Give life to the beings that roam your imagination!
Dragons may terrorize fantasy worlds, but they need peasants to munch on… heroes to confront… elegant elves, shrewd sorcerers and dreaded demons to battle. Following on the wings of the ferociously popular DragonArt, this book shows you how to conjure up your own fantasy realms by drawing inspiration from fairy tales, legends and (if you dare) things that go bump in the night.
Breathe the life into your beings by basing them upon fundamental human anatomyproportions, facial expressions and gender-specific characteristics.
Color-coded, step-by-step demonstrations (simple enough that even the dullest of dwarves could follow along!) show you how to create a sordid cast of creatures, including goblins, orcs, sprites, angels, mermaids, centaurs, vampires, werewolves, banshees and more.
Accessorize each being by tailoring them with tusks, wings, hooves, daggers, armor and various apparel, from the fine garb of nobles to peasant rags.
Copy each being as-is. Or, better yet, follow your own twisted imaginings to conjure up creatures from fantastic lands.
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171 reviews for DragonArt Fantasy Characters: How to Draw Fantastic Beings and Incredible Creatures
4.6out of 5
★★★★★
★★★★★
8
★★★★★
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★★★★★
Amazon Customer –
Great instructional book. Great for the creative kid or anyone who want to learn how to draw animated characters. Lots of pictures with well written instructions.
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★★★★★
cLynn –
As described
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★★★★★
Neko-san –
DragonArt Fantasy Characters follows the steps of the previous book from J. Peffer, DragonArt. This is a great book for an aspiring artist to learn how to draw fantasy characters. It provide easy to follow instruction and shows Peffer’s inspiring art.
This book is divided into five sections: a preface and four parts. The preface contains a tutorial about how to draw people. It briefly covers all the basics: shapes and shading, penciling and inking, coloring, human body, face, facial expressions, hair, hands and feet.
There are step-by-step tutorials on how to draw fantasy beings in part 1, 2, and 3. Part 1 contains 6 classic fantasy creatures: a fairy, a sprite, an elf, a goblin, a dwarf, and an orc. Part 2 contains 6 mythological creatures: a mermaid, a centaur, a faun, an angel, and a kitsune. And part 3 contains 4 night creatures: a banshee, vampire, a werewolf, and a demon.
Part 4 is about fashion. It shows a limited collection of clothes, accessories and weapons for male and female characters of various professions: warrior, ranger, rogue, mage, cleric, samurai, noble, and peasant.
The step-by-step tutorials are very useful, but this book works the best for me as a source of inspiration. J. Peffer’s artistic style is refreshing and extremely contagious.
The bad thing about this book is that it’s only 128 pages long. Overall, I think this is great book for anyone who wants to learn how to draw fantasy characters.
Other books by J. Peffer: DragonArt DragonArt Evolution: How to Draw Everything Dragon
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★★★★★
M. Rice –
Got this for my pre-teen neices and they LOVE it! They’ve been sending me drawings they’ve made from what they learned, it’s awesome
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Megan –
I love these books – drawing books from the publisher Impact are almost always filled with interesting art styles and fun pictures. They generally provide pretty good instruction and are a nice item to have for inspiration! I own so many different books in the DragonArt series as well – one of my favorite series!
I love all of the J “NeonDragon” Peffer books. If you like fantasy art and cutesy dragons, these are the books for you!
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Kelly-Ann McFern –
I’m not going to say i didn’t like this book as i would be lying, it has some fantastic tutorials and some excellent illustrations. To be honest this book has pretty much everything you need to create your own fantasy characters. clothing, weapons, dwarves, elves, warriors, demons the lot! but that said i found it very childish softly drawn characters with huge eyes even the bad guys looked cutesy :S however i would STILL recommend this book to any young budding artist or anyone looking to create some fun fantasy characters. As I said before i found it a bit childish and that’s the only reason i didn’t give 5 stars. Great book 4 stars.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Mr. Smith –
First of all the person who marked 3 stars totally wrong about Nudity. I have this book went through it entirely only one creature has no clothing and it is a fairy that is on the back of the cover you can view it for yourself it is not even truly human it is a sprite bug like creature which is green and dark green.
