I have used some of this companies other stock art products and find them to be of very high quality, so when I saw this I immediately decided to purchase it. There are some Sci-Fi as well as fantasy images in this collection. The Sci-Fi will be less useful, but they are fairly generic and certainly do not detract. The most bang-for-your-buck will be in the fantasy images. A few are so simple as to be almost un-usable. Much like the clip-art you might find online. Now don't take that to mean I am dissing this product; I am not. I am saying that several of the 175 or so images were not terribly usable to me, nor do I think most publishers here on OBS will find much use for them. However, I could easily find places to use most of the other images. From some undead, to monsters and filler-icon images there is plenty to use here. I am very happy to have this quantity or quality stock art. Other bundles I have used have a few of useful images and most not. This product is the exact opposite!
Looking closer at the images all are B&W, some of sketch quality while others are more "finished" and fully rendered. A few show some photoshopping effects such as a Gaussian Blur. Again, only a few I would find no use for. (There is a very cartoon-like elf on page 8 I wouldn't use, but others might. But there are four other images on that page I CAN use! ) Each image is about 1/4 page, and each page contains five images as far as I can tell. What I did not find was any type of license agreement included. That may require some clarification; can I alter the image? Can I use it on a cover? Combine images? They may want to clarify these things by including a license with the images. The product description as of this review says this:
Over 175 300dpi black and white 100% royalty free fantasy and sci-fi clip art images by Joe Calkins. Most are roughly 1/4 page in size. The illustrations are in a variety of styles from sketches to line art to fully shaded pieces. Collection also includes six bonus page backgrounds. WARNING Some images contain nudity.
I found it quite accurate, and in no way felt the product was mis-represented. The Flash preview seems to be sized incorrectly so it's hard to see what your getting from that, but I saw enough that I was willing to risk the twenty bucks to have this. I give this product five stars for quality, value and quantity. (I have some slight reservations about the absence of a license agreement spelling out what I can and cannot do with the images, but I suspect that will be resolved shortly.)
The bottom line is that if you are a PDF publisher in need of cheap, quality generic art to round out your projects this art pack is worth every penny.
|