Art Book Review: Fantasy Art Of The New Millenium

Fantasy art of the new millenium is a book that I've had for 10 years now and it is one of them books that has inspired me and my fantasy art for awhile and it features fantasy art paintings from some of the top artists in the industry from Alan Lee to Brom and John Howe to Don Maitz in all there are 10 artists who are spotlighted and they give an insight into their art and how they achieve the results that they have become well known for.

The book itself contains the best in fantasy and science fiction art worldwide which is sort ofthe tagline of the books main title.

As each chapter is an artists spotlight the first 4 are my favourite as they focus o traditional artists media as watercolor and other methods of pen and ink and acrylics and all and everything that each of these 4 artists use to create their masterpieces.

Alan Lee starts off the book with his chapter which focuses on his work from early on in his career although he paints in mainly watercolour over his pencil drawings his art together with John Howes is more memorable for their work on the Lord Of The Rings with which they collaborated with a team of other conceptual artists to create the world of Middle Earth for the 3 films.

One of the most impressive pencil sketches I have ever seen is his Merlin drawing which you can see in the book as it is full of amazing detail and different shades of pencil grades that it seems like it must have taken ages to realise.

Don Maitz in the second chapter works in a variety of media such as oils and acrylics and 2 of his most impressive pieces of art Dragons on the sea of night and Silver lining are featured in this chapter with some rough sketches and variations of acrylic and other drawings to arrive at the right picture end result, which gives you an insight into the creative process.

John Howe in the third chapter shows some incredible artwork mainly done in watercolour and inks and some of his earlier Lord Of The Rings art is featured within this book such as Gandalf and the Balrog, which he describes a bit of the drawing process surrounding the composition and lighting

Brom in the fourth chapter sees a more darker artist who draws more of the horror genre and surrounds it with fantasy and in his chapter he also goes through some of his paintings and displays the drawings that came before the finised art and fills us in on the techniques and the processes that went into the art that he created.

In the next set of 3 chapters we see three other artists Jim Burns, Rick Berry and Chris Moore headline a chapter which is called paintbrush to pixels and that is a chapter where they paint the art in whatever medium they are most comfortable with and they manipulate parts of that painting to make it more smoother or edit the colours somewhat with computer art software, it's a way of working now that has become more common place what with the computers being able and more affordable for home use with the best software to do the job.

The last collection of artists, Steve Stone, Fred Gambino and Dave McKean work for the most part totally in digital media and in this last chapter we explore the Digital Realm from the way these artists use this more popular media, now these artists may start off drawing, but the work that they create usually ends up as full on digital creations and that's what this chapter explores in detail.

The book overall is a good insight into some of the creative processes and shows some spectacular examples of fantasy art across most mediums, but if you are looking for a proper fantasy art drawing book, then maybe something like The Fantasy Art Illustration Techniques Book will be more suited to your needs