My inspiration
Books, books, so many books.
I read books constantly growing up, my parents read every night and I loved the Fantasy and Sci-Fi novels my Dad read. At one point I had to build a huge set of shelves to hold them all as they numbered in the several hundreds. They had such amazing artwork on the covers, some depicted scenes from the stories, some where created long before the novels themselves. My favorite covers tended to be by certain artists; I could tell their style and always sought out the signature or symbol hidden in the image.
Michael Whelan
My first Whelan cover was on an Elric of Melniboné novel from the 70's. It was a worn and dog eared hand me down from my dad. It wasn't too thick a book, so it appealed to me at the time.
His art appeared on many book and magazine covers while I was growing up. By picking up those books with his distinctive MW logo hidden secretly somewhere I became introduced to so many wonderful writers. Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series, so many Robert A. Heinlein novels, of course the DAW editions of Michael Moorcock's Elric books and even H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy novels.
Darrell K Sweet
A Hugo award
nominated artist who’s art was front and center on the most
influential works of that time. His art introduced me to the
psychedelic mind of Philip K. Dick with The Martin Time Slip, still
the freakiest reading experience of my life. Robert Jordans lengthy
epic Wheel of Time series, Piers Anthony's incredible seemingly
never-ending Xanth series, Robert A. Heinleins amazing youth series
of novels such as Tunnel in the Sky, Anne McCaffreys Dinosaur
Planet, Jack L. Chalkers Well of Souls series which was one of my
fathers favorites, and of course every growing nerds Magnum Opus J.
R. R. Tolkiens world changing Ring series.