How To Draw Creatively From Your Imagination

Drawing creatively from your imagination takes some practice but it is possible with lots of it.

Here is a quick run down of my creative process to draw from my imagination in a creative way, first like any muscle we must exercise our minds, our hands and eyes and seperate them from what we actually want to start drawing.

Take a pencil and paper and draw anything that appears in your head, could be a line, a circle or some other scribble, what matters here is you are exercising your mind, drawing hand and eyes all in one so that they feel comfortable and are ready for the next phase of imaginative drawing.

Drawing from your imagination is all taken from your own mind so it exists somewhere in your creative mind to create concepts out of simple drawing exercises such as doodling.

As a kid doodling for me was the fun part of drawing not knowing what was going to appear on the page, but it was a journey to discover what could fit onto a piece of paper if I planned a drawing out from doodle ideas that really fired my imagination.

Your favourite films and music and books all play a part in your imagination, try to tap into this often for best results from inspired media, in fact the human brain takes loads of mental images from anything we see in everyday life, so we already have some good reference material in our heads anyway, but a little help along the way cuts down time and relaxes your mind to let the creative side of your brain take over.

Some other ways of thinking creatively drawing ideas from your imagination include:

• Time to think is an obvious one, but one that doesn't get the attention it deserves without time to ourselves to stop and think, new ideas and image concepts would not materialize.
• Brainstorming your best or favourite associated words and phrases, something like "robot cyborg futuristic armour" may inspire some new ideas and sketches.
• Play a video game, often whilst solving puzzles and other game levels your mind is at it's most creative, but this could apply to anything that stimulates your mind such as film and television.
• Draw what you feel could help to create some interesting results, if you feel angry then draw some evil frowning faces or just some dark art, you'll feel better for getting it out of your system and also you may have some good ideas at the end of it.

At the start of each day try and get some quick sketching done, much in the same way as doodling not knowing what will happen, because ideas have that habit of appearing when you least expect it so if you doodle at the start and finish of each day you may catch some good image concepts.

Also read - Visualize Success With Creative Art

Building a fantasy art portfolio

When building a fantasy art portfolio it is best to include lots of examples of different media artwork to attract clients by showing them that you can deliver high quality fantasy art in a variety of media styles and formats.

Your art samples need to reflect your art style but also the kind of work you are capable of producing to a set standard, which is usually of a high standard.

Fantasy art is usually shown throughout popular exhibitions as painted works, but now we are seeing a lot of examples of digital artwork that really is something to look at and basic pencil drawings showing the raw creative process and random ideas come to life on scraps of paper too.

And so building a good fantasy art portfolio is just like picking and selecting the areas of this art form that you like and create a sense of structure for your display to show to potential clients and employers. By writing a contents page that is your first page you show what the contents of your portfolio contain and therefore this leads your collection of samples more likely to be opened and reviewed, because let's face it you need to know how to get your work seen by employing certain tricks and techniques.

Art portfolios need not be filled with too much art that the art director or potential employer won't have time to go through it, instead a simple small A4 or A3 size portfolio case should do for this and at least 2 to 3 examples for each media.

At the front of your portfolio it is best to have a contents page so that the editor or whoever is viewing your work can easily know what to expect, think of blog post titles this helps me!

If you know of a company that creates great products with fantasy artwork then you know what they are looking for, so try and aim for a collection of artwork samples that aim to deliver what that company or studio expects.

Top 3 Fantasy Art Drawing Resource Books That I Recommend

When it comes to learning to draw the concepts of fantasy art, I tend to have pretty much learned and self taught myself, but over the years I have opted to find other resources that could present new ideas and ways of drawing fanasy art that I may not have thought of.

Fantasy Art Drawing books are one of them essential resources, and there are a great choice of drawing books out there, but for fantasy art you need to dig a little bit deeper for finding some good ones to really learn from and be guided by, so here are 3 books that I have read and followed in my pursuit of drawing more fantasy art content. Of course you could find allsorts of drawing tutorials on the internet, but nothing beats a good book!


John Howes Fantasy Workshop

John Howes work is forever entwined with Tolkien and the lord of the rings many scenes and characters of middle earth and here we have a book that adds to that way of working on fantasy art projects, filled with step by step drawing demonstartions and right through to painted pieces, this a a great book also for the art it shows throughout, being a John Howe fan I have seen many of his pieces of artwork on the internet and in other books.

