Dragon's Domain Book Review

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Dragon's Domain Book Review

About the Book: The ultimate practical dragon art book from fantasy art legend Bob Eggleton, designed specially to introduce you to the materials and techniques you will need to paint amazing dragons and monsters. Packed with photographs, design drawings and notes, step-by-step projects and final artwork to help beginner artists master the essential techniques. Detailed Dragon Workshops show the development of Bob?s classic dragon paintings, from conceptualization through to final execution, including Eastern and Western dragons, sea dragons, space dragons, elemental dragons and other fantastic beasts.

Our Take: The book Dragon's Domain bills itself as "The Ultimate Dragon Painting Workshop" and honestly, I'd have to agree.  The readers here all know that I'm an exhibiting painter myself, but I've never delved into the realm of fantasy art, though I have a deep respect and appreciation for it.  Dragon's Domain is a really handy new book that takes readers through various techniques involved with sketching, constructing and painting fantastic fantasy art dragons!

The author, Bob Eggleton, takes you though everything from serious to cartoony concepts and gives you great tips that really make you think while developing your artwork.  This is a fantastic book and I definately recommend to anyone interested in starting to draw or perfecting your drawing of dragons!

How to Buy: Amazon.com

Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes Book Review

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Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes Book Review

About the Book: Your whole life you've been taught to avoid making a mess: Try to keep everything under control, color inside the lines, make it perfect, and at all costs, avoid contact with things that stain.
This book asks you to do the opposite of what you have been taught. Think of it as your own personal rumpus room. A place to let loose, to trash, to spew, to do the things you are not allowed to do in the "real world." It's time to make a mess.
The only three rules you'll find in this book:


1. Do not try to make something beautiful.


2. Do not think too much. (There is no "wrong.")


3. Continue under all circumstances.

Our Take: We see a lot of books here at the Legion.  What really grabbed me about MESS is that its more like a performance art book!   The pages encourage you to tear and write and mess them up!  They want you to destroy the rule book and feel free to be creative.  I think the message here is really to re-invent the wonder and creative magic behind books that they have lost in recent years.  I, for one, absolutely loved it!  I went to work screwing the book all up and I'm quite proud of my work!  I recommend you pick this one up immediately!  It'd make a great gift.


How to Buy: Amazon.com

Pokerface: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga Book Review

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About the Book: In little over a year, Stefani Germanotta, a struggling performer in New York's Lower East Side burlesque scene, has become the global demographic-smashing pop icon known as Lady Gaga. She is a once-in-a-decade artist, a gifted singer, composer, designer, and performance artist who mixes high and low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, authenticity with artifice.
Who is Lady Gaga? She is a twenty-four-year-old woman whose stage mantra--"I'm a free bitch!"--is the polar opposite of who she is offstage: isolated, insecure, and unable to be alone. She is an outrageous artist who wanted to be a sensitive singer-songwriter, whose musical heroes include Britney Spears, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen. She is a woman who says no man can ever compete with her career, but who still isn't over the ex-boyfriend who said she was too ambitious. She claims not to care what people think, but spends her downtime online, reading what people have to say about her. She claims to be a con artist and utterly authentic. She is never less than compelling.
Based on over fifty original interviews with friends, employees, rivals, and music industry veterans, Poker Face is the first in-depth biography of the extraordinary cultural phenomenon that is Lady Gaga.

Our Take: Lady Gaga is one of the hottest names in music today.  The question is why?  This woman has only had ONE CD released!  One!  And she is absolutely huge.  It seems that every song of hers is a single and each better than the last.   One of the things that keeps us all interested in her is how enigmatic she is.  This new book, "Pokerface: The Rise and Rise of Lady GaGa", gives us a great insight into the woman behind the masks.

You rarely see Lady Gaga's face, its usually obscured by masks and glitter.  Her cosutmes are outrageous and are almost more famous than her music!  She is the Bowie-esque female glam rocker!  Not to mention the fact that she single-handedly brought back club techno music!  Thank you!

She is a fantastic business woman that knows what she is doing.  She is creative, to be sure, but she clearly calculates her career it hasn't happened to her by chance.  This new book is great for any fan.  It has great pictures and a TON of info on Gaga and her career to date. 


How to Buy: Amazon.com

Pokerface: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga Book Review

People Of Wal-Mart.com: Shop & Awe Book Review

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People Of Wal-Mart.com: Shop & Awe Book Review

About the Book: As Americans, we hold these truths to be self-evident: We will shop. And when we do, especially at our favorite supercenter, we will wear and do the most bizarre things possible.

From the wildly popular website PeopleofWalmart.com, this photo collection of Americans in their natural shopping habitat (70 percent of which is brand new and never before included on the website) presents people of all shapes and sizes wearing and doing everything imaginable in full view of their fellow shopping public. Plus, for the first time brand-new fan-submitted stories offer the most random experiences you can imagine!

So welcome to a world where no shoes and no shirt are no obstacles, where parking lots are filled with dead deer, Bengal tigers, and old men in thongs riding bikes. Once you meet the People of Walmart, you are sure to fall in love.

Our Take: Unless you live under a rock, you've been to PeopleOfWalmart.com!  This is hands-down the funniest site on the net.  My wife and I have been visiting the site several times a week for years.  Now, there is a FANTASIC book out called People of Wal-Mart.com: Shop and Awe.  This book highlights some of the best pictures that have been submitted, complete with snarky comments from the site creators themselves.  The level of horror that you'll experience just by seeing Wal-Mart shoppers from around the county is astounding!  You'll laugh, you'll cry and you definately won't be able to put it down!

How to Buy: Amazon.com

Spider Sense Spider-Man: Spider Man's Big City Showdown Book Review

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Spider Sense Spider-Man: Spider Man's Big City Showdown Book Review

About the Book: A rash of unspeakable crimes has befallen New York City—and Spider-Man is the lead suspect! The amazing web-slinger will have to devise some ingenious tricks to clear his name and stop his foe.


Our Take: I'm a huge comic book nerd, so when a book like this comes out, I jump on it to read to my kids!  What sets this new Spider-Man book apart from so many other that I've seen is absolutely the artwork by Andie Tong.  All too often you get very lame artwork in a kids book, but Tong went above and beyond.  He not only pulls off a great Spidey, but a wicked Carnage, as well!  The story is solid and fun, this book is a home run!


How to Buy: Amazon.com