Fantasy Art

Fantasy castles are part of what makes fantasy worlds special and you can draw them anyway you want, I draw fantasy castles the way I have done for years on a crumbling old mountain that looks like it will fall down with the castle sitting at the top in a precarious position.

Here I wrote a Small tutorial on drawing classic fantasy castles and in doing so I realized I don’t think I’d ever change the way I tackle drawing a castle, it just looks kind of cool for a castle to be at the top of a mountain.

Here is another castle sketch that made it on to the tutorial step by step article:-

Drawing trolls can be fun, but they don’t necessarily have t be traditional trolls that others draw, take for instance my take on a troll, it looks more like an ogre with huge muscles, but it’s my drawing so I’ll cry if I want to.

I did a how to draw a troll tutuorial, so you can take a look at that if you want and in this I go through simple steps on drawing a troll my way, it’s not a set in stone thing, just take whatever inspiration from what you can as that what counts more than being forced to draw in anyone elses way.

Here is a black line drawing of the troll that was in that tutorial to give you an idea of what processes were involed in this little project:-

I recently did a witch drawing tutorial and thought I would link to it here, witches are best drawn the classic way of black hat and tatty robe with long pointy nose and long finger nails and this is what I tried to achieve with this how to draw article.

How to Draw A Classic Black Dirty Witch

Here’s one of the pre sketches of that witch drawing tutorial project:-

I am currently at work on more of these how to draw tutorials as I hope you find them useful for inspiration and by no means are they the definite way to draw something as fantasy art should follow your own imaginational path.

Today I would like to go through my thoughts on drawing monsters, these creatures are highly imaginative once you get going and they can be be scary or not so scary to look at.

The following monster drawing was created with the thought of a demonic creature in mind to start off with and from there it evolved into something else entirely but still a monster creature.

The ideas behind drawing something from your imagination is quite interesting to think of, because they all come from many things that visually I like, so there are other influences that make my art happen. All you have to do is have a single thought or idea and run with it, the creative process helps you along if you are in the mood to draw and sketch.

Drawing monsters is one thing I love about drawing because the possibilities are endless and the monsters are far more imaginative if you get a little bit of quiet and the time to sit down for drawing and sketching, additionally I would recommend you do the imaginative side of drawing creation as mny times as you can fit in a week, because this keeps your creative mind fresh and alert to more ideas more often.

I like youtube videos, especially the ones that help you do stuff and inform you of a higher and more methodical way of thinking and here I have found a playlist of useful videos covering such important art techniques topics as:

• Drawing portraits
• drawing eyes
• Paintbrush technique
• shading methods
• And many more

The best thing about these videos is that they are collected from lots of different sources and they can be applied to your fantasy art drawing as a whole and particularly the huge video section on drawing portraits is highly useful for your building up of drawing methods and experience with drawing different concepts, I recommend going through the videos that interest you and there are a couple of Ed Beard Jnr videos in there too which I always like a bit of his work and his easy explanations of how he creates his artwork and shading concepts.

Here is the link to the video playlist at youtube, just let it run as long as you want to see all the videos(there are 40 videos in total:

While it is obviously necessary to have an extensive range of art materials and equipment, it is quite easily built up over time, but to start off you really need the essentials that will keep you in good standing with creating your own artwork and maintaining your workspace.

The quite obvious two are pencils and paper, without these your drawings won’t ever appear, unless you fancy sketching on toilet paper and leaves.

Pencils don’t have to be that expensive either as almost any pencil types get the job done, all you need are the full range of hard and soft types so you can create lots of tonal work with lighter shades, medium shades and darker shades. B to H are the standard pencils to use for this task in drawing and sketching.

With paper it also doesn’t matter about using the high end premium quality paper for sketching, I’d only use this paper for top sketches that have already been planned out well in advance, because a premium weighted piece of paper creates a sense of professionalism and also looks good.

A workspace or drawing board is an essential piece of kit for laying out your drawings, you can find some decent ones online. Drawing boards come in all different sizes for your drawings and sketching purposes, if you can’t afford one for the time being you can create one from cheap bits of wood and a bit of DIY skills and knowledge.

Art markers are a good alternative to pencils as they rely on drawing quick for sketching and these are what I use ad you can buy the following on amazon and you don’t have to buy the box packs either as I don’t often get the boxes, just the small packs for frequent use.

Prismacolor art markers that I have just started to use are the double ended art markers from prismaclor. and I find that theseare easy to use ad have a comfortable grip.

Also I recommend investing in a graphic tablet and if there are any to buy then a Wacom tablet is the one.

INTUOS3 6D ART PEN
This pen provides rotation sensing technology with a unique chisel-shaped nib that emulates brushes, markers, and calligraphic pens. Simply by rotating the pen, a drawn line becomes narrow or broad. When the 6D Art Pen is combined with a software application supporting its feature set, the pen can produce almost any type of brush effect or marker stroke.

