BOOK REVIEW: “Doodle Fantasy Worlds” by Amy Latta

Mermaids and Dragons and Spaceships, oh my! Doodle Fantasy Worlds: Learn to Draw with 200+ Easy Magical Designs by Amy Latta really has them all! From things as mundane as leaves to knights on horses, and more fantasy creatures to delight the heart!

The book jumps right into the doodle lessons after one page of Introduction, and it’s doodles from there until the Acknowledgment page. This is a book for those who want to jump right in. It’s a lesson book that will be a reference book later. It has a lay-flat binding and spaces to practice your drawings right in the book.

Easy is relative to your skill and experience, but the lessons are simple. Some will be able to draw the doodles immediately. Others will need practice, but will soon be able to draw doodles they can be proud of.

The doodles range from simple flowers to more complex subjects like animals and people. You can use them for random doodling, or for creating complete fantasy worlds.

Perfect for beginners, casual artists who want to learn more about using shapes, and anyone who wants some doodle inspiration. Whatever level you are at – prepare to have fun with this book!

Specs

• Size:  7.8 x 0.45 x 8.95 inches
• No. Of Pages: 168
• Cover: Paperback with Lay-flat Binding
• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Street Publishing
• ISBN-13:  979-8890031907
• ASIN:   B0CW1ZZVW4

What is the Art Like?

Amy does cartoon doodles. She uses simple shapes and lines to draw recognizable subjects. 

Her art is fun, and can be as simple as doodled clouds or fruit or as intricate as a whole fantasy kingdom. 

Everything has a face – even the donuts!

There is enough detail to keep things interesting, but lots of space left for coloring, so you could easily create your own coloring pages.

What Will You Need to Do the Exercises?

You’ll want to be sure to read the introduction at the beginning of the book, because that is where Amy tells you what she uses for her drawings.

At minimum, you need a pencil and some scrap paper.  And, that may be all that some of you will need, if you’re looking for something to while away a few moments while waiting in the car or the doctor’s office.

If you want something more, then here is what Amy recommends:

• A good pencil 
• A good eraser like the Tombow MONO Eraser..
• A fine-tip monoline black marker like the Tombow MONO Drawing Pen.
• Good colored pencils or markers.
• A white gel pen like the Sakura Gelly Roll® or a white paint pen
• A smooth, medium-weight (65 to 80 pound) sketch pad or Bristol board is also a nice surface for doodling, especially if you want to frame your work.

Basic Concepts and Techniques

Doodle Fantasy Worlds isn’t a formal teaching book by any standards.  However, by using these step-by-step images to learn how to doodle, you are also learning to look at the shape of things, and how shapes connect, and how to get the proportions you want by seeing how the shapes align.

If you are new to drawing, or unfamiliar with the subjects, it might take some practice until you see the proportions – how a head might line up with a wing or how to get the legs the same size.  Every artist goes through that phase. 

These doodles give you a good grounding in learning proportions, even if it isn’t discussed in the instructions.

The Structure of the Doodle Lessons

The lessons are grouped into seven sections. The subjects in each section are related loosely – in the rainbow unicorn section you have ice cream and flowers because you would find such things in a unicorn world. Just as you might find mermaids and pirates on and around Treasure Island.

There is a brief introduction to each section where Amy discussed the fantasy world you’ll be building.

There are 1-4 lessons per page. Most take the whole page, and the ones with more than one are usually variations of the same thing.

Each lesson has 2-17 steps. 

The first step is a simple shape or line. The next step builds on that with another shape or line, and so it continues until the subject is complete.

Often, there is more than one version of the same subject – a dragon flying, sleeping, etc.

Amy only shows you how to draw the subject. There is no explanation or discussion of how to color them.  She does occasionally show you different ways that she has colored one of the subjects.

Those of you who are familiar with Zentangle or Tangling will be familiar with this form of instruction. Unlike those two methods of drawing, there is also some brief written instruction to go along with the drawings.  These are helpful if you don’t quite understand what is happening with the drawing.

You can jump around the book, but some lessons build on each other.  For example, there is a doodle for Horse, then a Horse With Armor …

…and then the lesson with the Mounted Knight.

