Wheel of Time - Lord of Chaos Painting by Greg Manchess

Hobbit paintings by Justin Gerard

Justin Gerard is an illustrator I had not heard of before I came across his blog where he has some fantastic paintings illustrating the Hobbit. He works on paper with watercolours and then continues the pieces digitally. I think he manages to get the best of both techniques this way when you see the great results.
He has posted the process of the Battle of the Five armies and explains why this scene is so exciting to paint. If you are a Tolkien fan like me you must see these paintings and even if you're not they're still stunning.
There is also an interview on the excellent Tor Sf and fantasy site.

Create a Cute Vector Monster from a Pencil Sketch

Blog.spoon grahics has a quite detailed tutorial on creating a character from scratch using vectors. It's well explained even for those who haven't much experience drawing with vectors. When you've made a monster you can then learn how to create a scene to put it in. They use Adobe Illustrator for this one. I aslo quite like to use Flash to draw with, but if you have a tight budget and prefer free software you can also use Inkscape

Dan Blomberg

Dan Blomberg is a concept artist who lives in Spain. His sketchy style and vibrant colours remind me of Goro Fujita and Craig Mullins. There are some fantastic images on his website, and be sure to visit the sketches section.

Making fairy tales on Youtube

Pj Lynch is an Irish illustrator who has an interesting Youtube channel. I especially liked watching 'Making fairy tales part 2', in this video he shows us how he paints a very nice fire -breathing dragon, from the sketch to the final watercolor.

Friday Eve

Steve James is a texture and concept artist in the video game industry. His blog is Friday Eve, he has lots of great portraits and other art on there, and seems to have a thing about shoes! This one called Captain ahab is my favorite.

Nic Klein

Domo Arigato mr Roboto

There are some great illustrations and paintings on Nic klein's website. I really like his style, good old fashioned illustration mixed with comics and a very personal twist.

Ken Wong

I love this guy's work, his website is well worth a visit. His work is really inventive and original, be sure not to miss the Illustration and Character design sections.