Now for the rest of the book it is helpful in many places teaching the basics of figure sizes there were other books I ended up buying because this one has many downsizes first it is fantasy art so there are only two humans in it which do have cloths BTW like gym cloths. Anyways, it is helpful in quick cartoon style of drawings which is useful when you first start out drawing. A few notes of excellent besides simplistic style it gets your drawings going quickly. The author’s best parts of the book are the break down of hands, feet and hair styles. I sketch often and feet always were hard for me but the author neglected the most common feet position facing you head on. The braided hair break down I never seen that done any art book it is great example wish there were more hair styles. I am not big into these other creatures just humanoid (elf,humans) so it was only a few pages of material for me. The cartoons reminded me of same style of cartoons on Christian network of course without Jesus.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Audra Acklin –
It contains a nice variety of fantastical beings and easy to follow instructions on how to draw them. Nice quality pages as well. Pleased with the purchase.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Robert LaMoreux –
As a kid, I looked at many how-to art books, and they just never really helped me with anything; I couldn’t follow them, or they were drawing in a way I didn’t enjoy. So when I looked at this for my son’s gift (thank you previews!), I dug deep into the meat of the book to glean just how useful it would be.
I was surprised to see that the tips were both useful and easy to digest, the style/look was perfectly style-neutral, the designs were cool, and the whole thing was presented in an easy to understand way…it even had some cute, funny jokes and silliness on the pages and such that almost felt like a friend was there walking you through the process.
My son loved the books (got several in the series at once), and enjoyed doing the practice exercises and designs. I wish I had these when I was learning to draw as a kid…
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Audra Acklin –
I have the other books by the author and I love them, just as I love this book.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Gamesmart –
This author really delves in the world of fantastic! Beautiful creatures and pictures are found inside this book! She truly explains how to draw everything simply and easily.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Supersid –
I love these books, ive got thousands. its an easy step-by-step guaid with different creatures, some simple some challanging. there is a small section in the back about clothings and styles, which is very basic but the book is mostly for creatures.
your mostly going to be drawing her creations with small helps on building your own, which is okay.
a great buy for drawing something different.
Helpful(0)Unhelpful(0)You have already voted this
★★★★★
Trevor –
This, combined with plenty of practice, will help take your artwork to a new level. It goes through armor and robes, fantasy forms like wings, fantasy creatures like elves, monstrous creatures, and the male and female form.
Amazon Customer –
Great instructional book. Great for the creative kid or anyone who want to learn how to draw animated characters. Lots of pictures with well written instructions.
cLynn –
As described
Neko-san –
DragonArt Fantasy Characters follows the steps of the previous book from J. Peffer, DragonArt. This is a great book for an aspiring artist to learn how to draw fantasy characters. It provide easy to follow instruction and shows Peffer’s inspiring art.
This book is divided into five sections: a preface and four parts. The preface contains a tutorial about how to draw people. It briefly covers all the basics: shapes and shading, penciling and inking, coloring, human body, face, facial expressions, hair, hands and feet.
There are step-by-step tutorials on how to draw fantasy beings in part 1, 2, and 3. Part 1 contains 6 classic fantasy creatures: a fairy, a sprite, an elf, a goblin, a dwarf, and an orc. Part 2 contains 6 mythological creatures: a mermaid, a centaur, a faun, an angel, and a kitsune. And part 3 contains 4 night creatures: a banshee, vampire, a werewolf, and a demon.
Part 4 is about fashion. It shows a limited collection of clothes, accessories and weapons for male and female characters of various professions: warrior, ranger, rogue, mage, cleric, samurai, noble, and peasant.
The step-by-step tutorials are very useful, but this book works the best for me as a source of inspiration. J. Peffer’s artistic style is refreshing and extremely contagious.
