Dracopedia The Bestiary: An Artist's Guide to Creating Mythical Creatures

This book includes the Alphyn, Buraq, Chimera, Dragon Turtle, Enfield, Freybug, Griffin, Hippogriff, Imp, Jorogumo, Kraken, Leviathan, Manticore, Naga, Owlurus, Pegasus, Questing Beast, Roc, Shedu, Tarasque, Unicorn, Vampire, Waterhorse, Xenobeast, Yeti and Zburator. Wow! This book is all about inspiration and gorgeous illustration. As stated in the title, this is "An Artist's Guide to Creating Mythical Creatures", and the author gives the reader an idea about how he goes about creating his images of some of the rarest of mythological creatures. This book is more about concept and design, and is not a step-by-step instruction manual of how to draw. For each creature depicted in the book the author begins by giving a brief history and description. The next phase is the rough skeletal sketch, followed by pencil details and finally painting and finishing. For every creature the artist does several beautiful sketches which include a profile design and often an aerial view. It is hard to describe just how beautiful the drawings in this book are. The author's interpretations for some of these beasts are entirely original. You may have heard of some of these creatures, may have seen them on heraldry, but the demonstration drawings of the Alphyn (dragon, wolf, lion) and Enfield (raptor, fox) will bring theses hybrids to life in your imagination. Some other favorites are the fantastic amphibious Waterhorse, the winged lion Shedu and the legendary Questing Beast. Any lover of fantasy art should be very happy to include this book in their collection. (There is also a fold out poster with all the creatures included in the back of the book.)

Willam O'Connar's Dracopedia series finally has its own bestiary filled with mythology's rariest of beasts. From the Kraken to the Leviathan to the strange Questing Beast to the unheard-of Zburator, this book holds them all. This book gives you a little insight of each beast then shows you have to design, draw, etc..., it. Personal favorite is the vampire, only because O'Connar did great research on the original creature rather going with the humanized vampires of today's fiction, which after awhile bores me. I was surprised that the Owlbear (Owlursus) was added, and I've never heard of the Xenobeast and the Zburator so, that was a great surprise of learning something new. The only one negative I have about this book is that, unlike his other Dracopedia books; was that he gave us only the history not any additional infomation like behavior, habitat, etc..., of each beast. Don't know if he hadn't had free time to add infomation or did the layout of the book on purposed but, atleast it was worth pre-ordering. I recommend this book for all.

Much like Mr. O'Connor's other Dracopedia books, this is filled with wonderful images from one of the fantasy genera's great artists. The step-by-steps and anatomical notes sprinkled throughout show the author's skill and love of his craft. It features 26 different creatures ranging from the familiar (the pegasus, the griffin) to those more obscure (the terasque, the freybug). Each entry has a short write up explaining the historical place of these creatures followed by a series of snap-shots of the process of creating each beast's artwork. My only real gripe is one that couldn't be helped given the scale of this book's topic. Unlike the previous two works, this book doesn't present the subject matter as a journal with scientific names given for the species and various examples of the dragons' behavior given. In particular I miss the taxonomic names and rationalization of the creatures place in the evolutionary cycle. Still, the scope of this book would have made that same level of detail both a massive amount of work for the author and cost prohibitive to the buyer (due to the sheer size of the book needed for 26 species displaying that level material). I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in fantasy creatures. Along with his previous two Mr O'Connor has given us a series of fantastic coffee table books for the discerning geek.

The book provides a nice little bit of information about the creatures, and I plan to use some of them in my writing projects. While I am a traditional artist, this book will help me with some idea of how to illustrate them in my stories.

I really love these books for drawing references, and learning about new creatures is just amazing. This book has many creatures in it and so each step is minimized so I'd suggest going with the Great Dragons or Dragons of the World before going into this one. The closest to dragons you'll get here are dragon turtles, but the creatures you get from gryphons to enfields are well worth it. Not to mention they give a creator more ideas to creature special features that could be used on dragons.

I haven't had a chance to draw anything like it, but I plan to add some of the creatures in my book that I am writing. I like how the author showed how other artists rendered it alongside his rendering of the same creature. It wasn't all about the artist that way. A very well thought out book on fantasy creatures in my opinion.

I love this book. With it, I now have three out of the four available. Amazing art for study and inspirational viewing, including the lore, and to top it off it comes in a hardback cover! *swoon* It's got a wonderful variety of creatures, which you can expand nicely by picking up the other books as well, though nothing too obscure. I would recommend this book and its siblings to anyone interested in mythological creatures, especially those interested in drawing them. Thanks!

Ótimo livro, recomendo muito

My son loves it

I think that is good reference for fantasy bestiary, for designers. A good choice of book, William O'Connor, i think is a specialist like Todd Lockwood

Despues de dos excelentes libros dedicados a dragones, William O'Connor nos ofreció este estupendo libro de criaturas fantásticas. En el nos detalla el proceso que seguía para obtener cada ilustracion, acompañado de bocetos, consejos y notas. El papel e impresión son de buena calidad.

この前二作のドラゴン図鑑みたいなのも、ドラゴンのカッコよさと荘厳さ、凶暴さなどが余すとこなく表現されていて素晴らしかった。リアリティと空想が絶妙にブレンドされた作風で、どの絵も作者のドラゴン愛に満ち溢れていた。 今作ではドラゴンは一休み。ドラゴン以外のクリーチャーを描いたものとなっている。まあ、一部ドラゴンっぽいのも出てくるが、キメラとか、イカとか、クモとか、馬とか、多彩な生物が出てくるので「次は何が出てくるのか」、ワクワクしながらページをめくっていった。 今回もざっくりとメイキングが収録されている。どれくらいザックリかと言うと、ラフなアタリの次の段階でもう精巧な下書きが完成している。というか最初の「コンセプト＆デザイン」の段階ですでにありえないっていうか、「いや、もう完成してんじゃん・・・？！」というくらいのクオリティーだ。 でもまあ、そんなことは割とどうでもいい。 普通の図鑑は死体の標本みたいな描き方だが、この画集は生き物の躍動感に溢れていて、読者を異世界へ連れて行ってくれる。小さい時に図鑑見て遊んだ経験があるけど、まさか大人になって同じようなことをするとは思わなかった。