Anne Stokes: Fantasy Made Real

Anne Stokes is a very talented British illustrator, whose precise drawings and careful painting give an almost photographic quality to her art.

Since childhood, she dreamed of becoming an artist, and has been a full time professional for about 12 years.

Her works have been licensed to decorate many kinds of products, from T-shirts and posters, to tarot cards, sculptures and jewelry, and she has also made illustrations for the game industry, including Dungeons & Dragons books. You can check the products and prints on her site.

With a very active imagination, Anne Stokes always takes with her a pocket digital camera and paper and pen, in case she comes across any interesting figure or gets some idea for her illustrations while away from home. When commissioned to do some artwork, she always tries to bring something new to traditional characters, like angels and dragons.

On her site, Anne Stokes shares a lot of information on her working process, and gives the following advice to fledgling artists:

“The first and most important thing is to actually try. There are a lot of people who would like to do this, and many other things in life, but don’t ever actually try to do them. The only way to fail for sure is not to try.

“Practice as much as you can and get some commissions, however small, as a way to learn. Do what the client asks you to and do it on time. A good site which provides free hosting and an opportunity to show some of your images to the world is Deviant Art. I post there under the name Ironshod.”

Here are two other images. Visit her site to see more amazing art.

Anne Stockes' official site # Deviant Art profile