Fantasy Art

How to draw a flaming skull seems to be a hot topic in the drawing help that I see on the internet.

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.

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!!!

Sometimes all it takes is a small sketch in fantasy art to gather some top ideas about creating some more great concepts, then you refine these concepts further by drafting them out on scraps of paper, I do this often to get in the mood with creating new fantasy ideas and concepts.

Drawing your ideas down on paper is just the same as writing down your ideas really, so the fact of bringing your own imagination to the ways of sketching them out are to be applied all the time, often is the case, that I find I have nothing to draw, I stare into space and try to think up new ideas and draw them on the page, but sometimes this proves difficult.

But with a few simple methods outlined here, I will attempt to overcome this for anyone who has this problem frequently.

Now one tip is to start to draw without knowing what you really want to draw, start by doodling and draw line and shapes to see what you can make of them, further to this, having a couple of pages dedicated to each piece of what you want to start to draw, for example head drawings and ideas based around this is the way to go, then another page with full character sketches, by doing it this way you can bring together all elements of your ideas.

Small a5 notepads help me alot, when I suddenly have ideas for sketches and I keep these all about the house, so I can just grab one if the inspiration hits, it doesn’t matter what you use, ideas can even be drawn on toilet paper!!

Sketching ideas out beforehand is nothing new, and it only helps you in the long run if you plan all that you create.