Artists

>hyperdetailed line art

Mescaline is a helluva drug.

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In-the-books probably Steve Prescott. The stuff he made for Shadowrun 3e was juuust perfect imo, really high contrast b&w illustrations with a slightly comic bookish action tone (you could argue it's a little artistic exaggeration) but still nicely set in the SR tone. And oftentime adding some buff physique to the wimminz! :3
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I didn't pay too much attention to Guy Davis when he was at White Wolf, even though he had an awesome feel for horror and "out there" darkness (great for Tzimisce or whatever unpleasant shit in oWoD)... But when he started drawing the B.P.R.D. series, holy fuck it totally made the comic! B.P.R.D. without him isn't the true comic imo, and his own The Marquis is totally awesome!
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Peter Mullen is my personal favorite these days, still have some fondness for the house styles that WOTC used during 3E and 4E though

Oh shi- I only posted Marquis stuff by Davis? Here, have some oWoD material.
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Can't pick a particular favorite, but Brom, Chuck Walton, and Peter Mohrbacher are all pretty great

I've got a few I love.
First, Alan Lee. LotR illustrator, distinctive style, especially in his colored works (i think he uses watercoloring), but scetches also have an unique feel.
On the negative side, he's way better at scenes and landscape than character close-ups. They lack detail and look bit old no matter what age they really are representing.

Then there's Brom.
He can be either very good, or very bad.
Though, there is visible corellation in this, he does lot of fetishy magical realm work, and those are generally on bad side, while more serious and not sexualized works tend to be good. It's not a strict rule though, there are exceptions on both sides.
Also distinctive style, method of shading and contouring that seems simple yet effective

And Justin Sweet
Again, varying in quality.
His style has lots of blur and long strokes, this mostly does work but not for everything.
Greater problem is what is he drawing, thematically, which can be everything from relatively tame and eye pleasing things like this one to some weird and over the top crap. Mostly good things, though.

I also like Tomasz Jedruszek, John Howe and few more artists but those are most important

Paul Bonner, among others.
Drakar och Demoner has some amazing artwork.

Nicholson is fantastic and I hearily endorse OP's patrician choice.
As unoriginal as it is I have to go for the FF/GW original, John Blanche. I just love the otherwordliness he always has in his work.

And in a similar vein I also love the art of his protege, Ian Miller; again it's the alien quality that makes it work for me.

He was never my favourite, but still, it is a great shame he's moved into digital. Shortcuts in digital look like exactly that, rather than looking like shorthand in traditional media, if that makes sense.

Blanche and Miller ARE Warhammer, as far as I'm concerned. They made Chaos come alive like no-one else.

I'm also a fan of the cheesecake AD&D art of Clyde Caldwell from the 1980s.

Ah yes, Mr Clyde "Don't Be Shy With The Thigh" Caldwell

>Rodger Dean
Mein nigger

That's right, Mr Clyde "I'm a legs & breasts kinda guy" Caldwell.

He was also Mr Edgy Spikes McCool before it was popular. Everything evil had spikes on it.

But to be fair he did draw some females with full body armor occasionally.

Berserk's artist.

Peter Mullen, mainly because he's one still actively working.
Though Russ is easily in the Top 5. (i've been trying to find a larger version of the old Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser drawing he posted on his blog)
Of course there's the tons of old school D&D guys that did amazing art. (Clyde Caldwell, Keith Parkinson, Trampier etc)

Yes, Ian Miller! There are several illustrations of his in a book I have called Fantastic People, but I agree with : they defined the grim dark future where there is only war.

But then again, if we're talking about WH40K's artwork, you *have* to mention Jes Goodwin!

... and going way back, I've always been partial to Erol Otus's weirdness! The Cthulhu stuff he did for the First Edition Deities and Demigods was just *classic!*

Bill Willingham did a lot for TSR in its early days. He went on to draw a comic book called The Elementals, and his artwork improved quite a bit over the years. Always loved his old stuff, though.

Larry Elmore also did quite a bit for TSR. His paintings made Star Frontiers come alive for me.

>The japanase lady warrior with an octopus.
Das racist.

Clyde Caldwell, Jeff Easley, Erol Otus, Moebius, Kentaro Miura, and Katsuya Terada.

Also, I HATE Wayne Reynolds with a passion. His art ruins 3.X and PF for me like none other.

damn, what kind of game is that? Looks like radial chess sort of.

God please send down cancer on Wayne Reynolds
If there's one artist whose work can be an a symbol of everything that's wrong with today's fantasy art and fantasy in gereral, it is this fucking faggot.

Out of 40k illustrators, Blanche is probably the favourite. He's just about the only one that got that shitty, dirty feel of an always-war-all-the-time future right. Can't think of another 40k illustrator I really like.
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