Fantasy Workshop: Mastering Digital Painting Techniques

by ImagineFX

As computer-based drawing and painting programs become more sophisticated, the audience for fantasy art keeps growing along with it. Produced in association with the renowned magazine ImagineFX, this visually striking guide helps readers learn how to produce top-quality digital fantasy images in styles ranging from manga to gothic. Focusing on a small number of popular creative painting programs, this workshop includes plenty of step-by-step screen grabs and simple, detailed instructions. Would-be fantasy artists will be able to progress from basic “pencil” roughs to line art and, ultimately, to finished color pieces. A gallery of FXpose images includes work by fantasy masters such as Alan Lee, Todd Lockwood, Jim Burns, Linda Begkvist, and others.

 

 

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 2009

About the author

ImagineFX is a digital art magazine that features workshops and interviews with artists from the science fiction, fantasy, manga, anime, game and comic disciplines.

Published in Bath, UK by Future plc since January 2006, its main focus is the workshops featured in the second half of the magazine. Artists such as Ryan Church, Jonny Duddle, Martin Bland and Henning Ludvigsen contribute to the magazine. The magazine comes with a DVD that includes workshop files that relate to the tutorials in the magazine as well as reader artwork, program demos, free fonts, textures, images and Photoshop brushes.

Reviews

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

Here's a great tutorial style book for those interested in digital painting. Fantasy Workshop is a compilation of tutorials that have been published in monthly ImagineFX issues. If you are already a regular subscriber, you'll see very similar tutorials in Fantasy Workshop.

The tutorials are split into three categories, namely Characters, Scenes & Stories and Manga. At the end is a short FXpose section, which like the magazine, features illustrations from individual artists.

The tutorials are presented in a step-by-step manner with plenty of screenshots and well explained captions. Each artist will talk about their workflow, tips, techniques and shortcuts to creating digital art. More specifically for example, they will talk about how they create realism through texture, and also why they created it that way.

Since the book is about mastering digital painting, you'll see tons of examples on how to recreate paint effects using software. By examples I mean they will show the digital tools used, menus, and settings. The software used are Painter and Photoshop but the art techniques are usually easily achievable in either software.

There are also a few pages where the artists answer fans' questions relating to creating art.

This is a recommended book for anyone into digital painting. There's enough variety featured for everyone to learn a new trick or two.

Here's the list of contents (with links to the artists website):
- Mind's Eye to Digital Canvas - Jehan Choo
- Modern Classical Painting - Marta Dahlig
- Paint Realistic Ears - Katerina Sokolova
- Paint Realistic Lips - Katerina Sokolova
- Digital Hairstyling - John Kearney
- Paint Realistic Hands - Marta Dahlig
- Create a Heroic Valkryie - Lorland Chan
- Drawing and Painting Dragons - James Strehle
- Create 3D Illustrations - Loic Zimmerman
- Painting a Mythical Beast - Joel Carlo
- An Army Summoned - Mike Corriero
- Create a LOTR-Inspired Orc - Jeff Murchie
- Quick Character Design Concept - Francis Tsai
- Painting Creepy Portraits - Mike Mitchell
- Speed Painting a Zombie - Patrick Reilly
- Painting a Nightmare - Cyril Van Der Haegen
- Create a Great Background - Melanie Delon
- 25 Custom Brush Tips - Patrick Reilly
- Dramatic Concept Art - David Levy
- Create a Dark Urban Nightmare - Lee Carter
- Manga Character Illustration - Michael Chomicki
- Create Fantasy Manga - Cris De Lara
- Fiery Dragon Princess - Svetlin Velinov

This review was first published on parkablogs.com. There are more pictures and videos on my blog.

[Viktorija B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mean obviously there's a lot of really outdated info on here, so it worked like a fun sort of look back into the professional digital art of the mid-2000s. BUT there's also a lot that hasn't changed - some digital tools are just too good to change out. Not sure if I'd recommend this book for art studies tho, especially not in 2025. Was mostly just kinda interesting to read through and see some of the artist's processes, (even though they weren't really all that detailed and jumped quickly from point to point) and then checking up on what they're up to today.

[Roxane Lapa · Rating 5 out of 5]

GENRE:
Non-fiction Art

BASIC SYNOPSIS
The book features short tutorial style lessons from a variety of fantasy and sci fi artists, with some Q & A here and there.

MY THOUGHTS
Not every artist in the book is amazing, and not every artist is good at teaching/explaining, but most were. There are enough small tips in this book that it took me a while to get through because I was stopping and trying things the whole time. Money well spent.

[Susa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, I didn't find this very helpful.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good resource for those who are starting out in digital painting it covers various techniques and styles. It covers hyper realistic painting to comic art. What I don't like (and its something thats always annoyed me about ImagineFX)is that its mostly photoshop which may sound strange but these days i know very few that just use photoshop. And its not as if this book is old, they could have included Paint Tool Sai, Coral Painter and GIMP.

The instructions are step by step process of the making of images, the text is easy to follow and understand and the images are clear and simply beautiful.

I would happily recommend this to anyone starting out in digital art and a photoshop user.

[Roderick Gladwish Gladwish · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the whole a good book. Picking some of the best articles from the ImagineFX magazine. As always you have to pick what works and what doesn't. Some solid tips and guides to creating images that I shall be referencing in the future. I particularly liked the later sections which show whole image creation.

My favorite book on this subject is 'Digital Fantasy Painting Workshop' by Martin McKenna, which this comes a solid second to me.

[Tim Flanagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm new to the digital art world, but this is an inspiring guide with some great tips. I still need to try and find more information and guidance so will probably look on Youtube, as this book doesn't give simple step by step instructions. It also mixes with Photoshop, where as I'm using Painter 12, so the advice is sometimes different. However, overall I like this book and will definately be referring back to it on many occasions.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative. Comprehensive. Good detail.

[La Revistería Comics · Rating 3 out of 5]

Secretos desnudos del arte digital.