Reddit reviews The Skillful Huntsman: Visual Development of a Grimm Tale at Art Center College of Design

For me using references to work off of is what fueled the most progress. While deviant art and Google image search are great for a broad scope books are invaluable if you find one in a category you want to refine. My personal favorite though is The Skillful Huntsmen. It's created by a handful of amazing graduate students in Entertainment design as they think up and design the visual universe for a classic Grimm Brothers fairy tail. Each page is filled with thumbnails with a variety of techniques and very practical advice. If you have any interest in environmental or character design I consider a must have.

In a similar vein the Scott Robertson books are excellent for inspiration if you have a focus on design. (His Gnomon video is well well worth the money, it's revolutionized how I draw manmade objects as in the last few pages.) Most of the books I have are purely inspiration and less the approach of art. What rests as a great mix of advice and inspiration of the Loomis set. His bread and butter book, Figure Drawing for All it's Worth, has been reprinted now and is a beauty. But all of his books are easy to find on pdf online. In general though look up what the book's about and if you think you'll like it you probably will- I have no interest right now in watercolors so I don't buy watercolor books.

Now for times that I felt like I wasn't getting better- it certainly happened. What helped me the most was keeping it always fresh. If your art isn't working get a new set of pens, draw in a different style, etc. Most of the changes in style were prompted by feeling I wasn't making progress. This video though is the most amazing thing I've ever seen at putting artist's block into perspective.

It sounds more like you want to do drawing based things. You probably want to learn about character design at some point. There are two basic schools of thought on it. There is the overall silhouette concept artist style. One of the books that you can study from for that is The Skillful Huntsman. This style of drawing creation is also used by a lot of concept artists for games and special effects. The other school of thought is the shaped based drawings. You can learn about that in Creating Characters With Personality. This basic breakdown is used by a lot of the more cartoony styled artists. They both relate to each other and the shape breakdown helps you turn a character in space. It is essentially a more detailed version of the Preston Blair method.

Either way, you won't get too far if you don't understand your anatomy, life drawing, and drapery. So if you aren't there yet, and you can never get enough of that as a traditional artist, you may want to do the remedial learning to draw things such as Drawing on the Right Side Of The Brain and hand copying an Anatomy for Artists Textbook of your choice.

My number one art book is definitely The Skillful Huntsman

The book focuses more on design and visual story development than actual techniques, but it's still great inspiration and has a lot to learn from.