Book Review: Dragon's Dogma: Official Design Works

Dragon's Dogma: Official Design Works is the video game concept art book for the game that was released in 2012. It's a paperback book that's 312 pages thick. It's well worth the money for the amount of content packed inside.

This is actually the English translated edition for the similarly titled (phonetically) Japanese art book ドラゴンズドグマオフィシャルデザインワークス released in 2012. Udon translated this edition.

The artworks are grouped into a few sections, namely key art & illustrations, characters, monsters, weapons & armor, stages and items. There are some descriptions and commentary from the design staff.

The scene paintings are a mixture of CG and rough art treatment. Looks good though because of the composition and exciting elements, well, men vs giant monsters.

Highlight of the book is the character and creature designs that form the bulk of the book. Main and miscellaneous characters are included with all sorts of costume concepts, and with breakdown into the amor worn by different vocations. Sketches are included in the detail breakdown. With the line art, it's easier the visualise parts of the costumes. The creature and monster designs are pretty cool too.

The environment art looks beautiful are rather small, especially for those more detailed pieces that deserve a bigger reproduction.

They also included photos of how they made the giant dragon statue for the Tokyo Game Show 2011.

Overall, it's a fantastic companion art book for Dragon's Dogma fans.

This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook.

Dragon's Dogma: Official Design Works is also available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN) and Book Depository

Dragon's Dogma: Official Design Works