Draw Dragons and Other Fantasy Beasts

by Gary Spencer Millidge, James McKay

Thanks to the success of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings in recent years, the fascination with imaginary worlds and mythical beasts continues to grow. Acclaimed graphic novelist James McKay and award-winning illustrator Gary Spencer Millidge show beginner artists how they can indulge that interest and create their own rich fantasy worlds on paper. The pair starts with the fundamentals, including advice on tools and materials and an introduction to drawing techniques. Would-be illustrators then receive a tour of basic dragon forms; specific tutorials teach how to draw different body parts, expressions, and poses so they can apply those building blocks to other creatures, including hippogryphs, basilisks, and gargoyles. Finally, Millidge and McKay explain how to create landscape and scenic backgrounds to give these fantastic beings room to roam.

Genres: Art

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Gary Spencer Millidge is a writer and illustrator from Essex, England. He’s the creator of the critically acclaimed, award-winning comic book series Strangehaven, and the writer of Comic Book Design and Alan Moore: Storyteller for Ilex Press.

Gary was born in Hackney, London but has lived most of his life in the county of Essex. He attended Southend School of Art where he published the small-press comic Amon*Spek with several fellow art students. He played bass guitar for a number of local bands throughout the ’80s and early ’90s. He opened the short-lived Southend-based comic shop Collectors’ Dream in 1985 and curated the Ethiopian benefit comic Food for Thought in the same year.

In 1995 he began self-publishing Strangehaven, which initially ran for eighteen issues and garnered multiple industry award nominations. It has been collected into three graphic novels. Gary has contributed comics to numerous anthologies including Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror, Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman, Negative Burn and Where We Live, the Las Vegas shooting benefit book from Image Comics.

In addition to Comic Book Design and Alan Moore: Storyteller, Gary has written two all-ages how-to books, Draw Fantasy Figures and Draw Dragons (both with James McKay). He has also provided cover art for Titan Comics for Heroes and Sherlock.

Between 2014 and 2023, the fourth volume of Strangehaven was serialised in full colour in the British anthology Meanwhile… published by Soaring Penguin Press, but has not yet been collected in a single volume.

Gary is currently working on Strangehaven: Epilogue, the final chapter of the series.