Boris Vallejo: Fantasy Art Techniques

 Boris Vallejo has been drawing and painting fantasy art for years and his art is easily recognizable if you become obsessed with his art, especially the women he paints, the art of Boris Vallejo is usually a mix of fantasy and science fiction for whatever he has been commissioned for, and since he has been painitng for  over 40 years he has lots of work in his professional portfolio.

One book of his that I have is Boris Vallejo: Fantay Art Techniques, this is a great book for the introductions into how he works which is seful if you are a beginner artist in the competitve world of fantasy art painting. the book itself has 10 main chapters:

1. The concept - The first chapter examines the first concepts and ideas any artist should try to build up.

2. Seeing - Second chapter ties in with the first chapter and looks at the art of seeing to translate what you see into wonderful paintings

3. Skin tones - Vallejos art is kind of his trademark with skin tones as he is a master of creating realistic skin tones on men and women in his art.

4. Using Models And Photographs - Refernce material of photos and models is one way of injecting realism into your paintings and this is shown in this chapter.

5. The rough sketch - The art of rough sketching and how it can make you decide to pursue one drawing over another.

6. Painting and underpainting - Alot of artists don't realise that underpainting is as important as rough drawing, so this chapter focuses on the underpainting with a few examples of one of Vallejos works.

7. Painting For Heavy Metal - A Step By Step Heavy Metal Cover Painting is shown in this chapter which gives a unique artists insight.

8. Female wrestlers - A wonderful run through of a step by step painting of two women wrestlers(nearly naked I might add!!!) great end result.

9. Chrome robot - Boris Vallejo goes through a chrome robt, something that which chrome becomes a common them in his paintings and is wife Julie Bell.

10. Preparing a portfolio - Boris tells you how to prepare a portfolio through his many years experience.

This book is okay if you are a total beginner and also a fan of boris Vallejos fantasy work, but it lacks the depth of a proper fantasy art drawing book, it rather skims on over the topic, the step by step guides such as the heavy metal, female wrestlers and the chrome robot are very useful at seeing how Boris works and creates his fantastic fantasy artwork, but for a more comprehensive book on drawing fantasy art I would recommend The Fantasy Illustrators Techniques Book

Although most of Boris Vallejos Books are really just to showcase his work I would really like to see an in depth book going through the different steps of multiple examples like drawing and painting fantasy women and creatures and dragons and monsters and bogeymen(okay maybe not bogeymen!)

But then if you are a fan of his work then you'll buy his books like I have, they make great visual inspirations when you are stuck for something to draw.