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.

Dragon art collectors edition - book review

This book begins as most art instruction books do- with the basics. The basics in this book, however, are different to the standard ones that seem apparent in most instruction books. It covers topics like using different colour groups, applying overlaps in perspective and drawing braided hair, all of which were refreshing to me.

After this the book remains in familiar territory and part 1 is comprised of several step by step tutorials of how to draw fairy tale based creatures such as sprites and elves. These are interspersed with feature demos on fairy wings, dwarf beards and orc tusks. Parts 2 and 3 follow suit with more tutorials based on other fantasy realms. These are followed by part 4- fashion central, an informative section demonstrating how to draw clothing and accessories to adorn your creatures with.

It isn’t until part 5 on page 113 (fantastic dragons), that we see a dragon and with the book being titled Dragonart I did feel slightly misled. The tutorials are varied and thorough though, breaking a dragon down into its separate component parts to ensure the reader gets to grips with every aspect of a dragons anatomy. This section ends with several step by step full body demonstrations of dragons.

Part 6 continues on the dragon theme and concentrates on unique details to add to your dragon drawing to really make it you own. Details like spiralled horns, types of scales and tail ends were particular stand outs for me. This section is sadly ended rather abruptly and with it the theme of dragons as we come to part 7 and other fantasy creatures. This section takes us through to the end of the book.

Overall I enjoyed the contents of this book but did find that with not even half of the books contents being dedicated to the dragon genre the use of dragon in the title a bit of a miss sell. Don’t be put off by this though because I did find the drawing tutorials in this book to be some of the best and most simple to follow that I have seen in a book of this type for a long while.

Sketch dragons book review

Book review- sketch dragons

This is another book from Impact publishing’s “Sketch” series. So to follow the concept it comprises of a couple of pages of tutorials followed by some blank paper to practice them on. Because of this set up I have the same problems with this book as I did the Sketch funny faces book and that is the fact that I would rather have a book of drawing tutorials and a separate sketch book.

Sketch Dragons is a well presented hardback book with good quality drawing paper but unfortunately for me the content just isn’t up to scratch. The book is missing basic dragon drawing tutorials and the absence of this means that any beginner would really struggle when it came to drawing the body shape and pose in the later more advanced tutorials. I showed this book to some year 11 pupils who attend my art club and all of them had the same problem with it.

That being said there are some good points, in particularly the guides to drawing different types of dragon horns and the guide to drawing scales.  Unfortunately  that is all the book has to offer and on that basis there are far better ‘How to’ books available when it comes to drawing dragons.