Drawing from Imagination

Drawing from imagination is the goal of many artists: characters, creatures, worlds and stories that exist only in your head. It's not magic. It's the result of a visual library built through observation, and of construction skills that let you put that library together in new ways.

Imagination is built from observation

You can't draw a convincing dragon if you've never studied lizards, bats and horses. Every invented thing is a recombination of things you've seen. That's why the visual library matters: the more you observe and study, the more raw material your imagination has.

How to build it:

• Study from life and photos constantly (all the observation lessons in this course).
• Draw from memory: look at an object for a minute, hide it and draw it. Then compare and correct. This transfers knowledge from your eyes to your memory.
• Study how things work: how a joint bends, how a vehicle's parts fit, how a plant grows.
• Collect references in folders: textures, costumes, architecture, animals.

Construction is the key

Imagination drawing relies on the tools from construction drawing and perspective. If you can build a box and a cylinder in any orientation, you can build a car, a spaceship or a castle from any angle.

Designing with silhouettes

When inventing characters, creatures or objects, start with silhouettes: fast, solid shapes that explore the overall design before details.

1. Make 10–20 small silhouettes, quickly, with a thick marker.
2. Pick the most interesting and readable ones.
3. Draw the internal structure and details on top of them.

Mixing references

A great method for inventing: combine two or three real subjects. A creature with the body of a rhino, the plates of a stegosaurus and the face of a pug. A house built inside a giant teapot. Look at real references for each part, so the result feels believable.

From idea to drawing

1. Thumbnails of the idea from several angles.
2. Reference gathering for each element.
3. Construction with basic forms in perspective.
4. Refinement with details, textures and lighting.