Pictures that changed your life

[Aaron_]

So this is a black hole. The idea that something can be extremely massive and incredibly small in space is just so damn amazing. I can't even wrap my head around some of the higher theories of physics, like string theory, or spacetime theory or quantum physics in general. But it's still awe-inspiring to read them. The universe is so fucking weird!

[Lady Medusa]

Canaletto


Bosch


Da Vinci


Caravaggio

If we're also talking non-artisticly:
As a kid I saw a picture of an anorexian woman in a magazine. I had nightmars for a solid month. Ever since that I've been phobic of loosing weight and freaked out every time people referred people being bony.

[Choob]

The poster that came with Halo 3, a piece called "Chief and Arbiter" by Ash Wood was what made me look up game art, concept art, and eventually decide to become an artist. There's no good pictures of it online strangely.

[bcarman]

James Flournoy Holmes

[Velocity Kendall]

bill that reminds me of the insert to one of my favourite albums from my adolescence,
i stared at it for hours thinking A how much fun painting and drawing looked, and B how much fun getting off ones mash in a field looked. right on both counts in turned out.



this comic, called The Lesson is Learned but The Damage is Irreversible made me like comics way more than Smilin's Stan Lee ever did

[Toriknew]

These are the images that kind of spurred me to improve my art?

This was the first image basically I saw and admired on deviantART. I had trouble thinking how I could ever achieve this level of art and detail. Looking at it now I guess it's still a nice picture, but I guess I don't see it in the same way I did back then.
Same with this pic


I got most of my inspiration to draw from webcomics I guess, like DMFA and Gunnerkrigg Court




Now I guess I'm not exactly keen on "famous" pieces of art or classical art, which is something I need to look further in, but I do have pieces of art that really struck me.

[OldJake666]

I think this illustrator is awesome but I forget his/her name. Can you refresh my memory?

This picture has always stuck with me:

[Toriknew]

I think this illustrator is awesome but I forget his/her name. Can you refresh my memory?

Sure, that would be kidchan on deviantART he/she's not very active on there anymore, however they do have a regularly updated tumblr, I think

[dennis.k]

I always had a thing for Surrealism










Space images also were a great inspiration for me. Just look at this. A millions of lightyears big space rose!

[hu-ha]

Pavel Sokov You're right, painting by Ilya Repin

Some I can think about now (Dix, Beksinski, Kugach, Vereshchagin, Deineka)

[Max Challie]

This image is what brought me here in the first place. I saw it on the cover of a gaming mag and, mind blown, decided to google "Guild Wars Concept art" and landed in a place where i was pretty sure i had also found Aleksi's spawn image in 2004; CA.org It was a time of some pretty potent positive brain damage.

Thank you Kekai !

[Tommydervan]

Which ones really rocked your world?

here are some of mine

The gummo one... that is just an amazing movie when it comes to cinematography. And that kids voice... Love it

[Raoul Duke]

I used to think Rockwell's art was a delusional representation of "the good ol days", but these images proved me wrong and won me over.

[Kjesta]

OMFG that is BEAUTIFUL. Is it Doctor Who fanart? (I know nothing about Doctor Who, but I think I've seen the bowtie before.)

I was always more of a literatarure nerd kind of kid so my most profound inspirations back then were writers, but the W.I.T.C.H. comics (at least the original illustrations by Alessandro Barbucci) always struck a chord with me, trivial as they may be. That whole series just rocked my "needs more girls kicking ass" little world.



Also, anything by Mucha but particularly "Princezna Hyacinta". The way she holds that flat-looking, graphic circle design like it's a three-dimensional object is still influencing my visions for my own art, even if I don't show anyone my horrible experiments :p



When I was at the Prado in Madrid, I saw this one. You step out of the elevator and BAM! it's on the opposite wall, taking up 9.5 fucking metres, the entire wall, and I just stood there stunned into silence and actually had to wipe away a tear. Still don't know why, it's not a style I'm usually into.



Also at the Prado, "Isabella II, veiled." It's a marble bust and you can't comprehend how amazing it is until you see it up close. It's solid fucking marble and it looks like there's a woman just behind that thin veil.

[JakehC]

I wouldnt be here today without Amano

[Venger]

To be completely mercenary - the pictures that have changed my life the most:




That and the simple fact that people would give me those in return for my art…

[CLANLESS]

It seems a lot of science/space related art affects people.
Science fiction covers are generally amazing.



And everything from Syd Mead and Christian Lassen. Everything.

[Vay]

The pictures that gave me a general goal for my life are in the Hayao Miyazaki films. I decided I would become an animator after watching it. Then I decided I would start writing stories on my own and drawing the characters. Then I decided I would get an academic degree instead of an art degree to help me write those stories, while can learn drawing on my own.

It was also the Studio Ghibli or Hayao Miyazaki films that made me start my first watercolor paintings and to draw more.

The pictures of galaxies rocked me a little, but it came gradually instead of suddenly. I had learned about the universe before seeing the picture, so the picture didn't come at a big surprise, but it allowed me to further admire the beauty of the reality we live in.

The picture did made me realize again the insignificance of humanity, and that life, intelligent or non-intelligent, should be cherished not only for personal reasons, but also for its factual preciousness and rarity of existence, which is present before you and that is you yourself. It gives you one more reason to live when I feel like I have nothing to live for; it reminded me to embrace my rarity and acknowledge how lucky I am to be where I am now(this speaks from a free will perspective, that events are not determined but is due to possibility and probability). Thinking about this, sometimes I can't help but feel like I am a main character in the story of this universe, which is due to the fact that I am only conscious of my own thoughts.

[Velocity Kendall]

vay What a great post,
and amazing images above.

[Featheredface]

Posting in this thread again.

I absolutely agree with the images of our planet and galaxies being posted as well. Absolutely gorgeous, and eye opening. As much as I hate portions of humanity, sometimes, for all the sickening and violent and depressing stories that come from our very own acts, I often forget the beauty that we as a race hold, and create. For every violent, greedy and malicious individual, we have those who legitemately try to make life worth living, and share their;- the human's races', collective ability, to understand.

I look at our rich history of art and culture and literature and progression. And in these moments, I'm happy to be a person on this planet.

I'm gonna end my ramble and post more of my favourite paintings now;

[henri]

i used to draw this everywhere, including walls, at ages 11-12. some of my tags still existed a couple of years ago, but have been painted over now.

[Sir_E_Pent]

Just a few, but not many... The lips are a plenty...

PS.
My face rocks the world everyday....

[Sir_E_Pent]

M. C. Esher... most insperational...

[Raoul Duke]

i used to draw this everywhere, including walls, at ages 11-12. some of my tags still existed a couple of years ago, but have been painted over now.

Something about that Wu-Tang emblem really sticks in your head. It looks like their music sounds.

[LAG]

[Hamsta]

Umm... I think Cry For Dawn 4 was the first Linsner cover I saw.
This inspired me to find the rest of the Dawn covers back when the internet was still in it's infancy, and I began to copy them.
I also printed them all out until the colors started looking strange because I had run out of ink, and I pasted all these covers on the walls of my dorm room.
This resulted in the Israeli Air Force base commander calling me into the office, and asking me if I was a Satanist...



...I was just horny. Also, I have never read any of his comics. I hear they are boring.

[tobbA]

This is probably what introduced me into "fantasy art" in the first place



And this:

[Black Spot]

I saw this picture by Swerts at an exhibition and fell in love with it. This is the only pic I could find on the net.

[blogmatix]

I saw this picture by Swerts at an exhibition and fell in love with it. This is the only pic I could find on the net.

It's titled "Boy in a turban," and it is by Michael (or more accurately, Michiel) Sweerts (not Swerts). There is a good reproduction here:

http://pharaohs-tutankhamun.blogspot...y-1656-58.html

and a larger sized one here:

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...62571347_n.jpg

[bodied]

Does anyone remember the episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Squidward goes to the future?



Okay, this is going to sound weird, but when this episode came out, I was probably 9 or 10, and it was really the first time in which I sort of contemplated the state of non-existence. When Squidward is walking in the void, completely and utterly alone, it sort of forced 9 year old me to admit the concept of no longer "being" in a physical sense. Obviously I didn't realize the total implication of that as a 9 year old, but it's beginning to crop up again. Lately I have been thinking about what it means to exist in a state of continuous history (i.e. thinking about time as slices in a loaf of bread, to paraphrase Brian Greene) and it suddenly struck me that the austerity of this episode might have been one of the earliest instances in which those thoughts occurred to me. It's not necessarily death that I am speaking of - although death could be used as a medium into this intangibility. It's kind of like wondering whether or not an essential "you" can exist outside of a body. I'm not religious, so I hate to label it as a soul...but sort of. That episode, along with 2001: A Space Odyssey and HG Welles' The Time Machine, has also influenced my thought process on the evolution of the human mind (into something intangible perhaps? into a singularity of knowledge?).

So...Spongebob changed my life...?