Fantasy Characters & Creatures: An Artist's Sourcebook - by Matsuura (Paperback)

About the Book

"Whimsical beasts, anthropormorphic monsters and more!"

Book Synopsis

Learn to draw mind-bending fantasy characters from an expert video game character designer!

This captivating book presents a treasure trove of ideas for hundreds of different fantasy characters and creatures. Experienced video game character designer Satoshi Matsuura explains his method for designing characters to play specific roles in fantasy world video games, graphic novels, anime films and fine art illustrations.

This extraordinary sourcebook contains over 600 different character designs as well as an exclusive tutorial showing you how to conceptualize and draw new, believable characters with clearly defined features matching their individual motivations and actions.

The hundreds of characters in this book include:

• Majestic dragons, dinosaurs, monsters and anthropomorphic creatures
• Fairytale ogres, orcs, trolls, giants, elves, fairies, hobbits and dwarves
• Kawaii critters like the Owl Bear, Werechipmunk, Cat Fairy and Mouse Knight
• Zombies, Yokai, demons and oddballs like the Death Mole and Sushi Monster
• Kings, generals, monks, shamans, knights, rogues, assassins, mercenaries and more!

Indispensable for fantasy world artists, this book is an endlessly fascinating storehouse of creative ideas!

Review Quotes

"A go-to source for monster inspiration...loaded with over 600 examples of monsters and creatures from Satoshi Matsuura, a video game designer who specializes in creature design. [...] This is a book for the artists, but also one that casual gamers, in-depth gamers and people who simply like creative monsters will enjoy looking at." --Daddy Mojo, blog

"His fantasy character art style is unique, edgy and memorable." --BoardgameGeek.com

About the Author

Satoshi Matsuura is a well-known, talented designer of characters for video games specializing in fantasy creatures. He has worked on game titles like Legend of Mana (Square Enix), Monster Guardians (Konami), Magical Vacation (Nintendo), Denpa Ningen no RPG (Genius Sonority), Bravely Default (Square Enix), Monster Takt (Silicon Studio), Little Noah: Scion of Paradise (Cygames) among others. In the anime Deca-Dence (2020), he was in charge of Gadoll species creature design. He has also contributed illustrations to The Prince's Medicine Illustration Book series (Jihou).