Fantasy Art and Artists

[Shan]

Are you interested in Fantasy Art? Do you have a favorite
artist that falls into the Fantasy Art category? Then this is
the thread for you.

Some of these artists do fantastic work and I think they
deserve to be recognized on their on instead of living in
the shadow of the old masters. I love looking at and
discussing both, but I'm not to thrilled with the idea of
switching from one to the other in the same thread. This
is the reason I am starting a Fantasy Art thread.

Shan

[Gray Lensman]

There are some pretty good fantasy artists out there, yeah.

I enjoy Michael Whelan's work quite a bit. He's done some really nice covers for various fantasy novels. But I think he's been discussed thoroughly elsewhere.

Alan Lee did some pretty good work with his Tolkien-based art. The guy was the artistic consultant for the LotR trilogy, so I figure he knows his stuff.

There are others. Frank Frazetta did some really good work with Conan and the Death Dealer covers. Larry Elmore, who did a lot of Dragonlance covers and the like. The Hildebrandts have done some pretty nice work as well.

Probably whatever strikes me at the time is the best answer.

[Shan]

Some good ones Grey. Alan Lee is a favorite of mine and so
is Larry Elmore. The other two you mentioned I would have
to look their work up and see. I have probably seen some of
it. but can't put name and picture together. I will take a look
though.

I think I might just find a link to one or two that I like of
theirs and see what you guys think.

Shan

[Shan]

Here is a link to one that Luis Royo did.

Take a look guys and tell me what you think. This one I am
really curious about.

prophecy

Shan

[Tsel]

Maybe it's just me, but I think that water color is flawed.
Why would Royo, a man of his talent, allow the backgound to bleed through his dragon?

Tsel

[Shan]

Very good observation Tsel.

I wonder why he chose to have the background show
through the dragon or if it happened accidently and he just
decided to leave it?

Did the picture impress you in any other way or did the
background showing through the dragon ruin the picture
for you?

Anybody else?

Shan

[philster]

Keith Parkinson and Michael Whelan are my favorites, in that order. I've also discussed them elsewhere.

I also like Todd Lockwood as a cover artist as well now that he's moved away from magazine illustrations and AD&D designs. Thank goodness R.A. Salvatore finally has a decent cover artist for his Dark Elf series now.

I have liked some of Boris Vallejo's work as art references. He usually does very muscular men and wonderfully depicted monsters, which is good. His muscular women falls short of my tastes, though.

I have a Dragonlance Art book, so Larry Elmore's work is known to me as well. He does some nice pieces, but his women usually look too similar to each other. I love his Dragonlance covers, though.

There is another AD&D artist I like quite a bit, his name is Tony DiTerlizzi. He was my favorite AD&D artist before Todd Lockwood came along. He had a very unique "fantasy" style in depicting monsters and folk.

Greg Land, I suppose, should qualify here as a fine fantasy artist what with his work in Sojourn. He's excellent.

There's more, but they escape my mind right now

[Shan]

Grey mentioned Alan Lee and as I said before he is
another favorite of mine. I think he did great work for LOTOR.

Here are just a few of my favorites?

pic 016

pic 059

pic 073

pic 085

pic 086

Any comments?

Anyone have any others of Alan Lees that they would
like to share?

Shan

[philster]

I considered mentioning Alan Lee because of his great contribution to the LoTR movies, but decided against it.

I have never really been enamored by his paintings and it was only when they "came to life" in the movies that I liked them better. He's a good assistant artist on movie props but on his own, it just doesn't appeal to me.

Perhaps because it just wasn't lifelike enough. I love my fantasy work to be lifelike, in case you didn't notice.

But I do love him just because he helped bring the LoTR movies to life and he DID have the right imagination for it. I just didn't like his style on its own.

[SilvaShado]

I love a lot of fantasy art, it's my favorite style next to comic book art, and I know when I move out, I'm gonna put a lot of fantasy posters on the walls. If I can take some pictures of my room, I'll show you what I have up right now.

But here are links to some of the artists I like.

Amy Brown: www.amybrownart.com/

Josephine Wall: www.josephinewall.com/

I already talked about Rob Brown and the dragons he draws, but his art is only available in calenders.

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law: www.shadowscapes.com/

One place I love to go to see a variety of artists and fantasy art is ElfWood: elfwood.lysator.liu.se/elfwood.pike

I can't remember the name of the artist, but he did all the artwork for the Dragon Tarot set and I even have a poster of his World dragon on my door.