There are many doodles that are fun for quick doodles, but will also be used for detail in more complex doodles.  These include hats, wands, Fleur-de-lis, and more.

There are some empty spaces throughout the book for doodle practice, but they’re small and not enough for all the doodles, so you’ll still need some paper.

The subjects you learn to doodle:

RAINBOW UNICORN WORLD	LAND OF KNIGHTS AND DRAGONS	FAIRY-TALE KINGDOM	ENCHANTED FOREST
Standing Unicorn	Dragon	Tiara	Toadstool
Sitting Unicorn	Dragon With Wings	Crowns	Mushroom Variation
Sleeping Unicorn	Flying Dragon	Princess	Toadstool House
Pegasus	Torch	Queen	Acorn House
Flying Pegasus	Cave	Prince	Acorn
Cloud	Cross Potent/Jerusalem Cross	King’s Crown	Wand
Rainbow	Fleur-de-Lis	Scepter	Fairy
Sunshine	Helmet	King	Boy Wood Elf
Raindrop	Trumpet with Flag	Bonus	Girl Wood Elf
Rain Cloud	Shield	Ladies’ Hat/Hennin	Gnome
Umbrella	Laurels	Jester’s Hat	Girl Gnome
Waterfall	Sword	Frog Prince	Leprechaun
Hearts (7 Versions)	Rapier	Wizard’s Hat	Centaur
Bow	Lance	Wizard’s Wand	Snail
Daisy	Longbow	Wizard	Ladybug
Tulip	Arrow	Flag	Bird
Poppy	Quiver	Flag Variation	Butterfly
Sunflower	Battle Axe	Banner	Owl
Petaled Flower	Double-Headed Battle Axe	Banner Variation	Leaves
Cupcake	Morning Star	Tower	Pine Tree
Ice Cream Cone	Flail	Scroll	Tree Stump
Popsicle	Catapult	Castle	Tree
Lollipop	Horse	Princess Castle	Willow Tree
Donut	Knight	Carriage	Strawberry
Hard Candy	Horse with Armor	Goblet	Raspberry
Cherries	Mounted Knight	Key	Blackberry Variation
Pineapple		Handheld Mirror	Pocket Watch
		Wall Mirror	Teacup
		Closed Storybook	Teapot
		Open Storybook	Top Hat
			Bridge
TREASURE ISLAND	MONSTER’S LAIR	A PLANET FAR, FAR AWAY
Mermaid	Horned Monster	Alien
Coral	Hairy Monster	Slimy Alien
Shark’s Eye Shell	Spiked Monster	Antennae Alien
Tulip Shell	Three-Eyed Monster	UFO
Scallop Shell	Dust Bunny	Beaming UFO
Starfish	Bed	Trapezoid UFO
Skull and Crossbones	Flying Purple People Eater	Astronaut
Pirate Hat	Bigfoot	Rocket
Bandana	Yeti	Telescope
Eye Patch	Sea Monster	Mercury
Hook	Igloo	Venus
Bottle of Rum	Loch Ness Monster	Earth
Sword	Frankenstein’s Monster	Mars
Parrot	Mummy	Jupiter
Pirate with Peg Leg	Vampire	Uranus
Pirate with Hook Hand	Zombie	Neptune
Girl Pirate	Ghost	Pluto
Pirate Ship	Closet	Sun
Ship Wheel	Troll	Moon
Anchor	Bat	Stars
Compass	Haunted House	Constellations
Map		Meteor
Pirate Flag		Shooting Star
Treasure Map
Message in a Bottle
Barrel
Bomb
Spyglass
Diamond-Cut Gemstone
Emerald-Cut Gemstone
Coin
Money Bag
Treasure Chest
Palm Tree

My Examples

I did one example from each section and then did a fantasy world using other lessons to create a whole drawing.

Even though the book doesn’t go into coloring, I finished all my drawings with watercolor. I’m showing you the before and after.

To give you an idea, I did all eight of these in one sitting.  It took me about three hours, but that included going through the lessons and deciding which ones I wanted to do, and waiting for paint to day.

