Book Review: Realms: The Roleplaying Art of Tony DiTerlizzi

Tony DiTerlizzi is a man of many talents. Besides being an artist, he's also the co-author of Spiderwick Chronicles, something I didn't know before I bought this book. That's impressive.

Realms: The Roleplaying Art of Tony DiTerlizzi is a 224-page hardcover that features more than 2 decades of art. You'll see the beautiful illustrations he created for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Planescape, Magic: The Gathering as well as personal unpublished art.

The artworks are fantasy themed, and most are character art. There are fully coloured illustrations as well as line art. DiTerlizzi has been compared to Arthur Rackham (who's also listed as an inspiration) a few times in this book and there are indeed similarities in their style. However, DiTerlizzi's work easily stands on their own with the imaginative characters and colouring. I like the earthy warm style present in the paintings and even the sketches, whether pen or pencil. There's also a pleasing caricature feel to the characters. The creature designs or the fantasy characters all look wonderful.

All the artworks come with commentary from DiTerlizzi and those really provide the additional depth for the book. There are also text by other artists and colleagues such as Brom, Guillermo del Toro, Neil Gaiman, Iain McCaig, Donato Giancola and many more.

This book is also available in Kindle format. But I recommend getting the hardcover because the hardcover so much bigger and you get to appreciate the artworks better. It definitely more satisfying with a hardcover copy.

Highly recommended to fans and those who love fantasy art.

Those who like this book should also check out these following books.

• Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess
• Shadowline: The Art of Iain McCaig
• Sketching from the Imagination: Fantasy
• Brian Froud books
• Out of the Forests: The Art of Paul Bonner

Realms: The Roleplaying Art of Tony DiTerlizzi is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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