John Howe is a fantasy art legend in my mind and one that has created several paintings and art pieces for such iconic imagery of The lord of the rings aswell as several other fantasy worlds and realms.
And forging dragons is his book which delves deep into the dragon design, more like a process of the way he works giving notes and advice on certain techniques and thoughts of each project within his book. With detailed illustrations and sketches throughout he attempts to evoke the atmosphere of diverse dragons and provide a history of sorts to the dragons mythology with extracts from some other sources which serve as examples for which John can illustrate how he tackles a certain dragon in a different way.
One of the most fascinating things about Johns art is that it is easy to get caught up in seeing his artwork being processed and feeling the desire to draw along with him as you are reading. I find this true a lot with some of the other top fantasy artists, that I just want to get started straight away and almost skip past reading the book, but then I realize I have to read on.
Watch this short video with John giving a little personal introduction to the book Forging Dragons
The exploration of dragons as myth is the fantasy stuff of dreams and it is the imagination of drawing dragons that appeals to many especially from an artist who seems to do it almost effortlessly.
John Howe is an artist to study if you are interested in the intricacies of watercolour painting as he is a master of watercolour, as I once read a book about the process he used for a Lord Of The Rings Gandalf painting for which he built up lots of glaze layers or washes and created a misty fog effect before creating more detailed shades of paintwork at the foreground with Gandalf being the off centre focal point and here is that painting.
See some more of John Howes Work on Lord Of The Rings Concept Paintings
Popular John Howe LOTR Paintings
More John Howe Lord Of The Rings Paintings
Waterstones John Howe - Forging Dragons Synopsis and Review
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