Fantastical creatures and how to draw them

Aug 2

Many people are inspired to learn how to draw by a personal interest. There is no shortage of fan art created for the love of major story titles and characters. Another popular source of inspiration is the animal kingdom.

Monika Zagrobelna is an artist from Poland who has loved animals since childhood. She’s loved watching them, playing with them, and they’ve always been a favorite subject to draw.

When she got into the Pokemon craze, she started creating her own monsters. “I remember drawing posters with hundreds of my own ‘Pokemon’. As my expectations toward my own art grew, I wanted to draw these new species more realistically. It turned out, the only way to do that was to learn more about real animals and understand their inner and outer anatomy. Even though I’m pretty happy with my skills right now, I keep studying – the better I get, the more things I discover that still need to be learned!”

She started creating tutorials when she was still in school to earn extra money. At first, they were vector-based lessons until acquiring her first graphics tablet enabled her to create freehand digital drawing tutorials. Creating tutorials motivated her to improve her own skills even more as she thoroughly researched the topics for each lesson.

“I’ve had many people thank me for the tutorials and articles I’ve written over the 9 years of my career, telling me how I changed their lives, and this made me realize I can do something good just by sharing what I’ve learned. Explaining how to do something that used to be difficult feels very rewarding to me, it’s like sharing an exciting secret! ”

Monika posts behind-the-scenes info about her artwork, along with many free tutorials on her website. If you have a passion for animals and creatures, it is definitely worth checking out.