Rainbow Unicorn World

As I’ve mentioned before, there aren’t formal lessons, but there is learning to be had from these doodles.

Notice with this pegasus that the shape and angle of the ears echoes that of the wings.  The top of the pink nose lines up closely with the point where the wings meet the body.  

Looking for things like that will help you learn more quickly, but if you practice you’ll get there after a while without even realizing it.

Land Of Knights And Dragons

I chose this lesson because it was one that built other doodles.

It used the Helmet, the Lance, the horse, and the Horse with Armor.

You could easily use other doodles – replacing the Lance with the Battle Axe, Double-headed Battle Axe, Sword, Rapier, Morning Star, Flail,  or Shield. You could use some of the decorative doodles, Fleur-De-Lis, or Jerusalem Cross. 

And those are just the doodles from within this section.  There are 200 doodles in this book, but by mix and matching you could create so many more.

Fairy-Tale Kingdom

This section is heavy with people – kings, queens, princesses and wizards and all their accoutrements, but it also has a frog, and castles and more.

I chose to do the wizard because … well, come on.  Who doesn’t love wizards!

Enchanted Forest

This section has all sorts of forest critters both real and fantastical. I fell in love with the toadstool house, so that’s what I did.  There are also elves, and gnomes and leprechauns, centaurs, snails, ladybugs, owls … as I said, lots of forest critters.

You’ve also got trees, and leaves, and teapots and hats in case you want to have a tea party in the woods.

Treasure Island

As you might expect, you’ve got pirates, pirate fashion, ships, and all the things that make pirates happy, but also underwater critters, and gemstones.

There are several versions of pirates, but it was the mermaid that won my heart!

Monster’s Lair

Then there is a shift to a different kind of fantasy with all kinds of monsters -like Bigfoot, yetis, purple people eaters, and even dust bunnies.  And a bed for them to hide under!

You’ll be set for Halloween with Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, vampires, zombies and closets for them to inhabit.

All this and more. I couldn’t resist the three-eyed fellow!

A Planet Far, Far Away

Then we end up in outer space with three kinds of aliens, UFOs, rockets, and astronauts.

You get the step-outs for planets and telescopes, the sun, the moon, and the stars and more.

My Take-Away

I felt the take-away from this book would be learning some of these doodles for that occasional doodle on whatever is handy, but also on creating whole fantasy worlds. These could be used for coloring pages, later or for telling stories.

I decided to do a a celebration in the Kingdom for the visiting Yeti, who is eating happy ice cream.  The princess herself is bringing cupcakes. A young dragon who isn’t very good at controlling his flame yet, is carrying a torch that he used to get the BBQ started.

Contents

• Introduction
• RAINBOW UNICORN WORLD
• LAND OF KNIGHTS AND DRAGONS
• FAIRY-TALE KINGDOM
• ENCHANTED FOREST
• TREASURE ISLAND
• MONSTER’S LAIR
• A PLANET FAR, FAR AWAY
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Index

Connect with Amy

• Instagram
• Website

Want to Buy the Book ?

You can buy Doodle Fantasy Worlds by Amy Latta on Amazon by clicking here!

Interested in Learning About Other Books?

• BOOK REVIEW: “Ink and Watercolor: Learn to Create Quick, Stylized Sketch Paintings in 30 Days” by Anastasia Kozlova
• BOOK REVIEW: “Watercolor in the Woods” by Jane Carkill
• BOOK REVIEW: Easy Watercolor Flowers: 45 Beautiful Paintings for Beginners by Bianca Rosen  
• BOOK REVIEW: The Big Book of Watercolor: The Must-Have Guide to Painting by Mallery Jane
• BOOK REVIEW: “Draw the Great Outdoors!” by Harrison How 
• BOOK REVIEW: The New Artist’s Guide to Drawing by Mark Liam Smith
• BOOK REVIEW: “Watercolor in 10 Minutes A Day” by Garima Srivastava

Disclaimer:
I received a copy of Doodle Fantasy Worlds by Amy Latta, from Page Street Publishing for the purposes of this review. I received no other considerations, though this post may contain affiliate links which help support Doodlewash. As always, all opinions expressed are my own.