3 Free Places With Lessons On How To Draw Fantasy Art

In doing some research in the world of drawing fantasy art, I have built up several sites that have free lessons on how to draw fantasy art that I often visit from time to time, when the inspiration needs to be helped along it's way.

And these sites really are of use if you find yourself in a bind or have reached what is termed as artists block, the art resources that these sites present is very top notch stuff and it also inspired me to do some of my own drawing tutorials too.

The first one at the fantasy art school has some great resources on how to draw various fantasy art characters, creatures and the classic fantasy icons like dragons, goblins and unicorns.

About.com has a good section on drawing fantasy art and dragons from fairie art to dragon drawing, this site has lots of good quality free links and content resources on how to draw many aspects of fantasy art, so get learning the basics.

The Fantasy Art Resource Project at Elfwood is by far one of the best sites together with fan artists and volunteer artists who contribute to the sites resources, alot of topics in fantasy art are covered here at Elfwood including some useful digital art articles of note with photoshop.

Drawing Tables For Fantasy Artists

Over the years of drawing, I have been meaning to get a drawing table or drawing board, as they look very professional and can make it easier for drawing and create a nice workspace for drawing, instead of hunched over a flat horizontal desk which I have done for years, so I began my small research to find one online and there are lots to choose from, but I have narrowed it down to a few sites, and I thought I'd share these with you.

The first place I found early on in my search for a drawing table was
Graphics Direct

And I came across the Rotring A2 Drawing Table



I was impressed by the price, and the feature of being able to draw at 3 different angles, so I noted this down and moved on, maybe I could have one imported from another country, this may be more expensive, but I thought it was time for a drawing table to sort out my workspace, I soon abandoned the notion of importing one as it would probably quite costly , especially as I could get one cheaper in the UK where I live, so on with the research.

The next one I found was at Blundell Harling an A2 size one just like the previous, but it appealed even more than the first drawing table, the price was lower for one and this one had a transparent surface so the drawing area could be illuminated from the back, which provides possibilities for some great tracing work, and unlike the previous A2 Rotring drawing table, this adjusted to four angles for ease of drawing.



By now I was a bit of a mess, as they were both good quality drawing tables, so I decided to find one more on my research, which took me to...

The A2 Bertram Drawing Board at the Art Drawing Office was by far the cheapest and looked fairly similar to the Truelight Drawing table.



I made a decision on which one to buy and that was the Truelight, as it had some more functions I could use as an artist, the tracing utility of the transluscent drawing surface sold me, so I ordered this drawing table the other day and just cannot wait to start my drawing and sketching on this table.

Finding Inspiration In Others Artwork

This piece of artwork by Rob Sheridan really jumped out at me and it really inspired my own work, I often like to see what other artists are doing out there, and plus in this piece the aliens look really sinister and everyone likes aliens right?

In fact seeing what our fellow artists are creating right this very minute could be an excercise to do in between your drawing chores, so do this now and see how you can create some better art.

See the Post it project for some quick sketch inspirations on those little office post its!

Tell us what you found out in the comments below!

I am adding another fantasy art blog to my portfolio

You may want to check it out at Draw Fantasy Art and also I probably will be making a few other fantasy art blogs that will reflect different things of fantasy, so check back here for some link updates, the above new blog will have more fantasy art resources coming up and other how to draw tutorials of many fantasy art creatures and characters.

Draft Sketch Of The Ruins In The Swamp

I am currently drawing a new piece of art for a game company called Victorious press and would just like to go through the step by step process of creating this piece of art and show you what decisions I made to alter it's appearance from the first draft.

Draft Sketch

Trying to think of inspiration in fantasy art

I often look for new inspiration in fantasy art, I seem to have a few days when I cannot think of anything to draw.

Or there are certain days when I know what I want to draw but hat does not happen for what ever reason, why does this happen, I know I'm not alone, writers have the same problem, writers block can also be artists block.

How do you concentrate your time into something meaningful, something that will get you the results that you want?

Well here are three of the best ways to do this!

First, always try and draw even if you can't, find some time away from distractions, this is easily achieved by setting up a work space away from kids, away from the television and even the nagging wife ( for the wifes of the world reading this, just give your other half a shiny new toy to play with, a gadget perhaps!!)

Drawings can also be conceptual in design and not that clear, so try and sketch and draw with a simple idea in mind or a collaboration of ideas.

Second, watch what other artists are doing, they see and they create far more in tune with their subject than others, so see them, study them and get inspired by who you have to to succeed at creating some great fantasy art.

Reference images and other photos can help too, so watch out for these in your world of searching for inspiration.

And last of all third, Set yourself a schedule for your art, plan ahead and work on everything that you create, but don't over work existing drawings, as this will become too populated with line marks and just produce rather muddy results, always try and find your way of knowing when to stop drawing.

An overworked drawing may not look right, but you also waste time doing this, you want to maximize your time by drawing more instead of going over pencil lines again or adding unnessecary detail.

Always try and stick to these three main principals in everything that you draw and you will be fine for fantasy art.

Drawing Skulls With A Pencil

How do you draw a skull?

It's quite simple, I have a Squidoo lens on the topic and plus you can get inspired by the Skull related content too.

Skull Drawing Resource