To see examples of how someone works is one of the best ways of learning the craft and particularly from professionals of fantasy art, this book is a must for those who want to learn how to produce artwork that looks as good, also there are tips on how to present your work for film and other projects.

John Howe Fantasy Art Workshop

Hell Beasts: How to Draw Grotesque Fantasy Creatures

This is one of my favourite as it is filled with the sort of content that I love to draw, hell beasts and demons and other dark creatures, the books author has mnay valid credits to his name and they include the work of creating creatures for card games and other games of that nature, Wizards of the coast spring to mind as one of the top card game collectibles in America, but also many board games like Dungeons and Dragons with which his artwork and creature creations have been his biggest input into that industry.

Hell Beasts: How to Draw Grotesque Fantasy Creatures

Drawing and Painting Fantasy Landscapes and Cityscapes

A good book to create fantasy worlds for your characters and creatures to inhabit, this book is a great find for the fantasy artist with it's look at different types of fantasy worlds and the tried and tested version of middle earth or a fantasy world with myth and dragons, there is also a look at what computer software can do to enhance your art with looking at specific tools and what effects you can achieve.

This is an inspiring book if you want to create better looking scenery for dramatic effect aswell as to learn how to master the many versions of any fantasy world you can think of.

Drawing and Painting Fantasy Landscapes and Cityscapes

Fantasy Drawing Videos And Tutorials

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

A Rough Flaming Skull Drawing Video

I have begun trying out different styles of youtube drawing videos to try and get better at presenting and speaking when I am drawing the things I like.
Skull drawing is another one of my favourites, up there with demonic tattoos and horror artwork.

I hope you like these style of videos as I hope to improve on them somewhat.

Sketching Another Demonic Head Sketch

A 6 minute youtube video of me drawing a demon creature head sketch, no talk through, just a song from Amy Lee - Evanescance.

A Few Ideas Of Getting Your Artwork Out There

It's easy to start to draw and create your drawings and before you know it you have a decent pile of artwork that you are generally proud of, and then you think how the hell do I get this work seen, apart from my dear grandma who always says that's a good drawing dear, pointing her ancient bony finger towards your most evil demon pen and ink drawing( I just love drawing demons!!!).

You need a decent outlet for your work and that means it should be targeted towards the people that would like your drawings, for example if you love to draw fantasy then you would target your attention to people of that genre of art as they say the best exposure is to the ones who can relate and identify to that particular style and area of imagination.

Here are the steps to achieve your eventual global domination:

Get your self a website, preferably with a web host as this guarantees your site to usually be on the web 24 hours a day and 7 days a week they are fairly inexpensive and if they include autoresponders then all the better( I'll explain about these later)
And on this website of yours you will need to put up artwork and all the related links you can think of that relates to your own style and way of drawing, also a small profile telling people about yourself is a good idea as it makes other people feel at ease if they know a bit about you.

Include some contact information even if this is just an email address for now, people will need to get in touch once your site is out there as they will see your work and want to investigate further, now getting visitors to your site sounds easy and it is, once you understand the basics of website promotion and other effective strategies that drive traffic to your site.

Using an autoresponder

These are excellent pieces of online software that when programmed they send regular,targeted follow up e-mails to your target opt in subscribers, who have opted to recieve your newsletter or helpful e-mails by entering their name and e-mail address in the opt in form that you should have put into your website.

Links in other places

You should start to add links in other places on the web, such as forums or free classified ads services to promote your website further, with the forums you can browse the discussions and if you are quite knowledgable on a topic and it hasn't been discussed yet or someone has a problem that you think you could fix, then just join in and add to the topics and always remember to include your name and website links so people can be directed straight back to that helpful person that was a very knowledgeable expert(which would be you) and they would see your website and hopefully be impressed to visit your site on a regular basis.

Free classified ads are also the best to add short ads about your website so visitors could get to your site through them.

Join the newsletters of other like minded people who also have their own sites that are similar to yours and in doing so you build up a list of people to contact and inform them of your websites presence, you could also link to some of these sites to create back links to your site( this is just one method of helping you to create link popularity)

Alternative ways of promoting your site

It is best considered to implement the above online promotion methods with a batch of offline methods also, these could include business cards, flyers, posters, short booklets or brochures that you can distribute to members of the public or even community centres, also telling your family and friends could help also.

