Even with my basic sketching abilities these how to instructions while thorough were above my skill level, but it will not be that way for everybody. Definitely a lot of great tips in this book can be used for beginners to far more experience artists looking for how to instructions on drawing fantasy creatures.

Do you or does someone you love enjoy dragons, fairytales, adventurous creatures, Tolkien or the world of Harry Potter? Do they doodle? This is a fun illustration instruction for folks who enjoy fantasy, while the results may vary it’s definitely worth some time.

Very unique approach to drawing all sorts of fantasy creatures. I had a lot of fun sketching some of them by referencing this.

Drawing has always been an issue for me, but this definitely gave helpful tutorials to make it get better. If you are interested in fantasy, this is a great book for drawing.

Not really a ‘how to draw’ as much as a ‘how to create’. There were far more tips on creating your perfect monster, thinking about its lair and its diet and things
like that rather than how to draw a tail.

It had some interesting points but I did find that it was far too wordy for me.

As it was an e-arc the formatting was all over the place and many times there were pages and pages of blank, which it turns out are blank pages for you to draw your own creatures in the physical book. (Sort of pointless in an e-book.)

Nice if you already have a basic understanding of physiology and perspective but not so much if you are a beginner.

This book has a lot of interesting creatures, our well-known dragons (different varieties), imp, vampire, etc. and some less known creatures like the Kropecharon. They are organized into 6 different habitats (night beasts, sea beasts, desert beasts, swamp beasts, forest beasts, snow and ice beasts).

Each creature is nicely explained as if they existed, with a lot of detail about their behavior and features. The descriptions are meant to activate your imagination and the images provided help increase your visual library so that you can more easily come up with credible poses, features and compositions. It also helps that there are tips for drawing with different media depending on the monster, in order to achieve a specific look or effect.

Definitely liked that it makes you analyze your subject and come up with your own version. I would recommend it if you want to learn basic monster character design. If you aren’t interested in designing but rather want to learn how to draw and need step-by-step tutorials, this is not your book. I think teens and up can take good advantage of its content.

*I got my copy from the publisher, that doesn’t affect my review.

Really fascinating and good comprehensive guide to drawing fantasy creatures. Had a little bit of trouble with the file on my kindle initially but was still technically very useful.

This workbook shows how to gather inspiration and draw several fantasy animals. It is divided in several parts, and you can focus on different types of animal based on their probable location. The author focuses on several details like the scales and eye, that can change the creature's aspect.

I wish there were more creatures included, but this is a well organized workbook with space to explore and draw your own creatures

I showed this book to my daughter who is just about to start her Art GSCE course and it was amazing for her.

She spent hours on end following the instructions and creating some fantastic drawings.

I enjoyed this book. It was very helpful as it has been a while since i drew and this helped me to get back to where i was before I stopped drawing.

Magnificent Fantasy Creatures and How to Draw Them is a drawing guide into fantasy as the title implies. The instructions are step-by-step with space for readers own sketches. There is a wide selection of all the most important and best known fantasy creatures. The instructions draw attention to the anatomy of the creatures, which is often overlooked, but essential in creating believable characters.
In the version I was reading the illustrations were kind of pixelated. I hope this is dealt with for the actual book, because if it is the intended style of the illustrations, it will certainly lessen the attractiveness of the book.

I think this book would be a really great addition to the collection of someone who already has some artistic ability. I found a lot of the information pages really interesting, the facts about the potential anatomy of these fantasy creatures as well as their origins, habitats and more were very interesting and would certainly be helpful to someone wanting to populate their fantasy world. 

But for me, I didn't think there was enough time given over to the actual process of drawing such a creature. It felt a bit like 'draw an s shape, add details, now you have a wyvern'. I'm not saying that wouldn't be helpful to anyone, it just didn't feel like something I was confident in using. 

If you were able to use this book and the steps it suggests then it would certainly equip you to draw a large number of fantasy beasts in what I would describe as quite a classical style (no cute cartoon dragons here). 

I'm not really sure what else there is to say, I'd love to know if any of the people who have read and reviewed this book are artists and whether it's too much or too little information!

My rating: 3/5 (because I'm honestly not sure what else to do here?)

I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Love the illustrations in this book. I’m very new to drawing and loved the details included. Due to me being a beginner I would have preferred more step-by-step sections.

A great book for learning to draw a variety of fantasy creatures. There are many projects and pages in the book to have a go yourself. But if you are looking for the gentler side of fantasy you need to look elsewhere this book is full of fierce and gruesome creatures only !! Easy to follow instructions and easy to adapt to your own preferences. Thank you

I was really excited to check this book out. Sadly, it was just okay for me. Some of the sections are literally a few pictures of creatures that exist in nature and vague tips for finding inspiration from real life then a few blank pages asking you to draw your own creatures. When I try drawing something for the first or even the twentieth time, I usually need real tips or step by step instructions. There’s hints of that here, but it’s pretty advanced for a “how to draw’ book.

If you already consider yourself a decent artist, you may benefit more. For me, I don’t feel any more secure about trying such creatures than I did before reading the book.

Nice book, but perhaps they sacrifice the teaching on how to draw to add more beasts... it’s not that useful to really teach you to draw.

I reviewed this as a digital copy on my kindle, courtesy of Quarto Publishing, F+W Media and Netgalley. I would have preferred a print copy to view the illustrations more clearly.
I will refer back to it on a monitor to see if the images come across more impactfully.

This book is not for the true beginner. It did not take the reader by the hand and say which basic shape to draw, how to add another basic shape onto it, etc. Although one can get an idea of how to begin from several of the illustrations.

This book is more cerebral, helping the artist focus on how the resulting creation should look. What function do the horns perform, how should the body balance, which direction will the eyes look, and what sort of camouflage does this beast need in its environment.

There are wonderful directions on techniques at the beginning of the book and definitions of various media. So there really is something in this book for every level, from beginner to well experienced artist.

Next time I am out in the wild or at a zoo or museum, I will view things differently.

I found this book to be very interesting and informative. It is definitely not good for beginning artists—some skill level and experience is inferred, and I feel like someone with little experience would be very lost in this book. However, it is still a great book for those with some experience and a desire to draw Fantasy creatures. A word of caution-this is definitely the beast side of fantasy creatures—there aren't fairies, unicorns, pretty mermaids, etc. This book is geared towards the monsters. I did really like the break down of the book. Each creature has a few pages of inspiration, then a more technical breakdown of bone structure, etc. I found this to be a really great source of inspiration.

*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This is a nice book that helps with ideas and gives us directions how to draw our own fantasy creatures. The author even gave some hints how to use inspiration from real life animals and how some pose will make the creature more dangerous on the drawing.
Just to say this is not a step by step drawing lessons.

This book is about finding inspiration for and the process of deciding what your fantasy creatures will look like. It's not a step-by-step to drawing his fantasy creatures. The intent of the book is to help you come up with your own fantasy creature designs.

He talked about real animals that inspired him, hints about posing the creature, and various ways you might draw the claws, teeth, etc., and what impression these variations might give (like longer claws make them look more dangerous). Each page had a matching "now you practice it" or "now draw your water dragon" blank page, so half the book was blank practice pages. He made up lore about and gave suggestions for 29 fantasy creatures that live in the night, sea, desert, swamp, forest, and snow.