Amazon.com description: Product Description: The great popularity of fantasy and science fiction themes in films, books, graphic novels, and computer games has created a continuing demand for artists who can conceptualize and draw convincing space ships of tomorrow, as well as other fantasy vehicles such as cars, tanks, and sea-going vessels of the future. In this book, artist and designer Keith Thompson presents a practical course for art students. He starts with advice on finding research and reference materials, and then advises on using them as inspiration before sketching out original ideas for finished illustrations. The book's extensive main section presents a "mechanical workshop" of fantasy designs for students to copy and adapt to their own story needs and specifications. It gives attention to the techniques of drawing, shading, and coloring. The author analyzes each of the book's fantasy vehicles in terms of how and why artists came to their final design, how well the vehicles fit into the story being told, and how they would move, sound, and perform. Clear instruction is supplemented with more than 400 vivid, step-by-step color illustrations of sample projects.