Illustrator Tom Fowler reveals how the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game rekindled his love of drawing.
Tom's book started as doodles in the margins of journals
Despite boasting an impressive artistic career spanning almost 15 years, Tom Fowler started to hate drawing. So what's an illustrator to do when their passion for drawing cools? In Tom's case, he grabbed a bottle of wine and headed to a local Dungeons and Dragons group.
His new book – Dungeons and Dragons and Doodles – collects together the dozens of pictures that sprung from these trips to the gaming club. "I noticed something almost immediately – in the margins of my notebook I'd started doodling," Tom explains.
"With every game those doodles got more and more elaborate until, ultimately, they started to spill out of the margins. What's more, I felt no pressure; I was having fun. I was having fun drawing for the first time in years."
Free from clients and expectations, Tom soon filled sketchbooks with his inspiring work and started posting the pictures on his blog. "I wanted to share the idea that you could come back, that you could lose it and find it again," he reveals.
"All it takes is pushing a pencil (or a pen, or a brush...) around on a piece of paper and not caring particularly where it takes you."
D&D&D will be a 100-page hardbound book containing high resolution scans of Tom's original work. Help the book become a reality by getting involved with its Kickstarter campaign, and explore some of Tom's amazing artwork in the images below.
Tom originally posted his doodles on his Tumblr page
The book covers the first year of D&D&D's life
Kickstarter rewards include original painted artwork
Once the book hits its target, expect it to ship in March 2016
Dom Carter is a freelance writer who specialises in art and design. Formerly a staff writer for Creative Bloq, his work has also appeared on Creative Boom and in the pages of ImagineFX, Computer Arts, 3D World, and .net. He has been a D&AD New Blood judge, and has a particular interest in picture books.
