Let’s face it: One of the very reasons we love drawing fantasy is the fact that the possibilities are virtually unlimited! You can populate your world with all kinds of great creatures, weird foliage, cityscapes as far as the eye can see and so much more. You want humanesque characters with wings? Why not?

Here are ten awesome resources for creating great fantasy backgrounds and companions for your characters.

1. Dark Art: How to Draw and Paint Witches and Worlds
2. Dreamscapes: Creating Magical Angel, Fairy and Mermaid Worlds With Watercolor (e-book)
3. Ink Bloom, Draw and Paint a Fantasy Adventure
4. OtherWorlds, How to Imagine, Paint and Create Epic Scenes of Fantasy
5. DragonWorld, 120 dragons with advice and inspiration from 38 international artists
6.  The Explorer’s Guide to Fantasy Creatures
7. 100 Ways to Create Fantasy Creatures
8. DragonArt
9. Dreamscapes, Myth and Magic Demonstration: The Dryad Digital Download
10. John Howe Fantasy Art Workshop

And you want to know what’s even cooler? We have some great sales events coming up in the next several days starting with free shipping on Thursday. And with the temperatures cooling and the holidays coming, it’s kind of like I made your Gift Wish List for you!

The international graffiti crew “MSK” are known for putting their colorful and unique pieces all over the world. With having a reputation for “city beautification,” it is interesting to see the MSK crew film their graffiti exploits in Detroit. Though Detroit is known for a lot of things (more recently the Lions currently having a winning season), good graffiti is something that Detroit is not known for, but with the presence of MSK and their unique style of graffiti writing, Detroit could soon become known for something other than Techno, and the weather. Click here to watch the MSK video “Bronxed Detroit”.

To view some of or books on graffiti and its various styles, then check out our bookstore here.

The Elephant in the Room

Artist Brittney Lee is a woman after my own heart: Her blogspot profile reads “I love drawing and chocolate.” Well, I can add that I love the art of Brittney Lee to my sentence, and I have no doubt that you’ll be blown away, too. Check it out.

Her works remind me of chocolate, in fact. She uses color in such a rich, vibrant way, and the work is sweet, but not artificially so.

For books that show you great techniques for collage, animated and comic art, check out these IMPACT and North Light books:

• Dreamscapes, by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law
• New Creative Collage Techniques, by Nita Leland
• Draw Furries, by Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges
• Cartoonimals, by Harry Hamernik

Scape Martinez, IMPACT’s favorite graffiti artist, and author of GRAFF The Art & Technique of Graffiti and GRAFF 2 Next Level Graffiti Techniques is out and about again, speaking to classes and giving live demonstrations at high schools. Check out his latest blog here. And stay tuned to this page for more updates!

Want Scape to come to YOUR school? Email him at webmaster@scapemartinez.com. (He swears he reads his own mail!)

Tattoos have been a part of human civilization for an extremely long time. Tattoos mean many different things to different people, and that is no different for comic book characters. There are many comic book characters that we have grown to love (and hate). Surprisingly enough some of those inked characters were sporting their own ink. Our friends at Complex.com were kind enough to compile a list, briefly explaining the history of comic book characters with tattoos. So for those of you curious to see what comic book characters are sporting some ink, then click here to see a brief history of comic book characters with tattoos. You may be surprised to see who is on the list.

And for those of you who are wanting to try your hand at comics, then click here for a great guide on getting started with comics.

HUGE warehouse sale November 10th through November 13th, 2011!

Click on the title to purchase — free shipping on all orders $25 more. Get started on your holiday shopping for your favorite comic and fantasy artist!

Check out these escape pods currently being designed! They hold up to four people and float on water. I could see this being the basis–and the setting–for a futuristic fantasy story. Anyone want to draw that comic?

This pod could someday save your life.

Bleeding Cool has an amazing story of meeting Lily Renee, female comic pioneer and all around amazing artist and woman, that’s well worth reading.

There’s also some great information and links, as well as ideas for further reading about women in comics–both the women who make comics, and the ones on the page! Lily Renee: Escape Artist is now on my wish list, and Christmas is coming!

A sample of Lily's art

Related topics from IMPACT:

• Girl to Grrrl Manga, Colleen Doran
• Women and Girls, Buddy Scalera

And for more about the history of Comic Books, check out Comic Book 101.

From the artist's show "Secret Identity"

Comics have been a part of our culture for more than 50 years. The appeal of comics and comic-related stuff has spread, too, even reaching the remotest parts of the globe. So with the world’s ever-growing love of all things comic, it’s only natural to see comic-influenced art in different areas of art and media. Simon Monk, an artist from the UK, has taken to painting some of his favorite superheroes on blank plastic toys, creating his own unique action figure.

Monk’s scale of detail in each figure is quite impressive. Each delicate figure is placed in a plastic bag to protect and display the fine detail without harming the piece. With comic books being here to stay, Simon Monk’s “Secret Identity” series is a refreshing interpretation of the art form. If you want to see some of the figures that Monk has painted, check them out here.

And if you want to try your hand at drawing comic books, the check out our instruction books in our online shop.

Anime and Manga have become extremely popular over the years. With conventions having 1000+ people in attendance, and having both Anime and Manga being immersed in our mainstream media, it is safe to say  that Anime and Manga is here to stay. But though it is a very popular part of art, it had to get it’s start from somewhere. The Minneapolis Institute of Art has an exhibit entitled Edo Pop: The Graphic Legacy of Japanese Prints. This exhibit shares some of the historical Japanese prints from Japan’s Edo period. For anyone wanting to understand the origins of Manga, then this exhibit is a great start. You can click here to see some of the prints from the exhibit.

And for anyone wanting to learn to draw Manga, then click here or check out our book store at NorthLightShop.com!

Happy drawing!