i had been considering posting this before, but the recent thread about lack of creativity in the galleries and the one asking for ideas prompted me to actually do it. i don't know about you guys, but i thrive about as much on viewing good art as creating it (or trying to). to spark some inspiration, i thought it might be good to ask people for works that have really had impact on them. whether it was through originality, incredible execution, or cogent message, i'd like to know what images (or objects) have made a strong impression on you. so, anyone who's game, please post 3 links to digital works, paintings, photos, sculptures, or any type of artwork you find inspiring, that touches you in some way. they can be from anywhere, as long as the piece and the site doesn't violate the T.O.S. it doesn't have to be your top choices of all time, i just don't want to exclude anything.

if you don't know, to make something a link, you can post
name of piece

So my own choices:
nudity Edifice by mfenberg
i love his body abstractions, the simplicity of the image and the soft curve of shadows. his work reminds me of why i got excited about poser.

flash The DesignChapel by Robert Lindstroem
i find his work bold, with just the right amount of detail. i love his clean design style, and his mastery of shadow and light.

nudity La Danaide by Rodin
i saw her long ago, on a high school trip to the rodin museum in philly. i remember it as a simple place, and a simple piece. and simply beautiful. i loved the curves, the translucency of the stone, the soft sculpted curves of her body contrasted with the natural roughness of her rock.

i know this is a really representational, body-oriented grouping, but that's the mood i'm in right now.

all of royo's pics are great for inspirations plus other fantasy artists:) for me right now (finally) :) its old sci fi cartoons from the 80s :) and sci fi b movies:)

I can be inspired by pretty much anything from television to magazines. Other times something as simple as a colour will give me an idea. As for particular artists, I don't know about "inspired", but I enjoy the following: Peder Monsted Claude Monet John Waterhouse (I love "The Lady of Shalott" painting) Edmund Leighton (I have poster sized prints of "The Accolade" and "God Speed" which I had framed in vintage wood frames) Sir Dicksee (I have a poster size print of "Belle Dame Sans Merci" which I had framed in a vintage wood frame)

Aubrey Beardsley, William Morris, and Charles Edward Robinson do it for me.

Apologies, Charles Heath Robinson

Mucha, Escher, etc..

Klimt, Schiele, Modigliani

acadia - wow, i think i had a lady of shalott poster in freshman year of college. i'd forgotten about that painting. infinity10, packled, odf - i wasn't familiar with most of those artists (excluding klimt and escher), though i was some of their art (teaching me my visual memory is a lot better than my verbal/written). very cool to see. thanks so much to all of you.

Attached Link: http://emanet-kaos.deviantart.com/

Emanet is without a doubt one of my favorites, along with Antje and blackeri and divishow and ravnheart that are all members here. No mind thinks like Emanet. Antje does pictures of pure beauty. Blackeri also very magical. divishow does the most gorgeous angel paintings from actual pictures. ravnheart has talent I dream of for painting realistic. If you haven't seen the galleries of those I mentioned then you really are missing a world of beauty and mystic, honestly go check em all out I promise you'll be glad you did.

i did, and i am! i had already had blackeri down as a favorite artist, and some how i had looked at ravnheart's work but not added her. thanks, foxseelady!

Dante Rossetti, John Waterhouse, Edward Burne-Jones, Arthur Rackham, old Little Golden Books and I really do love Becky Kelly among more contemporary illustrators.

Inspiration tends to come to me through osmosis more than my seeking it. It seems as if I'm more humbled than inspired any time I specifically look for inspiration because I'm looking at art that I will probably never have the capacity to match. Sometimes I'll get inspiration from a gallery image, a magazine, or sometimes from a movie or some other real life source. There are times when a contest theme pushes me in a different direction and makes me think about doing something creatively around that theme. Occasionally, I'll do the equivalent of doodling in Poser where I decide to use some specific content and then let an illustration evolve somewhat organically from playing around in Poser. Concepts come and go. Some concepts and drawings go nowhere or I don't have ths skill to push them in a direction that's satisfactory. Other times, I'm really happy with the results and I've created something that wasn't initially planned for, but becomes a pleasant surprise. That surprise factor can make the end product all the more satisfying. I always have a hard time understanding how somebody can be creatively stuck when using Poser. Unlike a blank canvas, where nothing exists till an artist starts creating, Poser is a library of 3D objects waiting for something interesting to happen. I don't have to research what a viking ship looks like or find reference photos of a building to begin drawing one. All I have to do is drop them into the preview window and use that as a starting point for inspiration. When I see artists, who bemoan that they are in a creative rut, I look at their galleries and they've been doing the same narrow thematic art over and over and over. As simplistic as it sounds, all the artist has to do is try something different. Pick a different genre, use a different character or outfit. Dig out some props that have never been used before and create a new image with them. There's a lot of inspiration just sitting in our runtimes and on CDs. Every Poser artist who has bought content has tons of content they spent good money on and never used. Anybody, with creative doldrums, should try using some of the stuff they bought and buried on a CD--there had to be some reason to spend good money on it--do something with it. As I'm writing this, my brain has been background thinking how to combine a viking ship and a building. There could be a time travel story with a viking ship mysteriously transported to a modern street corner. Or, maybe the reverse idea of a viking ship sailing past a modern building and not understanding how it got there. Or, use a room inside a building where the ship is a museum piece. Or the viking ship is a toy that kids are playing with outside their apartment. There are so many different ways to let the imagination play with our Poser toys. I'm not saying "toys" in a derogative sense, but in a fun playful sense. Art should be fun and should be approached that way.

No links but the artists I look up to are: Dali Picasso Vettriano Botticelli Da Vinci Klee Ernst Magritte Giger (mainly his pre-Alien work) Klimt A fair old selection, from one extreme to another. I don't try to copy any of them; they just remind me why the visual arts are so damn good.

I just like Mucha for the girls..;) actually, there's another artist, whose name is (I think Edward) Cole. He did a series on Life (Youth, Age, Maturity, etc) in the mid-19th century. Made a stab at the Youth pic, but obviously I'm no Hudson River school master..;) People with too much time on their hands might know one of his works as being on the cover of (I think) Kansas' greatest hits..;)

Here are some links for Schiele and Modigliani paintings. I find it hard to pick just one, but these are somewhat typical for what I like about those artists. Klimt is probably well-known, so I skip him. Schiele was a student of Klimt's, by the way.

Because people are complaining about the abundancy of nekkid females on this site, I picked both a male and a female nude this time. :)

Modigliani
Schiele