This is the month to be spoilt for choice with art books from Paper Tiger with three to choose from although I suspect those with slender budgets will spread buying them over a few months rather than get them all at once. Even so, they are all gems and you’re going to find it hard to choose which one to buy first.

I often say that you can rarely look at an artbook and not find a picture you didn’t like although usually these days, it’s more a case of finding some I didn’t like that is becoming much rarer.

Case in point is JP Targete who shows versatility in all the art mediums and is at home in SF as he is with fantasy. What is rare about this book is that Targete shows some of his earlier work while at school as well as art he drew purely to indulge himself.

Although in the commercial world, it can’t always be easy to find time to just paint or draw solely for the artist’s own pleasure showing what can be done unfettered by editorial command, one can only hope it inspires more freedom for the artist to do what he or she thinks is right for the picture than be told by an art director who only vaguely knows what they want.

[No disrespect to art directors who can paint but why hire someone with experience and not let them loose?? It isn’t like you don’t see the thumbnail sketches.]

Targete’s range covers figures and animals to spacecraft and monsters. Like all SF/fantasy artists, versatility in everything tends to be a call-sign today. What distinguishes the artists is in their treatment of the design to make the strongest impression which in turn helps pump up book sales as the first hook into whether you should/would buy the book.

As the books were released Stateside, we haven’t really got much to compare to other than a book like this but on the other hand, we also see the art sans the title condiments so probably, at least from a British perspective, we’re seeing them with a far more clearer eye than our American compatriots.

There really is something for everyone in this book and just the kind of book you want to settle down after a hard day to loose yourself in the art.