art

If you want to get better at something, you've got to practice, practice, practice. Adam Thompson wanted to improve his Adobe Illustrator chops, so he gave himself a fun task to do: illustrate one superhero a day in Illustrator for 50 days. He learned a few new tricks, and came out with a fun set of heroic illustrations.

It's easy to get a bit of tonal whiplash while perusing Nicolas Nemiri's art blog. On the one hand, he draws gigantic, tattooed men who look like they could easily crush everyone else on the page. His women run the gamut from fashion plates to spacefaring adventurers to a gal being pleasured by an octopus. And interspersed are the illustrations featuring sleeping babes, kind-hearted kids and schoo

I will admit that I am a total sucker for science fiction folk art, probably thanks to a childhood spent perusing my mother's Grandma Moses books while watching episodes of Deep Space Nine. And Motohiro Hayakawa has created a veritable Bayeux Tapestry of pyramid-faced warriors, headless executioners, raygun marksmen and swords that far outweigh their wielders.

Marian Churchland loves a lot of things: pastries, epic video games, uncut gemstones, impeccably structured jackets, marmalade, practical shoes, and fine chocolates. And she catalogues these loves—especially the things she truly covets—in lists that are magical even when they don't contain hints of fantasy.

Always thought politicians were monsters? In one of Mike Freiheit's politically themed illustrations, he draws the members of the 2012 US presidential tickets as classic movie monsters. (Although Joe Biden looks less like the Wolfman than Michael J. Fox's dad in Teen Wolf, which is pretty perfect.) His editorial and personal illustrations take us into the gladiator's ring with Democrats and Republ

There's a reason that Frank Stockton receives illustration commissions from folks like Entertainment Weekly, the New Yorker, Esquire, Mondo, IDW and Fantagraphics. He has a reverent sense of other people's properties, a luminous sense of color and an ability to construct scenes that are crowded but never overly busy.

Stephen Maurice Graham creates incredibly playful illustrations that sometimes contain blood and guts and bones. His monstrous sorority girls and tigers hungry for human flesh sit side-by-side with predictions about the future of Dublin. It's a crazy, primary colored science fiction dream.

Many artists imagine themselves drawing the cover illustration for the New Yorker, but Carolyn Presti has actually mocked up a few covers with New York-themed images. She's also put her own spin on covers for the Harry Potter books, an imagined biography of author Italo Calvino and Ray Bradbury's classic short story "All Summer in a Day."

Justin Volz creates moody illustrations perfect for portraits of a particularly weary Walter White, Cubone (the world's saddest Pokémon) and Robb Stark as the King in the North (with Grey Wind looming behind). But there are also shades of humor in his illustrations, such as his stark drawing focusing on John McClane's sliced-up feet and Ghost Rider posed as a figure drawing model.

Paul Windle has done editorial illustrations about economic disparity, elections, New York cultural landmarks and our relationship with Abraham Lincoln. But credits in Bloomberg, Businessweek and the New York Times don't mean he can't sketch up a Stegosaurus wielding a sword while riding a skateboard or revel in the facial hair of baseball players from the mid- to late-1970s.