Something I've started to really notice recently is the slow but sure decrease in the usefulness of search engines. I'm not sure to what extent it's intentional on the part of search engine companies themselves and to what extent it's corporations and spammers putting their time and effort into adspace and SEO, but most searches these days result in you being funnelled towards the same couple of large mainstream websites (when searching for general interest topics or news) or towards legions of nearly-identical spam or borderline spam sites, bloated to fit in as many ads as possible (when searching for recipes, home repair, DIY stuff, etc). It's frustrating. So I thought I'd make an index of sites that I find to be mostly interesting and sometimes even useful. I'll add to this over time as I find more stuff. Lots of it will be art focused. If you come across a site that you think would fit in here, shoot me an email!
Skewed towards genre fiction illustration because that's what I'm into.
-Wayne Barlowe - Probably my favorite artist. I can't tell you how many hours I spent on this site in middle school. Still gets updates, albeit infrequently.
-Unoffical Frank Frazetta Gallery - The Master. I have extremely fond memories of browsing this site as a kid and I directly ripped some of the HTML from here to structure my own site galleries. If it ever goes down I'll die a little inside.
-Keith Thompson- Site hasn't been updated in years but it's good as ever. Keith still puts out art- you can find more recent works if you plumb the depths of the warframe wiki. He actually still responds to the email address listed here and I've had some very pleasant correspondence with him.
-Mark Zug- A supberb talent who deserves to be a household name (at least among SFF illustration nerds). If you're like me and were a kid in the early '00s you may be surprised at how many of Zug's pieces you recognize. I have distinct memories of his art gracing book covers in the new release section of my public library for many years. Seems to have retreated from the public eye since then.
-John Howe- The best Tolkien illustrator ever. I got my hands on one of his books as a kid, long before I ever read LOTR or watched the movies, thus forever skewing my perception of Middle Earth and making every adaptation a complete failure in my eyes when measured against Howe's work.
-AndroidArts- Long-running, eclectic website of Niklas Jansson. Galleries upon galleries of beautifully rendered concepts along with discussions of computer hardware that's completely unintelligble to the layman i.e. me. Arne's general art tutorial is, in my opinion, one of the best out there and certainly the best for so short a length.
-Alejandro Bruzzese- The website of my muse and spiritual compatriot Alejandro, one of my favorite contemporary artists.
-Gnarly Ghost- The incredible and incredibly versatile work of my buddy Drew Shields. A constant inspiration.
-Zak Eidsvoog- The website of the esteemed Burzok's Fanart Contest Winner.
-Gurney Journey- James Gurney's long-running, almost daily-updated blog about art and illustration. Hard to find someone who loves what they do more than Gurney.
-Rare Bill Watterson Art- I don't bring it up a ton, but I'm a HUGE Calvin and Hobbes / Bill Watterson fan. This collection of his obscure and weird art is endlessly fascinating to me.
-Unofficial Syd Mead Gallery- The most comprehensive gallery of Syd Mead's work I've ever found in one place online. I also recommend backing out of the Syd gallery and enjoying the rest of the flickr account as well. An invaluable and delightful resource on retrofuturism and 50s/60s swank aesthetics.
-John Berkey- Extremely comprehensive gallery of Berkey's phenomenal work. Shows off a lot of his non-spaceship paintings that you don't often see elsewhere.
-Sal Fontaine- Super cool, highly-stylized SFF work.
-Travis Charest- Great comics artist known especially for his work on Metabarons. God-tier inker.
-Guy Pradel- Awesome lineart focused SFF artist and all-around cool guy.
-Oscar Westberg- Fantasy artist with some of the tightest linework around and a bunch of cool comics to his name. Check him out!
-Derek Riley- Phenomenally evocative cartoonist as well as guitarist for Lancaster, PA's premier screamo outfit Leg Day. Formerly of Chalmers and French in Van
-Makoto Kobayashi- Thorough fan site of Makoto Kobayashi, artist best known for his distinctive, almost organic mecha and vehicle designs. It's also well worth it to watch his short, Moebius-inspired OVA, Dragon's Heaven.
-Manchu- Long-running blog of Philippe "Manchu" Bouchet, a prolific SFF illustrator who's half bandes dessinées, half Chris Foss
-Oliver Jones- Scotland-based classical portraitist/SFF painter/all-around cool guy.
-Zach Hazard Vaupen- Sci-fi horror artist working on illustrations, comics, TTRPGs, video games and who knows what else. Super unique style. Has his own cool newsletter!
-Grim Wilkins- Comic artist of Prophet: Earth War and Mirenda fame. Delightful colors and lines!
-Chinese Posters- A large and detailed collection of Chinese poster artwork from the early 1920s up to the present day.
-How to Draw: An /ic/ Guide- Yes, I used to go on 4chan. No, I don't recommend it. Yes, I still think this is an invaluable starting point.
-The W/ic/i- Old but still useful directory of myriad art resources.
-AndroidArts General Art Tutorial- Already mentioned it above, but I think it's worth mentioning it again because I really do think it's that good.
-Crtl+Paint- Everything I know about Photoshop/digital painting I learned from here. And quite a few other things. It still blows my mind how much quality instructive material on this site is offered completely for free. Constantly nervous that it's going to disappear one day, especially as activity seems to have fallen off in recent years.
-Perspective Made Easy- IMO the best and most useful treatise on artistic perspective ever written.
-CGPeers- Fantastic website for procuring art resources "heavily discounted."
-Spotify Adblocker- I urge you not to use this extremely useful browser addon to block ads that other adblockers won't block on spotify, as doing so would be highly illegal. Be warned, similar illegal software exists for just about any internet browser you can think of.
-Instagram Image Downloader- Does what it says on the box. Again, similar extensions exist for other browsers.
-Pinterest Board Randomizer- Really valuable tool if you use pinterest and have boards with a lot of entries. Lets you view a randomized shuffle of all the pins in one or more of your boards so you can can get re-inspired by stumbling across old things you've saved.
-Low-Tech Magazine- Technoskepticism. Probably my favorite website. Reading through it was pretty transformative for me, but your mileage may vary.
-Simplifier- One man's documentation of his experiences with and methods for tinkering with simple technologies. Highly engaging.
-Lego@Hafhead.com- My favorite Lego website as a kid and one of the few (maybe only?) personal lego websites from that era that still exists. I find it charming.
-Techstory.RU- Gallery of cool/weird Soviet construction equipment
-The Dead Media Project- A compilation of obsolete and forgotten communication technologies. Fairly comprehensive and highly engaging.
-Unusual Locomotion- An difficult-to-navigate yet detailed overview of unconventional offroad vehicles and locomotive technologies. Click around and you're guaranteed to find something cool!
-Weird Mission Patches from Classified US Military Operations- I won't vouch for the veracity of any information on this site because I'm pretty sure it's all just conspiracy theory stuff. I forget how I even found this but I bookmarked it and now I'm sharing it with you. Just some real weird/cool military patches.
