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The Fantasy Artist's Figure Drawing Bible
Worlds of fantasy are at your fingertips! Explore the mystical world of fantasy, from wizards, dragons, and warriors, with the Fantasy Artist's Figure Drawing Bible ―a fun, accessible introduction to drawing fantasy art. Fans of Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy, or magic who open this book will learn how to imagine and draw a wide variety of mythical characters to illustrate legends, myths, and fables. Author Matt Dixon presents both exciting concepts and techniques for creating fantasy characters, demonstrating how to draft, pose, and draw anatomy appropriately. Complete with helpful, illustrative captions, the bulk of this self-teaching manual consists of a directory of fantasy character types, each of them shown with concept sketches, constructional drawings, and fully-rendered images, all supplemented with instructive captions. With more than 600 full-color illustrations, this art book is the perfect first step in your fantasy art journey.
- GenresArtDrawingNonfiction
256 pages, Spiral-bound
First published January 1, 2008
3 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Matt Dixon
31 books10 followersLibrarian note:
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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 26, 2017
Great stuff. Strongly recommended to fantasy lovers.
September 3, 2020
GENRE:
Non-fiction Art
BASIC SYNOPSIS
This book starts out like most art books, talking about materials and mediums, and touches on basic anatomy, but then it goes into a compendium of fantasy archetypes, which is the main focus and unique selling point. Each archetype (e.g. barbarian, wizard, gnome, etc) gets a few pages dedicated to it that discusses and illustrates anatomy, facial structure, gestural drawing, clothing etc, and each section also has an art tip (often a general tip, not specific to the archetype).
MY THOUGHTS
I found the book enjoyable. I think it's handy to have on hand for concept drawing. You can plan out the character given the reference and get a bit of inspiration from the authors beautiful art at the same time. He's particularly adept at using complimentary colour schemes in his paintings. I thought the general tips in each section were really good.
I would have given the book 5 stars, except that it is ring bound, and I really detest the screech it makes when turning pages.
Non-fiction Art
BASIC SYNOPSIS
This book starts out like most art books, talking about materials and mediums, and touches on basic anatomy, but then it goes into a compendium of fantasy archetypes, which is the main focus and unique selling point. Each archetype (e.g. barbarian, wizard, gnome, etc) gets a few pages dedicated to it that discusses and illustrates anatomy, facial structure, gestural drawing, clothing etc, and each section also has an art tip (often a general tip, not specific to the archetype).
MY THOUGHTS
I found the book enjoyable. I think it's handy to have on hand for concept drawing. You can plan out the character given the reference and get a bit of inspiration from the authors beautiful art at the same time. He's particularly adept at using complimentary colour schemes in his paintings. I thought the general tips in each section were really good.
I would have given the book 5 stars, except that it is ring bound, and I really detest the screech it makes when turning pages.
May 17, 2025
Lovely book with a lot of inspiration and foundation.
January 12, 2012
Caution: Several example characters are but scantily clad; if that bothers you, beware.
This was a Christmas present to me. I enjoy drawing, but I'm nowhere near this level.
The beginning of the book shows basic drawing principles for figures. Unfortunately, the character with the most detailed drawing tutorial and background is inappropriately immodest, so I won't want to look at it.
The character index makes examples of typical fantasy characters and briefly discusses design choices and ideas to consider. The internal wire binding makes it easy to put the page on a scanner to put into your computer. Sidebars among the characters discuss rendering textures such as stone or metal.
On the plus side, the example characters come with a line art drawing to scan or trace and then color, for the beginning artist.
This was a Christmas present to me. I enjoy drawing, but I'm nowhere near this level.
The beginning of the book shows basic drawing principles for figures. Unfortunately, the character with the most detailed drawing tutorial and background is inappropriately immodest, so I won't want to look at it.
The character index makes examples of typical fantasy characters and briefly discusses design choices and ideas to consider. The internal wire binding makes it easy to put the page on a scanner to put into your computer. Sidebars among the characters discuss rendering textures such as stone or metal.
On the plus side, the example characters come with a line art drawing to scan or trace and then color, for the beginning artist.
September 6, 2016
A staple when I need some ideas!
July 31, 2023
It's a nice drawing/painting teaching book, with the usual sterotyped fantasy characters. The step by steps and explanations are easily understandable.
February 15, 2013
Tips and tricks on how to draw hobbits, elves, fairies and more.
February 19, 2013
I learn how to draw fantasy creatures
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews