Review: CRAIG DRAKE: VOLUME 1

Craig Drake is one of my favorite artists on the pop culture scene right now. We've featured his work plenty of times on the site in the past, and his distinctive, geometric style is full of sharp angles and lines that disappear into the distance, drawing your eye across his pieces in a dynamic way.

He's collaborated with the awesome Los Angeles-based Hero Complex Gallery for a new book called Craig Drake: Volume 1, which you can purchase right here. Most of Drake's art is accompanied by a story from a super-fan, fellow artist, or HCG's own Adam Smasher talking about that individual piece, but it's the art that really commands your attention, and rightfully so. His work is so damn cool-looking, and aside from the design elements, he's exceptional at recreating likenesses of humans, vehicles, and dragons alike. As a bonus, there are often examples of alternate versions or works in progress on display that we wouldn't otherwise normally be able to see. (A few cool Star Wars examples are highlights, including a solo study of Princess Leia and a piece depicting the iconic Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back.)

For those of us who can't afford to cover our walls in Drake's jaw-dropping artwork, the second-best option is to have some of his coolest pieces collected in a book you can pull out and longingly admire whenever you want. Here are just a few of my favorite pieces that appear in the book: