THE ART OF JOHAN EGERKRANS

With a new book bursting with beautiful illustrations, Ian Dean meets an artist who loves dragons…

- Ian Dean

Dragons don’t need to make sense in a biological way,” says Johan Egerkrans. After all, he reminds us, Smaug is a hundred metres long and has the wingspan of a jumbo jet, if you were to draw The Hobbit’s fire-breather with any sense of realism. “You can’t do it convincingly, it’s a fantasy creature.”

With that comment, Johan states his admiration for those artists who do create fantastical creatures from their imagination; he cites Terryl Whitlatch as an influence. “That vein of creature design has also crept in, of course,” says Johan, “but I try not to make them as biologically sensible.”

Johan’s new book Drakar, or simply Dragons in its English translation, is out now in his native Swedish and an English language edition is due this year. Drakar is the artist’s eighth illustrated book, and follows others devoted to fantasy and mythology from a Nordic perspective. The book may move outside of Scandinavia to present dragons from folklore of Europe, the Middle East and Asia, but Johan’s style and tone lends each creature a uniquely Scandi sensibility.

Inspired by the fantasy art tradition of his homeland, Johan’s work is reminiscent of the classic troll illustrations of John Bauer and the work of 1970s fantasy artist Kay Nielsen. That, and the artist’s background in role-playing game illustration, helps lend his dragon depictions a bold and whimsical style.

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