Dylan Safford is a professional illustrator with years of experience working on diverse projects, most notably within the genres of Fantasy and Historical Illustration.
His love of fantasy art began in his youth when he was introduced to it through films, tv and games. Wanting to become a working artist since elementary school, he eventually found his way to the internet and was propelled into the sff art sphere by visions of astoundingly creative and high-quality illustrations. Since then he has and still works tirelessly to improve his craft and bring his own imagination to life, as well as hope to inspire others. Over time, in countless efforts to improve his fantasy work, Dylan found himself looking more and more at historical people, events, and material culture to port over to his illustrations as to enhance their impact on the viewer. In doing this, he began to have a much clearer understanding of his interest in fantasy art; what drew him to the genre was its relation to the real world, how the characters and objects ring with a potential "true-ness" to them. Wanting to seek this feeling further, Dylan began illustrating historical scenes and figures, which is a task requiring much reading on and diligent scrutiny of the subjects. Finding the history to be compelling, he began doing more and more history art and now considers it to be his main interest. Dylan Safford currently lives in Gardner, Massachusetts, working and having studied at Mount Wachusett Community College. He studied art under Prof. John Pacheco, Prof. Thomas Matsuda, and Prof. Joyce Miller. Client / Projects Edjoyment / Historica Mount Wachusett Community College / Marketing (NCMPR Gold Recipient) Pinnacle Entertainment Group / The Last Parsec: Irongate Underground Games / Allegiance: A Realm Divided White Wizard Games / Epic, Hero Realms +Many individual clients not listed here |
Resources
This website, created by Daarken, hosts a wide range of manageable, consecutive tutorials that will bring you from a novice digital artist to semi-professional at the least. This website appeared right when I began learning digital, and it helped me immensely.
James Gurney's "Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter" is a very extensive lesson on color theory. It is a great resource for checking exactly how light affects color, depicted in all sorts of widely ranged and vastly different scenarios. There is no better book on color and light. Period.
If you're looking for textures, look no further. There's an immense collection of textures here that will be sure to fit whatever you need. The majority of the textures I've downloaded have come from this site. All large samples, all high-quality.
Tobias Capwell's "Masterpieces of European Arms and Armour in the Wallace Collection" is a beautiful book that makes a great desk companion for fans of weapons and armor. It ranges from medieval times to the 18th century, and shows off the collection's best with finely-detailed images and descriptions. Not only is it a good visual resource, but reading the book will give you a decent foundation in the history of arms and armor, and will be sure to give your fantasy work more historical accuracy. Overall, beautiful and thorough.
Copyright © Dylan Safford