thing that caught my eyes was her awareness of angle. I think this is what separates her from other artist, her work has so many variety and depth. Sometimes you feel like you're peeping through a bush or you're just there with the characters on the page. She makes you one of them and brings you into the world that she has created.
Now, she brings so many aspects to her work that it has become so much more abstract and creative that you really can’t help but be in awed.
PREVIEW: Only the first 2 row are from this book, the rest are some of her current work.
