Takaki - Fantasy Artist

When I was in Japan I went by a Kagaya store to get some of his artwork. Unfortunately, it was an Aquarius Stage store, which only stocks gems for jewelry making. They did have postcard books of a few of his series, so I picked up his Starry Tales post card collection (which thankfully included Artemis, Pegasus and Phoenix, my 3 favourites of the collection). I also picked up another set with pictures I didn't recognize. The artwork style was the same as Kagaya's so it wasn't until I got home (I'd packed the sets away so they wouldn't get damaged) that I realized the second set way by a different artist, Takaki. She doesn't have an English website, so here's the link for her gallery so you can check out her work. She uses a lot of angels. Here's a sample:

Fantasy Artists

I've always found fantasy art to be very inspiring when coming up with ideas. Ok, it can be construed as stealing someone else's idea in a way, but if you're explaining WHY the fairy has butterfly wings and is holding a glass rose in its hand then it's merely a creative writing exercise. And if it gets your own imagination flowing, where's the harm?

Here are a few of my favourite fantasy artists:
Kagaya: http://www.kagayastudio.com/starry/index.html
The page is in Japanese - but worth the effort of trying various links (I've linked to one of the subpages showing off his 'starry tales' paintings).



Todd Lockwood (I've bought copies of a few of his works to inspire me in my office at home.) He's done the new covers for R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt novels (Forgotten Realms) among many, many others.
Check out his works here: http://www.toddlockwood.com/


Josephine Wall (I cut up a calendar of hers, putting the paintings all over my apartment. Her works are ones you can stare at for hours, missing details each time. They draw you in and force you to imagine what might have happened to the people in the paintings to bring them to this point.)
http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/josephine.html

Anne Stokes (I was made aware of her artwork through one of the 'best in fantasy art' books that comes out periodically. This wasn't the Spectrum collection, so it was by luck that I happened upon it. Since then I've seen her art in many places.)
http://www.annestokes.com/