Book Review: Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu

Zhelong Xu is an incredible 3D artist and this is an incredible artbook.

The book title Yechawood is the name of his hometown. I actually thought the sculptures in this book were sculpted with wood because of the title. But there's that Adobe logo on the cover and Adobe isn't really into traditional art. It turns out that this book was published by Allegorithmic, an Adobe company.

This is a large-format 204-page paperback artbook with low-gloss paper. The book has both Chinese and English text.

The 3D sculptures were created with either Adobe Substance 3D Painter and/or ZBrush. The creations are mostly creatures and you can definitely see strong influence from Chinese culture, such as the dragons, ornaments and the design language.

The 3D sculptures are so detailed that each piece has me asking "how is this even possible?!". These are 3D artworks are breathtaking and will make you pause at every page. Zhelong Xu thinks of himself as a digital artisan and you can almost sense the pride in his work.

The creature designs look so original and real, and are nothing like the generic creatures from video games. There's so much physicality in his work that each 3D sculpture looks like you can hold or touch with your hands.

Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu - 02