My Inspiration folder and how I find all this crap

Here's a link to all the images i keep on my phone that many of you have seen:
Blake's Inspiration Images


I find most this via www.conceptart.org CGSociety Art Gallery Dominance War on places like conceptart.org I use the artist's handle and then do a google search for their blog or deviant art account. Once I have that I add the subscription to google reader which then allows me to see all crap in on place. (google reader will also suggest other people you can subscribe to)

there's also this place
http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/index.php
and
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/ (main forum) - yes it's 3d but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been 2d


there's also these people that I don't think are on the previous list

These 3 are all NCsoft employed - the makers of Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2
http://kekai.blogspot.com/
http://flaptraps.blogspot.com/
http://tinfoilgames.com/

Friend of Richard Anderson (Flaptrap)
http://ryandemita.blogspot.com/

Coolio Stuff

Here's a process shot of a painting by mr--jack:

Something worth noting is that he's using a hard edged brush - being all painterly and brush strokey pretty much necessitates it. If you don't it'll look muddy and or gooey.















you can see a whole bunch of his process shots here:
mr--jack process shots


*the above image was made and is owned by Luke Mancini (Mr--Jack)

neatness

I just stumbled on this and thought it was a worth linking here - it's a good example of how to make a gradient background not look retarded: