r/artbookcollectors

I've been looking for game art books that cover action combat, particularly hack-and-slash or beat 'em up. For example, something that covers animation or vfx of Devil May Cry, Street Fighter, BlazBlue Entropy Effect, Elden Ring, FF16, etc.

Somehow I can't find literally a single one.

For example, I have the FF16 art book. Beautiful. Extensive. Covers environments and their concepts, various characters, props, etc. But no combat in detail.

I've taken a look at the DMC and Elden Ring/Souls official art books. Same thing. Overall neat illustrations and other design bits, but nothing covering combat in depth.

Even the same for official fighting game art books. Eg, from what I've seen, the Street Fighter art books more so cover illustrations, character design, etc rather than specifically showing sprite sheets or visualizing how the character moves were created in detail.

The best I've found are a couple Bitmap Books which apparently have some sprite sheets at least:
https://www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/all-books/products/the-king-of-fighters-the-ultimate-history
https://www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/all-books/products/fatal-fury-garou-densetsu-the-ultimate-history

Anyone know of any (physical) art books that cover action combat like animations, vfx, combat design, etc? Going a tad bit crazy searching cuz it has to exist right?

Or maybe it doesn't and I should finally give my sanity a rest

I have this artbook. For better reference, it’s one of those pretty heavy ones that you would see for like a movie behind the scenes or that of the sort

I wanna display it upright on my shelf, but I wanna do so without damaging the spine. How could I do so?

I’d also be okay with buying materials to help it stand upright without damage, I just need to figure out if and how I can do so.

Here is what I purchased and got signed, at my local anime convention called Another Anime Convention 2026.

Gurren Lagann Yoko Portraits (Ichijinsha)

Fruits Basket: Complete Anime Natsuki Takaya Illustrations (signed by Cynthia Cranz the voice of Mitsuru in the Fruits Basket anime)

I wish the XXXHolic artbook wasn't crazy expensive. I would absolutely love to have it in my collection. I have the COLOR books too (Shiro and Kuro), but planning on getting the Gold when it comes out in English since I missed the original Japanese release. 😭

Does anyone know where i can find ebooks or pdfs of these?

I live in canada