Book Review: Fantasy Workshop: Mastering Digital Painting Techniques

February 6, 2009 by Parka

Here's a great tutorial style book for those interested in digital painting. Fantasy Workshop is a compilation of tutorials that have been published in monthly ImagineFX issues (Amazon link). If you are already a regular subscriber, you'll see very similar tutorials in Fantasy Workshop.

The tutorials are split into three categories, namely Characters, Scenes & Stories and Manga. At the end is a short FXpose section, which like the magazine, features illustrations from individual artists.

The tutorials are presented in a step-by-step manner with plenty of screenshots and well explained captions. Each artist will talk about their workflow, tips, techniques and shortcuts to creating digital art. More specifically for example, they will talk about how they create realism through texture, and also why they created it that way.

Since the book is about mastering digital painting, you'll see tons of examples on how to recreate paint effects using software. By examples I mean they will show the digital tools used, menus, and settings. The software used are Painter and Photoshop but the art techniques are usually easily achievable in either software.

There are also a few pages where the artists answer fans' questions relating to creating art.

This is a recommended book for anyone into digital painting. There's enough variety featured for everyone to learn a new trick or two.

Here's the list of contents (with links to the artists website):
- Mind's Eye to Digital Canvas - Jehan Choo
- Modern Classical Painting - Marta Dahlig
- Paint Realistic Ears - Katerina Sokolova
- Paint Realistic Lips - Katerina Sokolova
- Digital Hairstyling - John Kearney
- Paint Realistic Hands - Marta Dahlig
- Create a Heroic Valkryie - Lorland Chan
- Drawing and Painting Dragons - James Strehle
- Create 3D Illustrations - Loic Zimmerman
- Painting a Mythical Beast - Joel Carlo
- An Army Summoned - Mike Corriero
- Create a LOTR-Inspired Orc - Jeff Murchie
- Quick Character Design Concept - Francis Tsai
- Painting Creepy Portraits - Mike Mitchell
- Speed Painting a Zombie - Patrick Reilly
- Painting a Nightmare - Cyril Van Der Haegen
- Create a Great Background - Melanie Delon
- 25 Custom Brush Tips - Patrick Reilly
- Dramatic Concept Art - David Levy
- Create a Dark Urban Nightmare - Lee Carter
- Manga Character Illustration - Michael Chomicki
- Create Fantasy Manga - Cris De Lara
- Fiery Dragon Princess - Svetlin Velinov