How to Draw Fantastic Creatures

Drawing fantasy creatures requires some skills that go beyond the normal realm of drawing because you can’t find a subject to pose for yourself unless you live in an enchanted forest! Thus, you are faced not only with the task of learning to draw, but also with the challenge of harnessing your imagination and then putting it on paper. Here are some solid tips to help you imagine and draw better fantasy creatures.

How to harness your imagination

1. Freestyle doodling and drawing is the best way to get your creativity and imagination flowing. The process to follow is simply drawing quick sketches and then modifying them as things start to appear. It goes something like this: draw a roughly human-shaped head and then start adding a body to it, but don’t consciously make it a human body, vary your lines and see where it goes. You will be surprised what happens. Your eye will begin to see things differently and you will create fantastic creatures. These should just be quick sketches and you need to draw a lot of them – fill the sheet of paper and see where the drawings go. This is a great way to think about the initial idea for a new fantasy creature.
2. Reshape Existing Creatures and Animals: Many of the most familiar fantasy creatures are variations on familiar animals. A Unicorn is a variation of a Horse and a Dragon is a variation of a Dinosaur. Think of other creatures and draw their approximate shape as you think of variations. What would a cat look like if it had scales instead of hair? Or how about a giraffe with short legs?
3. The power of combining animals: This is a very powerful way to create new fantasy creatures and Greek mythology is full of these types of beasts. A centaur is half man and half horse; and a mermaid is half woman and half fish. The possibilities are endless and when you’re jotting down ideas, don’t limit yourself to just upper and lower body combinations. Try combining limbs, torsos, heads, hands, feet, or anything else that catches your eye.
4. The Creative Power of Distortion: Fantasy creatures are often distortions of humans or other animals. Think of your drawing as a lump of clay that you can mold into any shape. Distort arms, legs, torso, head, or anything else. This will reap some great results. If you draw a human that is very skinny with an oversized head, you are heading towards something akin to a goblin. And if you draw a human who is very thick and stocky, you might be headed towards a Troll or an Ogre.
5. Here are a couple of unusual ways to tap into your imagination and create unusual fantasy creatures. Try to make an unusual sound and then try to draw the creature or beast that would make that sound. Or write a description in words for your beast and then try to draw it. Both of these techniques engage other parts of your brain in the process, not just your hand-eye coordination.

The mechanics of how to draw better fantasy creatures

1. It all relates to the human anatomy: if you practice drawing people, you will get much better at drawing fantastic creatures. The same basic rules of musculature and skeletal structure apply to all biological creatures, even invented ones. Remember: skin or fur is something that covers muscle and bone, but does not completely hide it. Bones and muscles are visible. So draw more people and your fantasy creatures will get better.
2. Draw more existing creatures: Fantasy creatures are almost always variations on creatures and animals that already exist. If you want to draw a dragon, you need to think and look at pictures of dinosaurs and large lizards. If you want to draw a unicorn, you should use a horse as a model. And there are many variations on the human form. If you want to draw a dwarf, goblin, or goblin, you can use the human form as a perfect starting point. The important thing to remember is that the more horses you draw, the better your unicorns will be, and the more dinosaurs you draw, the better your dragons will be. And the best thing about this is that you can easily find pictures of horses and dinosaurs to look at while drawing.
3. Use your drawing tools for more expression: When drawing a creature, you need to think about its layout. Is he a gentle creature or a bad creature? Use your pencil in a way that expresses this. Dark, bold, crisp lines are usually best when drawing angry or scary creatures, and soft lines are usually best for gentle mythical creatures. This is something that is often overlooked, but it is very important. You are using your pencil in a way that goes beyond just drawing lines. And this applies to a whole spectrum of techniques including short lines, long lines, choppy lines and even shading.
4. Feel free to look at and copy other people’s work. Looking carefully at other fantasy jobs will improve your work dramatically. By making a copy you are forced to see things you normally wouldn’t and this is a great way to learn how to do it yourself. – Just don’t claim the creature as your own.
5. Keep a sketch and doodle book and work on it often. This is something that works really well for me because looking at lots of doodle pages you’ve done in the past will often inspire new ideas for creature drawings.

Drawing fantasy creatures is a challenging yet rewarding hobby. It has the double benefit of improving your drawing ability while cultivating your creativity and imagination. With a little practice and understanding of these basic tips, you’ll be drawing amazing fantasy creatures in no time.