When artists and designers explore or create a fictional setting, the milieu must be completely fleshed out, explained, and designed. In this book, comic and gaming art veteran Mark A. Nelson explores and demonstrates his methods for fashioning visually stunning, believable environments for fantasy creatures and characters. Scores of images and step-by-step examples illustrate how variation and experimentation lead to fresh, original designs for otherworldly beings, their environments, and their stories. Nelson discusses how to find ideas and borrow from history to add the strength of realism to a fantasy world. In describing the best ways to establish a habitat, he offers specifics about climate, terrain, flora, and wildlife. He shares insights into founding societies in terms of their means of survival, manner of warfare, spiritual practices, style of dress, and levels of technology. All visual creatives who work with imaginative material — illustrators, comic artists, and writers — will take a lively interest in this source of inspiration and practical knowledge. "In sixteen breezy-yet-surprisingly-concise chapters he covers everything from visual problem solving to spirituality to warfare to transportation, not with the idea of giving the reader lessons to copy by rote but rather as prompts to develop their own original concepts. If I were suggesting three books every budding artist should have at their fingertips they would be Figure Drawing for All It's Worth by Andrew Loomis, Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist by James Gurney, and, most definitely, Mark's Fantasy World-Building ." — Muddy Colors Artist Mark Nelson specializes in designs for role-playing games and comic books. Since 1985, his work has appeared in many Dungeons & Dragons books and Dragon magazine. He has also produced artwork for the games Villains and Vigilantes, Earthdawn and Shadowrun, and Orpheus, and he has illustrated cards for the collectible game Magic: The Gathering. Fantasy World-Building A Guide to Developing Mythic Worlds and Legendary Creatures By Mark A. Nelson Dover Publications, Inc. Copyright © 2019 Mark A. Nelson All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-486-82865-7 Contents Foreword by Todd Lockwood, 1. Visual Problem Solver, 2. Ideas, 3. Habitats, 4. Animals, 5. Birds, 6. Fish, 7. Insects, 8. Survival, 9. Warfare, 10. Spirit, 11. Wardrobe, 12. Architecture, 13. Tech Industry, 14. Transportation, 15. Otherworldly, 16. Putting It All Together, Acknowledgments, CHAPTER 1 VISUAL PROBLEM SOLVER Working as a visual problem solver is what most artists do. We develop or are presented with a series of descriptions and ideas to create worlds, characters, and stories. It is our hope that we do this in believable scenarios in the form of finished artwork. Sometimes you work within a set of parameters set by the project. Other times you set these considerations yourself. When you are dealing with licensed properties, you have to work within provided guidelines. This by no means should stifle your creativity. In fact, you can find many ways of working and creating outlooks within these guidelines. I have worked on many licensed properties and have designed buildings, creatures, spaceships, rooms, interiors, and costumes that ranged from the humorous to the dark. I have drawn funny animals to terrifying ones, hard sci-fi to horror, and realistic settings to the fantastic. Each represented a new answer within this world, an avenue for me to conquer as an artist and grow my skill set. I try to look at it all as a challenge. What can I do to bring it to life with a set of visuals in an interesting way, a new way, or build upon the existing world and add my personal touch? When do we start talking worlds? You get to fill them with everything, and I do mean everything! This includes your favorite habitats, rocks, grass, trees, critters, buildings. … The list goes on and on. It is a rather daunting challenge, but here is where the seeds of this book came from. SOMEONE SETS A PROBLEM: A SWORD. Just what does this mean? The mind starts: short sword, broadsword, two-handed battle sword, more than one blade, etc. What type of pommel? Grip? Cross guard or rain guard? Leather grip or bone grip? Type of metal? The finish? Damascus steel? Engraved? Flutes? Is it old and rusty? New and highly polished? Does it have decorations or engraving? And so on. And if the character has a very well-defined sword, you can always practice your skills in drawing and/or painting metal and researching the method of how it was made, with the hope of adding more believability to your finished product. RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH I am a huge proponent of research. When I started doing illustration, there was no Internet. If you wanted to find things, you went to the library, checked out books, pored over magazines and other periodicals for reference. As you collected images, you put them int