I now have four AKI books (see pic below), and while I find the Tanker Tips & Tricks one very useful, I don’t think I will buy any new AKI book before long.
Sure, the nice pictures on glossy paper look great, but I find the usefulness of the explanations generally limited and thus reproducibility as well. In other words, I’m not getting what I’d like to get out of those books, and yet they’re not cheap! And I’m not even talking of the many many typos, translation errors, and missing letters.
I’m curious: how do people feel about AKI publications? Any that you would recommend? I read that the FAQ ones were good but they’re expensive.
Personally I find them invaluable for figure work- pretty much every technique and the ideas/theories behind them is covered in great detail and illustrated by a ton of pictures. I have them to hand pretty much all the time and constantly refer to them.
Personally I like them. Learing techniques from still images is harder than learning them from videos, which in turn is harder than learning from an actual person sitting next to you. But they are good for teaching sequences. Besides, the AK learning series cost just over 10 Euros a piece, which doesn’t break the bank at all. The only downside to the learning series is their size (A5) and that they won’t lay down flat, so referencing them while working can be tricky.
The ones on the left are part of the “AK Learning series”, booklets focused on specific areas, and the ones on the right are magazines. Therefore, in my opinion none of them are intended for deep knowledge like other of their bigger publications.
I have two of this Learning series and have found them useful enough, given the price.
Some of them (FAQ, Tricks and Tips) are extremely useful and informative, while others are just full of watching other guys build models. I look through every AKI book before I buy it.
I have a few of their ebooks and some are better than others. The FAQ are pretty good, Real Colors, Figure Sculpting, and Master Modelling are really great.
