In July of last year (It feels a little odd still to call 2009 "last year".) I wrote about The Fantasy Artist's Figure Drawing Bible by Matt Dixon. This is a similar book, also published by Barron's... The Fairy Artist's Figure Drawing Bible by Linda Ravenscroft. It gives a lot of the same basic information about color and technique, as well as choosing your tools to work with, and is laid out in almost the same way. Instead of focusing on common races, creatures, and archetypes from general fantasy settings, however, this book focuses completely on drawing fairies.
(Note: For consistency, I will do my best to use "fairy" in this post. Should a "faerie" sneak in, though, that's not entirely a mistake... it's the way I normally spell the word.)
Like The Fantasy Artist's Figure Drawing Bible, this book is most useful to me as a reference book. I also think the two go well together. There are many artists who specialize in drawing fairies and close-up peeks into their world. Fairies are often very much a part of general fantasy settings, however, and the other book doesn't focus on them at all. This book can help you add fairies to your pieces that are already populated with ogres, dwarves, dragons, and wizards.
The section in the book on wings really got me thinking about how different wings on fairies can make or break a piece. An autumn piece done in reds and oranges, with falling leaves and plenty of acorns, isn't really where I'd picture butterfly-style wings. Styling the wings after those of a Monarch butterfly helps, but a fairy with wings inspired by leaves may actually look like more of a part of that world, rather than just being "at home" in that world.
Most of the fairies in the book are the popular happy, cheerful, flowery fairies. But hardcore folklore enthusiasts know of the Unseelie Court, as well, and the book does offer tips on drawing some of the fey who can be thought of as "going bump in the night". (Something to think about for drawing faeries when Halloween comes around again.)
My favorite thing about the book may be all the tips for drawing clothing. It's not that difficult for me to think of fairies wearing dresses made of leaves, or hats made of acorns or mushrooms, but I'm not sure I'd come up with some of the other ideas in the book on my own. I like pieces that have fairies almost, but not quite, blending into the world around them... making the eye search for them for just a second before seeing them. A lot of the clothing advice in this book would make drawing something like that a lot easier for me.
Whether you're learning to draw fairies as something other than simply tiny humans, or you just need an easy reference book to keep the details from becoming to generic and repetitive, I really do think The Fairy Artist's Figure Drawing Bible is worth taking a look at. Now that I've been pleased with two of these books, I'm going to be looking for others.
(Just in case you ever wondered how geeks say, "I love you.")








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