I had seen this piece before, and it took me a while to track it down!

http://americanart.si.edu/images/1977/1977.107.1_1a.jpg

I'm probably playing a bit too much Dark Souls, since if you remove the animals it reminds me of the game

Also, pretty much anything by Maxfield Parrish. For example:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c … C_1904.jpg

Probably The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ecstasy_of_St_Theresa

I had to recreate (redraw) this sculpture in conte crayon for a class at one point. It wasn't as big as challenge as I'd thought it be... but then drawing something from a picture was always like ten times easier for me than drawing something standing in front of me in real life like a person. When dealing with a live subject I've always had trouble with proportions.

You should do a VG-related thread like this too however. There are a few game related pieces I really love... but it's because they are kind of flawed. For example I love Ayami Kojima's depiction of Hector from Curse of Darkness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevani … f_Darkness) because the body proportions are all wrong. If a professional artist can get away with it there is hope for us all.

I also like Lincoln Peirce's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Peirce) work on the Big Nate comic strip. The amount of Big Nate material has exploded in recent years since they started releasing books (comic compilations and original stories) so I always make it a point to grab those when they come out. Personally I think Big Nate is superior to Jeff Kinney's Dairy of a Wimpy Kid because the protagonist is much more likable.

Lastly I do a lot of doodling of my own and I love to make up slogans and fictitious band fliers. Bands like Bad Weather, Chemical Formula (inspired by high school chemistry), Jane Eyre's Virgin Island Band (album: fornication nation), Clockwork Apple (which is an obvious swipe at the Mega Man Zero Telos drama tracks) and the Peanut Butter Rainbow Experience.

As far as current art I'm working on... I want to make a shirt that says: "Real men (and women) don't use goat dolls!" because I like to beat all the optional bosses in Wild Arms without using the damn goat dolls. These instant revive upon death items (that you can buy!) are so damn cheap that it takes the challenge right out of an already easy game. What were they thinking!

Great subject for a thread!

This badass mother right here. His artwork was featured in an astronomy themed issue of Highlights for Children that I read a long time ago as a child. Thanks to movies like Blade Runner, Star Wars, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, I had developed a love for space-related imagery at an early age, so seeing Chelsey Bonestell's artwork fueled my love of science fiction further still. I couldn't remember his name for the longest time. Took me a whole on Google to get it.

Anyways, I love his starscapes. They really illustrate the majesty, vastness and loneliness of space. His paintings of Jupiter and Saturn helped me to understand just how massive these bodies really are and made me appreciate life on a cosmic scale, even if some of them have turned out to be slightly inaccurate as more information regarding the planets themselves came to light.

Sadly, example of his work are a bit difficult to find, but here are a few;

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ncm7qEKa8to/U … ercury.jpg
http://spaceshipdreams.com/wp-content/u … estell.jpg

As for others, there's a Japanese artist who rose to prominence in the 80's for his retro-futuristic science fiction art, but I'll be damned if I can ever remember his name. His subject matter deals a lot with depictions of women who have cybernetic modifications, such as cyborg limbs, faces, etc. A lot of these are sexual in nature, so I wouldn't post examples here anyways, but he also draws quite a few cars, airplanes, and animals too, with the same science fiction motif overlaid on almost all of it.

Can't remember his name at all, though. Bugging me.

Finally, there's my holy trinity of comic artists who elevated the comic strip to extremely high levels of quality that quite simply haven't ever been touched, let alone succeeded. George Herriman's Krazy Kat, Walt Kelly's Pogo, and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes are all so vastly different from other comic strips and each other that you could probably make an art gallery for each one.

Herriman's landscapes take as much from his own dreams as they do from the Navajo deserts that inspired them, resulting in some gently twisted scenery. The overarching narrative of the strip plays with the musicality of relationships, with the misunderstood affections of a cat for a mouse driving things forward. It's whimsical, playful, mischievious, and about as masterfully told as a story of a cat being repeatedly beaned on the noggin can be.

Walt Kelly's Pogo was a different beast. In stark contrast to the quiet tones and lines of Herriman's art, Kelly's work was busy and fanciful, with broad, bold inkwork creating an inviting, warm look to the strip. The narrative here was just as busy and cluttered; It can broadly be defined as a political strip, making fun of the foibles of relevant social issues occurring throughout the strip's run, and peppered with a vast cavalcade of eclectic characters corresponding to many important politicians of the time.

Calvin and Hobbes is probably the most familiar comic strip to many on this site, so no explanation needed here. Watterson's artwork made brilliant use of his frustrating lack of space, something he was quite vocal about in the few interviews he gave. His strip was in many ways a product of the times; gone were the full-page layouts of yesteryear that allowed the likes of Windsor McCay or Will Eisner to succeed with in favor of a more compact, manufactured layout that severely hamstringed any artistic merit to shine through on many contemporary strips. Still, with plot elements like Calvin's daydreams (Spaceman Spiff, Tracer Bullet, or Stupendous Man), he was able to make Calvin's world spring forth from a potentially castratingly small work space. Sublime for that reason alone, let alone the narrative brilliance of the strip itself.

Totally agree! Chelsey Bonestell was awesome. I'm actually learning how to do a bit of astro-art myself. These days with computers you don't have to be as skilled as Mr. Bonestell was (for better or worse).

Alex Grey, for sure. I can't pick one of my favorites, so this general Google image search will have to do!

Nice to see some love for cartoonists, especially Herriman, whose work I am now revisiting. Watterson also, his characters and artwork so bursting with life. When it comes to old school comic strip artists I really love EC Segar's Thimble Theater (Popeye) for his subtle humor and great dialogue.

When it comes to traditional paintings there is too much to like, but I guess I am partial to impressionism, especially Van Gogh, Sisley and Manet. Also love Frans Hals. I also like the somewhat obscure English painter Christopher Wood http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/ … 545_10.jpg

And relating to sci fi art, I love painter and musician Simon Stalenhag!

http://www.simonstalenhag.se

I was googling him because I was floored by his contributions on FM Soundshock Madness and lo and behold he is an amazing painter as well.

He contributed Ripple Boogie https://soundcloud.com/simon-st-lenhag/ripple-boogie
and Fluvial Beat Deposits http://ubiktune.bandcamp.com/track/fluv … t-deposits
to soundshock 1 and 2 respectively, both outstanding tracks imo

My favorite artist is Hieronymus Bosch. Rudy Rucker used him as a character in a duology of novels.

Is it too late to add Adolf Schaller to this thread? His planetary speculation artwork is amazing, and more than that, believable.

It's never too late. Also, space art is becoming more popular. I recently saw a contest for space art that is sponsored (if I remember correctly) by MIT.