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.)

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.

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!

The author always does an excellent job of illustrations, there is no doubt. In this one, he prseents 26 "new" beasts from classic mythology around the world, some familiar and some not so. His presentations do not always follow exactly the ancient drawings, but he has a great, fresh perspective. His only limitation is that there are only 26 of them, since he has one bease for each letter of the alphabet. I would love to see more, but on the other hand it's a lot of work to do these, so I appreciate that the author has graced us with these 26 entries.

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.

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.

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

The book collection is perfection to me ❤👍

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.