Hello, sorry if you've answered this question before, but what advice would you give to a absolute beginner learning to draw fantasy character illustration art? (Also do you draw while high? Since that is the only way I know how I can experience new methods of thought openly without judgement.)

No it’s completely fine! I haven’t been asked about this per say.
My own TL;DR tip would be just look at references and study real life animals and creatures and adjust that knowledge and understanding accordingly. Also I don’t draw while high as I don’t even smoke lmao- but on the other hand I can’t focus on drawing either if I’m drunk so I guess the equivalent of that that I tend to do is like.. staying up too late and drawing at 5am lmao but that’s not really something I can really recommend. But if you are an insomniac like me ig you can use tha awake time on something else than just spinning around in bed :’) Rest I’ll be putting under a read more as this is more writing than I anticipated lol

Fantasy characters/monsters have been something I’ve more or less drawn my whole life so far, but I’d say gathering a personal inspiration gallery/pinterest board or whatever helps a lot already at least when it comes to concepts and ideas for character creating and illustration in general. It can be basically whatever, other designs you already like, colors, patterns, shapes, general feeling, animals, people, makeup, you name it! Same goes with exploring the medias and character designs you already consume and like personally to get started, for example for me those being games like Monster Hunter and Final Fantasy (xiv). Mayhaps pick up the designs you especially like. What do you want to include of them into your own art?

Is there a spesific theme that you like? What kind of art are you wanting to make spesifically? Do you want to make it borderline realistic or more stylized? Is your focus on the anatomy, colors, light or for example in composition? Are you wanting to draw more humanoid or animalistic creatures? Are you focusing on the character design itself or purely the illustration but just focusing on fantasy creatures?

I guess that is more of the those are some points that help out on where to aim yourself/own goals from there on. When I personally do fantasy characters/illustrations I personally have been focusing especially as of late on the anatomy and how to make them *work* relatively realistically, where looking at and studying on real life animals from skin to bones will help.

There are some books like “Fundamentals of Creature Design” from 3dtotal Publishing written by many different character design artists, “Science of Creature Design : Understanding Animal Anatomy” written and illustrated by Terryl Whitlatch are good books when it comes to applying knowledge of anatomy of real life creatures into something fictional and not existing. I’ve found that to be helpful for me as understanding things like how the bones actually work, how the muscles are attached in with different kind of animals, how the body parts themselves are structured. James Gunrey’s “Imaginative Realism” is also a good guide for such but it is much broader with the concepts of imaginitive realism as it also touches subjects such as environment, architecture, fictional cultures, clothing, wehicles, etc. Relating to imaginative reality also paleo art is good when it comes to this topic as all the reconstructions and art pieces that we have are more or less all based on our knowledge of real animals and anatomy. And some artistic freedoms but you get the drill.

Uh,, that was a mouthful and most likely overwhelming and all over the place as my feverish brain can barely think straight but those are bits and pieces of what I’d recommend to study and look up. If nothing else the general studies and the inspiration boards are something I especially recommend :’) I hope this helped even a little bit!