Fantasy Art School

Lesson 12 - Drawing a morning star flail - This shows some simple shapes and a variety of textures.

This is a fun and easy project that should only take you about 30 minutes to complete. Use the drawing of the mace I have for you here on the left as a guide for your drawing.

Step one: Always begin your drawing by lightly penciling in the general shape of the object you are drawing. This one is pretty easy you just draw a ball then a long cylinder extending from it. Note how the ball is nice and round and the cylinder (handle of the mace) is just a little bit thicker at the bottom end . This slight thickening toward the bottom will make it look much more real.

Step Two: Now draw in the defined details only as shapes - don't do any shading yet. I drew the straps at the bottom end (this is where our knight would grab it. I also drew three distinct metal bands: one just under the ball, one at the top of the strap section and a third at the very bottom. Think of these metal bands as the things a blacksmith put on to keep everything together. Finally, draw in the points on the ball and the point on the very bottom.

Step Three: Now lets do the detail work. The nice thing about this project is that you get to do a lot of different types of textures. And beore you start drawing your textures just take a good look at my mace with an eye toward the light and dark areas. See how the left side of the handle is darker and the bottom left area of the mace head is darker? This shows the light very well on the whole object and makes it look more real. As you draw your textures keep this in mind.

• Draw the leather/cloth handle: Notice how the wrappings seem to bulge a little bit. You achieve this effect by bulging the outlines and by your shading. There are small areas of white on each wrap - these are the highest points of each bulge.
• Draw the three metal caps (under mace head, just above leather handle, and at bottom: These remain almost totally white so they look like shiny metal. I just drew a few lines in them as if reflections. Think of these as being brassy.
• Draw the wooden handle: This is wood so you should make long grainy lines in it. take a look at a piece of unpainted wood to get a sense for what wood grain looks like. Just like in the leather section the left side of the wood handle is darker because it is shadowed. This doesn't show up real well in my scanned image you see but it shows up great in the original drawing. Just like all the other parts there is a light area that goes right down the middle of the handle. This shows the roundness of the handle ( see the closeup below)
• Finally you should draw the actual mace ball.This is a bit tricky but take your time. Notice how the ball has a nice shaded area almost like a crescent moon? You might want to draw this crescent line first then shade in the whole lower left area. Also, the points on the mace head cast a shadow on the mace ball - don't forget about that! They make for a very nice detail.

This closeup of the mace handle shows a couple of important points. See how it is darkest on the left? This is the shadowed side of the handle. The normal wood grain is along the right and the lightest area runs right down the middle. This is the highlight where the light is strongest. This distribution of light and dark will give the handel a nice three dimensional feel.

Also notice the brass cap with the rivet in it. This metal section has very little line inside it -this makes it look shiny.

Continue on to the next lesson: How to draw a Knight's Chainmail

This is a Storm The Castle Website

Fantasy Art School HOME PAGE

Fantasy Art Lessons

1. lesson 1 - Holding the pencil and getting a feel for it and warming up with lines
2. lesson1c how to draw a straight line
3. lesson 2 - Drawing some simple geometric shapes
4. lesson 3 - Understanding and using Perspective
5. lesson 4- foreshortening in perspective
6. lesson 5- Drawing depth and distance
7. lesson 6-Using lines of varying thickness
8. lesson 7- drawing form and shape with a medieval mace
9. lesson 8- Drawing metal - We draw a medieval helmet
10. lesson 9- drawing our first human form
11. lesson 10- Distorting the human form to create fantasy creatures
12. lesson 11 - doodling and creativity break
13. lesson 12 - a Morning star mace - drawing textures
14. lesson 13 - how to draw chainmail
15. lesson 14 - How to convey action in your fantasy drawings
16. lesson 15 - How to draw sword shapes
17. lesson16 -draw an armored knight
18. lesson 17 - Draw a fantasy dagger using the Five-S method
19. lesson 18 - Creating space in your drawings - A Dragons Lair
20. lesson 19 - Practice by drawing dragons
21. Lesson 20 - Drawing from Memory
22. Lesson 21 -Draw a Catapult
23. Lesson 22: A Guest artist discusses pencils, his technique and building a library of images

Fantasy Art Lessons from Guest Artists

1. How to draw a magical genie using Corel and Photoshop

Art Books & Supplies

1. Art Kits
2. Art Books
3. Fantasy Art Books

Stormthecastle.com
Castlefiction.com
The Telescope Nerd
Epic Fantasy.com
The Medieval Armory
THe Fantasy Guide
The Heroic Dreams Blog Knight-Medieval.com willkalif.com
make-video-games.com

---------
All Materials, unless otherwise stated are Copyright©
Kalif Publishing and StormtheCastle.com check out my copyright page for information about how to use any work on this site

If you have questions
or would like to
contribute you can contact me as customer support

---------