Forging Dragons: Inspirations, Approaches and Techniques for Drawing and Painting Dragons (Hardcover)

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Product Description

"Peek within at some of the most vivid depictions of this beast that belongs to us all...Praised be John Howe and may the fire within him never be extinguished." - from the foreword by Guillermo del Toro. This title presents the entire collection of John Howe's dragon art, created over his 30-year career, in one breathtaking volume. It presents a personal exploration by John of the inspirations and techniques he uses to render these amazing beasts.Each dragon is gloriously presented on a double page spread; accompanying this is a series of pages where John reveals how he forged each one through working sketches and reference material. From fire dragons erupting from molten depths, through sea dragons churning stormy seas, every medieval, celtic, gothic and sci-fi icon is represented. Fascinating text reveals the myths behind each dragon, as well as an exploration on its render, with full captions, annotations, highlighted details and design elements.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12611 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

Review
This is a great book for fantasy artists of all levels. The mixture of technique, insight and inspiration, from a seasoned expert in the field of painting dragons makes it valuable addition to the collection of anyone interested in fantasy art. --Fantasy & Sci-Fi Art Imagine FX

This is a great book for fantasy artists of all levels. The mixture of technique, insight and inspiration, from a seasoned expert in the field of painting dragons makes it a valuable addition to the collection of anyone interested in fantasy art. --Imagine FX

About the Author
John Howe is one of the world's most renowned fantasy artists, probably best known for his 20 year stint as an artist on the Tolkien list, and his work as Conceptual Designer alongside Alan Lee on the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. He is a prominent and active member of the worldwide fantasy art community, and holds regular exhibitions and lectures on his work around the world. John lives in Switzerland.

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Customer Reviews

Dragons Galore.
FORGING DRAGONS by JOHN HOWE.

My first impression of this book is that it is very colourful and as soon as you open the book you want to read everything at once. There are more dragons in this book than you can shake a stick at.

On closer inspection the book lives up to my expectations. John shows us works in progress, full colour completed paintings and some amazing sketches and pencil work. This book is worth the money for the pictures alone. The text that accompanies the art work is interesting and informative and gives me the desire to read in further detail the myths and legends that John talks about. There is everything from the ancient classic tales of Beowulf and Fafnir to more modern classics such as The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings, with wonderful depictions of Smaug and the dark, scary Fell Beasts.

With a foreword by Guillermo Del Toro , director of the upcoming Hobbit movies, and contributions by writers Anne McCaffrey and Robin Hobb, this book has something for everyone with an interest in dragons. Whilst John explains some of his methods of drawing and painting the book is by no means a step by step guide to creating dragons but more a jumping off point for your own imagination and creativity. The delicate knot work with interlacing dragons on almost every page is delightful too.

This book is a great companion to John's previous book, Fantasy Art Workshop, and I hope that there will be more books like this in the not too distant future to grace my bookshelves.

A great insight into dragonlore
This is the book I had been waiting for, during the past 25 years or more. I wish I could have read a book like this when I started to notice this urge to draw dragons as a 15 year old student, scribbling on her school books.

This may sound biaised since I am a long time fan of John Howe's art, but on the other hand it is exactly what drew me to his work. When discovering the black dragon sitting on the cathedral of Strasbourg in a book I was leafing through in 1994, I immediately recognised a fellow dracologist, one who knows exactly how a dragon ticks...

So, how does it tick? Is there such a thing as the anatomy of a myth? Not as such according to John Howe, who rather sees his dragons as the results of the wanderings of his pencil on paper. Nevertheless it requires a good deal of knowledge in animal anatomy. To make an imaginary creature believable you need to understand how bones and tendons and muscles interact. Only then can you come up with a diversity of dragons.

But this book is much more than an artbook. It gives us a summary of dragonlore through the ages and cultures, such as has been rarely seen before. Having read many publications on the subject, I was very pleased to see some themes introduced here that had never or seldom been tackled in previous works.
Allegorical or mystical, mythical or legendary, metaphorical or fantasmagorical, modern and ancient lore, every aspect of this vast subject is exposed in short but informative sections, accompanied by old and new art and seasoned with some insights into the creation of each piece of art.

If you have never read a book about dragons, this may be a bit too much information in one go. But don't let it deter you, you will have lots of pieces of information that you can go back to and that may give you new ideas on what to read next. And slowly get to be familiar with these creatures that none of us have ever seen but that we all know somehow.

If you like Dragons you'll love this book!
I've always been a fan of John Howe and love the whole genre of fantasy art.This book didn't dissapoint and was filled with legends from all over the world about dragons and also book illustrations that John Howe has done.He really is in a league of his own,I also liked that you get some insight into how he produces the pictures.The only thing that bugged me a little(and I mean a tiny bit)was that I also have John's other book the Fantasy Workshop and a few of the pictures etc are repeated but having said that I still would recommend this book 100%,it's well worth a look if your into Tolkien,Art or Dragons.