Well that's it for now but if you ever need help on this I would be happy to help as I have been researching this for over 2 years now with my own designs and business building stuff.

I'll be uploading some of my artwork soon, so until next time why not visit my Cafepress shop at http://www.cafepress.com/demonic666
http://www.cafepress.com/fantasyrangers
http://www.cafepress.com/witchspelldeath

Good luck with your artwork.

Wayne Tully

Youtube Zombie Sketching Video

I found a Youtube video and it is really a good video using computer based software for sketching a zombie head, when I get round to doing some Youtube videos, then this is a template for some good videos to follow.

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 art related content too here...

Skull Drawing Resource

And also in these tutorials:-

• Drawing A Flaming Skull

How To Draw A Skull


Drawing skulls is a very popular art and one that I see all over the internet and if you draw a skull one way then someone else will draw it another way, so really there are lots of variations of drawing skulls, so maybe in a later post I will go through some of the other ways in which a skull can be drawn.

Skulls in tattoos are very cool to look at, especially when the tribal designs encompass the skull image and become part of the overall design. See -  How To Draw A Skull Tattoo Here

Related Skull Art Posts

Rotting Skull

Drawing Demons And Fantasy Art Is What I Do

Drawing demons and evil sketches of fantasy art.

This is me, I like to draw these things, so the trick is to try and draw many things you like to draw and add variety to your profiles online and off, so for example I draw demonic art and fantasy art, so I could therefore expand into other mediums with this single interest:

Tattoos Designing for tattoo artists is another great way of earning through your art, you could sell your art on ebay and local tattoo artists if they don't already have their own in house artists.

Comics Comic books are a great way of fine tuning your art and plus it's one of my main passions, to tell a visual story that appeals to a wide audience, plus doing this online is easier than printing it yourself, I'll be writing about this in an upcoming blog series.

Games Video games and board games need artwork, ideas and concepts to build the levels, the characters and the games story, illustrators produce drawings and concepts that are either worked on or are included as is.

Movies Similar to games mediums, movies may require more in depth art concepts, usually from a team of artists rather than just one or two, ranging from creature effects and other artistic design.

Art prints Art is sold all over the internet, and fantasy art is very popular on online auction sites, such as ebay

The above are the main ones, but there are still all sorts of sub categories that you can create your fantasy art for and these are:

Halloween masks Halloween masks are a great source of inspirtion for me, they appeal to me on a wide scale with the scary faces that you can get to wear for halloween

T-shirts Nothing says it better than a t-shirt with something that has a great design on it.

Greeting cards Cards are another great way of showing your art and if you wanted to you could create a business out of this, in fact everything mentioned here you could.

Custom commissions This is one that is best when you have built a following and people know your art a bit better, they know what they want and will be willing to pay you for it.

What other things could you do with your art?

Do you want to sell your artistic creations or is it more of people getting to know you as an artist?

Getting creative with face painting...I've just found it and I love painting my kids faces, although they are getting fed up of being a demon

Something that has always fascinated me, is face painting, it's right up there with body art, layering paint or water based paint on the skin and changing quite temporarily the features of ones face, mainly kids, but I've painted a few adults faces since I got going.

One of the best things about face painting is a face is just like a blank canvas and you never quite know what will be painted, some people are quite specific when making a request for a design, so you just get on with it, but if you have never ever done this type of thing before, where do you start?

A good site that I found in my research quite early on into this area of simple creativity was this one - Easy face painting I found lots of inspiration here from the few articles that they had, initially I was only wanting to learn to paint my kids faces if they had their birthday parties at home, so they would like to be a tiger or some other thing by a simple face paint, I soon found out however that they would get bored of the same old thing (like kids do!) so I wanted to learn a little bit more on how to simplify real life designs and really build up an understanding of coming up with new designs.

I did not want to earn anything from this, I was just interested in doing it, so I could do it if requested at birthdays or other events, sort of like a challenge.

I decided to buy the face painting ebook as it was cheap and I was just curious and it was an impulse buy anyway, I just wanted to do something different with my art, I found the ebook to be quite easy to understand and was full of simple designs and instructions and resources to even start your own face painting business - something that I was not aware of, or even knew existed!

I wasn't expecting the free bonus reports that came with it either, so this made it a well balanced and cheap resource of knowledge that you can carry through your life in any party or event


Learn how to be a master face painter...Quickly!

Wayne Tully And His Demonic Fantasy Art Gallery