Fantastic Realms
V Shane
Impact Books
Nonfiction, YA? Art
Themes: Dragons, Fantasy Races
****
Description
Goblins, dragons, heroes, villains... these and countless more fantastic beings are all around us, in comic books and cartoon shows, on books and CD covers. With the help of this book, you, too, can learn to bring your imagination to life with just a pencil, paper, and lots and lots of practice. Included are practice templates at the back, and a random idea/image generation sheet (based on dice rolls) for inspiration.
Review
I bought this book because of its focus on shading and inking techniques, and the author's method of starting with "seed sketches" (similar to thumbnails) for layouts intrigued me. He also deals with creating backgrounds and scenery more thoroughly than other fantasy drawing books I own. The templates are a nice addition, giving the artist pre-drawn images to practice inking techniques on; I, for one, could use all the inking practice I can get. I also liked his random idea generator at the back, even if I don't have any dice on hand to try it with. On the down side, there are some serious flaws in his animal anatomy, particularly his wings, as he neglects to mention or notice that bat and bird wings have elbow joints, not just wrist joints. He also could've used a better explanation of proportions and more in the way of basic human and animal anatomy, by way of demonstrating that the most convincing fantastic creations have a look of biological plausibility rather than being a collection of improbably pasted-on parts; as it is, those with a decent grounding in anatomy will get much better results with his instructions than newcomers trying to place seemingly random blobs and circles in seemingly random locations. That aside, enough inspiring and original information is provided to merit a four-star rating.