Thursday 7 March 2013

Dracopedia book review




This is an art book with a difference- it has been produced to seem as though it is an actual scientific journal that has been compiled by studying different species of Dragon all over the world.
Each dragon has its own section where the author describes its biology and behaviour, all accompanied by some beautiful illustrations. The sections conclude with a demonstration of how to create your own illustration of the particular type of dragon.
I do feel that there isn’t enough emphasis though when it comes to the tutorials of this book. There aren’t really any step by steps for drawing the dragon although it does cover painting each dragon in some detail, albeit with a strong digital painting slant.
With this mixture of journal and art instruction the book sort of loses its identity and to me is neither one thing or the other. If anything it is more weighted towards the scientific journal which means that for me personally there is not enough tutorial content and with the books subheading reading ‘A guide to drawing the dragons of the world’ it doesn’t exactly do what it says.
The artwork in the book is very good and dragon lovers will get an awful lot of eye candy in here. It is ultimately a book for fans of dragons and dragon lore and even though I was disappointed with the art tutorial content I did enjoy reading about the ‘history’ of dragons.
In conclusion there are better ‘How to’ books out there but it was still an enjoyable read.

No comments:

Post a Comment