Book Review: Celtic Faeries by Jean-Baptiste Monge

Big thanks to Jean-Baptiste Monge for sending over his artbook to be feature here. This is one of three books I received. The other two are Jean-Baptiste Monge Sketchbook Vol 2 and A World of Imagination.

Celtic Faeries is a gorgeous artbook on the world of faeries by French illustrator Jean-Baptiste Monge. This book was made possible from a successful Kickstarter campaign that was funded six times over. People do appreciate good art and you'll see plenty in this book.

This is a large oversized hardcover with 144 gold-trimmed pages. Words on the cover were also give the gold treatment, and so are the foreword written by Guillermo Del Toro and afterword from Paul Tobin.

The beautiful illustrations featured look like they were all hand drawn. It's truly satisfying to see such beautiful artworks printed huge. It allows you to admire and study the details and you will want to because there is so much detail in the texture for the coloured illustrations, and pencil lines for the sketches. In case you wonder those those artworks were created, you can read the step-by-step drawing and painting process, complete with pictures at each stage, included at the back of the book.

The overall concept of this book is really cool. JBM basically created this faerie world and populated it with characters and creatures, and wrote a folklore to go along. It's wonderful storytelling that makes for an absorbing read. You look at the characters and could definitely sense there's a lot of story in them, and the accompanying text would scratch your itch to find out more.

This is a high quality artbook, well produced, and comes with gorgeous art. Highly recommended.

This book is available on Etsy at
https://www.etsy.com/listing/170593575/celtic-faeries-the-secret-kingdo…

ISBN 9782981528919