Book Review: Sci-Fi & Fantasy Oil Painting Techniques

This book is the next best thing if you can't be inside Patrick J. Jones' studio to watch him paint.

Collected within are 13 step-by-step tutorials that look at Patrick's painting process from start to finish. The book focuses on fantasy characters. Anyway, the techniques taught are applicable as long as you're drawing figurative forms.

The importance of foundation knowledge of figure drawing is laid out in the first few chapters. After which the detailed tutorials follow.

Each tutorial features one amazing painting where there are several photos of the painting in progress, and each step is accompanied by the materials and techniques he used. Patrick would zoom in on specific areas of the paintings and talk about them in greater detail regarding the painting process and the ideas behind.

The painting he used as examples are from commissioned jobs as well as his personal works. Some of them are huge. It would have been great to see them at the actual size. The reproduction shown in the book is quite detailed but I felt that overall, many are slightly darker, but perhaps they are really like that in real life just that I haven't the opportunity to see them.

The last section of the book has a few pages of art gallery, tips on photographing models and artwork. He also shows us his palette and let us peek at his studio.

This book's incredibly informative and a terrific resource for any sci-fi & fantasy oil painter to learn from. There are lots of useful tips shared, not just from himself but from artists he has learned from. It's also very inspiring to read about his career, inspiration and how he got into painting. Considering the affordability of the book, this is definitely value for money.

You can check out more of his artworks at http://www.pjartworks.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/pjartworks

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Oil Painting Techniques is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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