The Art of Game Characters

I believe this book is great. It provides a good insight into how characters are made with personility and background. The chapters are fun, diving into the different types of characterd (hulking men, femme fatales, dark villians, ect.) and each chapter usually includes an interview from designers working in the industry. Although some might complain that the book lacks real technical information (it does), there are some great pointers and "concept sketches-to-life" pics. It's hard not to be inspired, the book gives you great ideas. Overall, the book is very good and i would highly recommend it.

This is a really interesting book. It gives you a guided tour through video game history by looking at and discussing the art of many historic games. The book has lots and lots of color pictures from popular video games, and offers running commentary on their importantance. Also there are several brief interviews with artists that worked on some of these projects. They share some of their philosophies of character development. There is also some brief discussion about character development workflow. This book isn't so much instructional as it is inspirational. I don't think you can read (or skim) through this book without getting some new, fresh, ideas of characters for your own game.