The Fantasy Illustrator's Technique Book by Gary A, Lippincott

All artists must learn the essentials, but Fantasy artists have it harder. When it comes to drawing an elf, an orc, or a monster, how can you draw something that doesn't exist, or which never existed, and make it look like it could exist somewhere?

Gary Lippincott is a fantasy artist, and he knows all the tricks of the trade, from how to use real-world animals and change them into fantasy beasts and monsters, to how to use photo references of real people and change them into fantastic fantasy crestures and races, elves, hags, brownies, orcs and more.

Lippincott covers everything you will need to know, from how to create realistic poses for any character, to ensuring that your characters aren't static and interact with their environment instead of simply being posed in the middle of it. Then, he moves on to how to color you picture realistically, with everything from colored crayons to watercolors, acrylics and everything in between.

But even for those who aren't artists, the book has a wide variety of fantasy paintings, drawings and sketches, from beasts, characters and places, by both Gary Lippincott and other artists, illustrating many of the techniques he is describing.

Wow. This book is simply incredible. While I'm not an artist myself (I'm limited to stick figures and rather cartoonish faces), this book was still wonderful to read, as a means to see how the artists whose work I love so much go about bringing those images to life.

Most interesting was the part on showing how to turn a normal human face into something fantastic- either mischevious or monstrous, and for me the best part were the beautiful paintings and drawings in the back of the book. One in particular, "Vision of Beauty" by Uwe Jarling, just blew me away.

This is a great book for the many illustrations showing how to build up a drawing from the figure to the background and have it all work. While it doesn't cover the real basics of drawing, it does cover everything else, and even if you're not an artist, the pictures will delight and enthrall. Recommended.