The bad thing about this book is that it’s only 128 pages long. Overall, I think this is great book for anyone who wants to learn how to draw fantasy characters.
Other books by J. Peffer:
DragonArt
DragonArt Evolution: How to Draw Everything Dragon
M. Rice –
Got this for my pre-teen neices and they LOVE it! They’ve been sending me drawings they’ve made from what they learned, it’s awesome
Megan –
I love these books – drawing books from the publisher Impact are almost always filled with interesting art styles and fun pictures. They generally provide pretty good instruction and are a nice item to have for inspiration! I own so many different books in the DragonArt series as well – one of my favorite series!
I love all of the J “NeonDragon” Peffer books. If you like fantasy art and cutesy dragons, these are the books for you!
Kelly-Ann McFern –
I’m not going to say i didn’t like this book as i would be lying, it has some fantastic tutorials and some excellent illustrations. To be honest this book has pretty much everything you need to create your own fantasy characters. clothing, weapons, dwarves, elves, warriors, demons the lot! but that said i found it very childish softly drawn characters with huge eyes even the bad guys looked cutesy :S however i would STILL recommend this book to any young budding artist or anyone looking to create some fun fantasy characters. As I said before i found it a bit childish and that’s the only reason i didn’t give 5 stars. Great book 4 stars.
Mr. Smith –
First of all the person who marked 3 stars totally wrong about Nudity. I have this book went through it entirely only one creature has no clothing and it is a fairy that is on the back of the cover you can view it for yourself it is not even truly human it is a sprite bug like creature which is green and dark green.
Now for the rest of the book it is helpful in many places teaching the basics of figure sizes there were other books I ended up buying because this one has many downsizes first it is fantasy art so there are only two humans in it which do have cloths BTW like gym cloths. Anyways, it is helpful in quick cartoon style of drawings which is useful when you first start out drawing. A few notes of excellent besides simplistic style it gets your drawings going quickly. The author’s best parts of the book are the break down of hands, feet and hair styles. I sketch often and feet always were hard for me but the author neglected the most common feet position facing you head on. The braided hair break down I never seen that done any art book it is great example wish there were more hair styles. I am not big into these other creatures just humanoid (elf,humans) so it was only a few pages of material for me. The cartoons reminded me of same style of cartoons on Christian network of course without Jesus.
Audra Acklin –
It contains a nice variety of fantastical beings and easy to follow instructions on how to draw them. Nice quality pages as well. Pleased with the purchase.
Robert LaMoreux –
As a kid, I looked at many how-to art books, and they just never really helped me with anything; I couldn’t follow them, or they were drawing in a way I didn’t enjoy. So when I looked at this for my son’s gift (thank you previews!), I dug deep into the meat of the book to glean just how useful it would be.
I was surprised to see that the tips were both useful and easy to digest, the style/look was perfectly style-neutral, the designs were cool, and the whole thing was presented in an easy to understand way…it even had some cute, funny jokes and silliness on the pages and such that almost felt like a friend was there walking you through the process.
My son loved the books (got several in the series at once), and enjoyed doing the practice exercises and designs. I wish I had these when I was learning to draw as a kid…
Audra Acklin –
I have the other books by the author and I love them, just as I love this book.
Gamesmart –
This author really delves in the world of fantastic! Beautiful creatures and pictures are found inside this book! She truly explains how to draw everything simply and easily.
Supersid –
I love these books, ive got thousands.
its an easy step-by-step guaid with different creatures, some simple some challanging. there is a small section in the back about clothings and styles, which is very basic but the book is mostly for creatures.
your mostly going to be drawing her creations with small helps on building your own, which is okay.
a great buy for drawing something different.
Trevor –
This, combined with plenty of practice, will help take your artwork to a new level. It goes through armor and robes, fantasy forms like wings, fantasy creatures like elves, monstrous creatures, and the male and female form.