[Shan]

Wow, Silva, I am a big fan of all of the artists that you
mentioned except Rob Brown. He was unfamiliar to me until you mentioned him. I wish there was more of his art
available for me to see.

I love Stephanie's work. In fact the girls and I have made
them some note paper with some of her fairies on it at one
time. Josephine Wall's is fascinating and intriguing. We love looking at her pics and finding all the different things in them.

You mentioned that you liked playful dragons, have you ever seen the ones done by Kevin Palivec. He has some really cute ones. He is one of the girls' favorites. He even has a page or two at Elfwood.

There are alot of good artists displaying work at Elfwood.
I go their often to check to see if anything new has been posted.

Do you have a favorite of Stephanie's, or Josephine Wall's
or Amy Brown's that you like more than the others?

Shan

[Shan]

Phil, Grey, Elliot, Silva and anyone else. would you mind
taking a look at the Royo piece Prophecy that I linked to.
I would really like to know what you guys think.

As Tsel pointed out something doesn't look right about the
dragon and I would like to know why you think it was done
this way. He thinks it was an accident and that the colors
bled through. I tend to think that maybe it was painted that
way on purpose but I have no idea why. I would love to have more opinions.

Thanks guys.

Shan

[Gray Lensman]

I like Prophecy fairly well, all in all.

As for the background... that is strange. I'm not sure that is bleed through, either. Actually, my first thought was that it was smoke until I looked at it more closely.

There might be some thematic reason behind it. The smokelike appearance could be intentional, since the dragon is a representation of fire. But that's a stab in the dark.

Or I could be completely off-base and it could be a mistake. Hard to tell, since I'm not that artistically inclined.

[Dr. Doom]

Jay Anecleto is one my favorites. Truly amazing stuff there.

In fact, there are dozens of artists on this site that I find amazing, but Anecleto stands out to me.

Here's Anecleto's gallery

And here's the other fantasy artists.

And yes, Venom, you have my permission to check out the erotic art section.

[Shan]

Venom, erotic art.

But this is a PG board. Better hide it Venom before Elliot catches you. ;D

Doom, thanks for sharing the type of fantasy art that you like. It is not
really my type, but hey that is why there are so many different types of art.
Something for everybody.

Shan

[Shan]

Does anyone around here like Brian Froud's art?

He does some amazing work. And as you might guess I am a big fan of his
too. We have both of his fairy books and I want the goblin one too.

If you are not familiar with his work, here are 2 sites to check out.

Site 1

Site 2

Shan

[Venom65437]

Dr. said:

Jay Anecleto is one my favorites. Truly amazing stuff there.

In fact, there are dozens of artists on this site that I find amazing, but Anecleto stands out to me.

Here's Anecleto's gallery

And here's the other fantasy artists.

And yes, Venom, you have my permission to check out the erotic art section.

Pffft, that sucked. I draw better porn myself.

....

[philster]

Okay, taking this from the top... lol...

Luis Royo's Prophecy: It somewhat looks as if the dragon's talons are detached from his body a little bit. This actually reminds me of one of Keith Parkinson's pieces: oh here it is, Fire Sea. Brrr. *Shivers* I just love Parkinson! But anyway, I think Royo could do better to improve the composition of this piece.

My main problem with Royo is the one I have with Anecleto as well: they make their women's faces look too similar.

Here's an artist I like better than either one: Walter Girotti. Scroll down, go to his original paintings and click on that, or any one of his other galleries. WARNING: Contains some erotic art.

A couple of his pieces I like:
Tinsel


What do you guys think of his work?

Moving on:

Of Law, Brown, and Wall, I think I like Amy Brown's work the best. I've seen Law's work before at Elfwood and she's very good - my ex has a print of her work on her wall ( Firefox ) too. But I think I like Brown the best due to her compositions, level of realism, and slightly less emphasis on color.

Wall I like the least because she just seems like some generic children's room fantasy poster artist from the 80's, if you follow me.

As for Frond, who doesn't love Brian and Wendy's work? They're great.

[Gray Lensman]

I see your point on the Fire Sea comparison, Phil. I'm rather a large fan of Weis & Hickman's Death Gate series, so I'm not bound to forget that cover anytime soon.

As to the cover... it felt similar in some ways, mainly due to the red dragon and the fiery catacomb setting. Of the two, I'd definitely agree that Parkinson's is better. But then, there's just something scarier about a red dragon rising out of a sea of molten lava.

Phil, while I like Whisper better than Tinsel, I don't think it's appropriate to direct link Whisper from here. This IS a PG forum, you know.

[philster]

Sorry, Steve. I frequent another forum that isn't PG, and I just forgot.