Fantasy Inspiration

shazzdan wrote:Angus McBride didn't just illustrate Osprey books. He also did illustrations for ICE's Middle Earth Roleplaying books.

I actually have all of those modules. Discovered Angus through the Osprey books, and was super excited when I found out he was doing these, as well.

Stryker2011 wrote:I actually have all of those modules. Discovered Angus through the Osprey books, and was super excited when I found out he was doing these, as well.

I've got all of them too. I've also got his "Characters of Middle Earth" and "Creatures of Middle Earth" with all his illustrations compiled in one book without all the clutter from the text and marketing.

I can't compare across so many different talents and genres but I'll say this much: Angus McBride is my favorite Osprey illustrator.

Pretty much every artist I love has been named already (illustrators at least)

My personal top list for fantasy drawings and visuals would be mainly the french team called the "humanoides associés" that developped "Metal Hurlant" in the 70's, a comics magazine about sci fi and fantasy (that became "heavy metal" in the US).

The team originally included my favorite artist ever Moebius (he went with his real name Jean Giraud mainly for his western comic "blueberry"), Philippe Druillet, and Enki Bilal. Those three guys are the base of my readings and inspiration.
Add to them Frank Frazetta, Juan Gimenez, Geof Darrow, Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, and you got my all time favorites!

In the more recent comics artists I love John Romita JR, Jim Lee, John Scott Campbell, joe Madureira, and Steve McNiven (among many others of course, but those names come first)

Some more examples...

DRUILLET






BILAL






GIMENEZ






DARROW

Freakin’ awesome choices, blackpool!

Great stuff guys, especially those French comic persons. Cool to see Pre-Jackson Lord of the Rings artworks, as a person to young to have read the books before the movies set the style.

Shout-out to Zdzislaw Beksinski. Have never made a figure based on his works, but I might one day take inspiration from him for a potential Lovecraftian Space Horror project that is lurking in the dark, unspeakable corners of my head for some time now.

Great call on Beksinski -- he is one of those artists whose work I see regularly in the online spaces I frequent but imo is rather underrated!

Jesus Helguera

Although both images are based on a classic fictional sad tale, He combined several different cultures and made both illustrations. It is mostly used as a classic template inspiration. You usually see this as a calendar at a carnicería or pan dulce shops. Nick Wolfe's friend in Zootopia had an inspired image of this on his van. I like the details of the muscles