All around us inspiration can be taken from the real life images our eyes capture everyday, these mental images are stored in our computer like brains for lots of creative stuff that we as humans do quite naturally, whether it’s making the perfect cup of tea right down to making the bed with origami folded sheets.

Drawing and creating fantasy art comes about when we are drawn to or sucked in by the contagious and inspirational artwork of other artists and then we tend to see realistic looking life landscapes in paintings and the inspired choices that the artists made and combine all these mental images into our own imaginative creations.

To see how other artists do what they do and how they do it is best. But also inspiration can be found within stories, books and lists of words, theseare far better to imagine your creations with, something that you read and then conjure up images in your own mind as to what can be sketched on paper.

Medieval history for me is a good source of inspiration especially for castles and knights armour that kind of thing, years back in real history has influence in the future of many created pieces of artwork, whether it be a painting or portrait. Your imagination can be used to exaggerate your influences and make them your own ideas and concepts.

Art of the past can be one of the main sources of inspiration, because many artists had little distractions such as the internet or even television, so they had the time to concentrate on their works of art and become good at it much quicker. But even now there are more and more fantasy artists out there who are earning a reputation as quality and professional artists from their own websites and blogs and the ability to command artist commissions from all the available sources.

One of the largest fantasy art sites filled with fan art and professional fantasy art is Elfwood and perhaps is one I look at most for inspiration in fantasy art.

The drawing of the demon  tree below was based on an idea I saw elsewhere but it gave me the inspiration to draw something that I liked, so always draw what you like and what passes the time for you with ease and you will draw some of your best stuff always.

How to draw a flaming skull seems to be a hot topic in the drawing help that I see on the internet, so I did an article showing you the simple steps to draw a flaming skull over at hubpages. The article with pictures shows you how to draw a basic flaming skull design.

Additionally I will be doing more of these tutorials for the beginner artists out there, all will be fantasy related so expect tips on how to draw dragons, wizards, elves and many more.

How To Draw A Flaming Skull

Drawing skulls is a favourite subject of mine, that and demons, but altogether drawing any imaginative creature or character is the best drawing exercise that nay artists can do, everyone can tap into their imagination for inspirational and creative sketching.

By looking around us too we can see many images of skulls and other ideas for creatures and imagined worlds if only we do look, finding inspiration can be quite hard at times, much similar to writers block sometimes the ideas and creative spark just doesn’t happen.

So in this little post I am going to go through a little drawing exercise to get you on top form for more creative and imaginative art, so as an example we are going to be talking drawing skulls, skulls are the easiest starting point and one that I can reference quite well as I draw them quite often and much like drawing demons I can draw multiple variations of a skulls head in one sitting.

Now all you really need for this practice run of the drawing run through are a pencil and a few sheets of paper.

Take your pencil and start to draw at the top left hand corner of your paper, but the trick is here is to draw very quickly, not create a drawing that is long lasting, but rather progressive in nature, something that you will be able to develop later on. By drawing quick you are sketching fast to blast through and get some ideas down, just like writing notes down quickly, sketching them fast becomes a valued skill in it’s own right.

Now try and draw a few skull designs across the piece of paper, some that you can be selective about what works in the skull design and what does not, now by the end of it you should have a piece of paper full with at least four or five skull heads and at least one of these should be a favourite one, one that you know will work as a stand alone design.

How to draw flaming skulls shows you a basic step by step guide and what I have just briefly talked about with some examples to guide you through, the same principles apply to any drawings you do, the key here is to plan out your skull art or whatever else art you have and make sure it will look right for your best drawings to shine.

See also a previous short post on skull drawing on the fantasy art blog

Zazzle is a great place to network with other fantasy artist on the zazzle network, you can find art by these artists on a great range of products and get to know these artists and their work.

Sites like Zazzle are worth a closer look, because they can get your art out there online much quicker if you have some good designs already to upload to the ranges of merchandise available, or you could specialize in certain types of products with your designs.

I’ve started one to give you an idea if you don’t already know about Zazzle, it’s something similar to Cafepress, a print on demand service were you can set or mark up your own prices on your art designs. I have opted for a fantasy art/photography design gallery

Zazzle offers lots of opportunity to add almost all types of artwork and designs to your chosen range of products, this is one of many opportunities you should use to get your art out there, plus it’s a learning experience to sell your own artwork, so have a go.

There are many fantasy artists on Zazzle and they have various designs and styles, I have had fun looking at the different Zazzle galleries because to look at other artists work can be of great benefit to your work and influence some new art from you too.

I would certainly give Zazzle a try for their good intentions to reward the artist or designer and empower them to create a business online out of their artwork, in fact I am in the process of this right now, although I may have to separate the fantasy art and the photography into two online stores.Get ready to Zazzle!!!