A super interesting book on how to draw and understand dragons with some super awesome style and lore. A must for fantasy artists and writers.

Yes! My sons flipped over this! Learn to draw dragons AND read the epic tales! Instant win. I love that O'Connor mixed formats to make this more than just a how-to book.

I wasn't able to read the whole book before it expires but from what I had read (about 20 or so pages) the book was amazing.

This book is an art guide but also a storybook. It is packed with gorgeous illustrations and an overall great design that makes it easy to get yourself immerse into this fantasy world. It is suitable for both, traditional and digital artists and it even includes some basic drawing tips (rocks, waves, scales and digital painting modes) that can make your work look more polished and professional.

As I mentioned, this is also a storybook, a compilation of stories involving dragons. First we have the story of Beowulf and the Dragon, followed by a “demonstration” section where we are guided through the process of creating the characters from the story. It gives information about the background of the story, research material, sketches, thumbnails, drawing and paintings with commentary on every stage of the creation process. Sort of like looking over the shoulder of William O’Connor while he is painting.

In that same manner, we have more dragon tales from around the world and from different eras, followed by their “demonstration” section, each one holding a lot of practical knowledge about drawing, painting and conceptualizing. Even if your main focus is not about dragons, this book is a great source of knowledge about the process of creating concept designs. *I requested an eArc from IMPACT Books in exchange of a fair review Thank you!

The book retells old legends of various nations about dragons (Beowulf, st. George, Sigfried, etc), and inspired by them shows the way of creating illustrations from the concept to the finished artwork. The stories are short and enjoyable, the paintings really beautiful. If you are interested in the book for entertainment it is perfect, and it can give some ideas to an artist but in itself is not enough. The process is quite similar to that general (thumbnails, drawing, underpainting, etc.), nothing revolutionary. It doesn't say for example how to construct the body of a dragon from scratch, it refers always to Dracopedia so I suppose you should find there the answer and should buy that in order to have the key.

A wonderful book for both people who want to learn to design dragons and fantasy lovers.
The illustrations are astonishing and - as fantasy lovers - I really loved them.
It was interesting and informative to see the steps needed to design a dragon.
Strongly recommended.
Many thanks to F+W Media and Netgalley