Techniques of Fantasy Art

Type: Various Artists Technique Guide

Author: Bruce Robertson

Publisher: Guild Publishing

Format: Hardback 250mm x 195mm)

Cover Price: None

Publication Date: 1988

Page count: 144

This is a solid hardback book with a semi-gloss dust jacket. The book is mainly printed in one or two-colour process with less than a quarter of the pages in full colour. The full colour pages are of reasonable quality and mainly full-bleed. The art featured spans a wide range from classical Japanese prints and Salvador Dali through to contemporary artists like Ian Miller and Jim Burns. For an art book collector, there probably isn't enough art in here to make this a worthwhile addition to your collection, in my opinion.

In terms of a useful text for artists wanting to learn more about fantasy art, there is some useful content. The first part of the book is some fairly generic content that I doubt many people would find useful. The cover is fairly misleading as the book contains practically no "how-to" guides or work in progress pictures (the above illustration being the only exception I could find). The latter part of the book may be more useful to experienced artists as it examines the techniques of specific artists and how they go about building up their finished works. So in conclusion, not an art book per-se buy may have some value to aspiring (non-digital) artists.