Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Tradition: -- Tradition of imaginative painting -- Art in the twentieth century -- Copies from the masters -- Studio: -- Tables, easels, and lights -- Helpful equipment -- Drawing media -- Painting media -- Preliminary Sketches: -- Games to loosen up -- Thumbnail sketches -- Storyboards -- Color experiments -- Charcoal comprehensive -- Corrections and tracings -- Eye level -- Perspective grid -- Sticking with it -- History And Archeology: -- Telling a story -- Early humans -- Close or far view -- Information and atmosphere -- People: -- Mirror studies -- Tone paper studies -- Acting in character -- Photographing models -- Professional models -- Head Marquette's -- Costumes -- Characters in settings -- Managing detail -- Dinosaurs: -- Digging dinosaurs -- Dinosaurs in their environment -- Unusual behaviors -- Multiple Marquette's -- Setting up a tableau -- Homemade miniatures -- Wings and capes -- 2D-to-3D Marquette -- Coloration -- Creatures And Aliens: -- Creature Marquette's -- Skeleton model -- Animal characters -- Half-human -- From model to mermaid -- Cyborgs -- Architecture: -- Four steps to build a city -- Visualizing waterfall city -- Architectural Marquette's -- Clay and stone -- Vehicles: -- Start with the familiar -- Exaggeration -- Sketchbook as springboard -- Insect vehicles -- Walking vehicles -- Alternate history -- Lived-in future -- Engineering -- Scrap file -- Plein-Air Studies: -- On-location drawing -- Weird and wonderful -- Fact into fantasy -- Museums and zoos -- Orientalism -- Composition: -- Two values -- Silhouette -- Chiaroscuro -- Shapewelding -- Counterchange -- Windmill principle -- Eye tracking -- Heatmaps -- Spokewheeling -- Clustering -- Flagging the head -- Vignetting -- Repose and action Repoussoir -- Cutaway views -- Aerial views -- Maps -- Procedure: -- Step by step -- Grounds, mediums, and techniques -- Texture and impasto -- Combining the elements -- Careers: -- Paperback covers -- Movie design -- Video game design -- Toy design -- Theme park design -- Afterword -- Glossary -- Recommended reading -- Works by and about James Gurney -- Image credits -- About the author -- Index.