I struggled to come up with a topic for Fan Art Friday this week. I spent a long time flipping through my art collection, mulling over all the ideas tucked away in the back of my mind, but nothing I could think of sat right with me. Finally, I realized my problem--no matter what topic I picked, I always found myself falling back on the same artists. My undying love of ~solitarium, *fee-absinthe, ~Forbis, *RoseMuse, and the many other cornerstones of the Wheel of Time fan art community aside (some of whom I've featured many times before, some of whom are still waiting in the wings), I finally had to face my fear that the world of Wheel of Time fan art just wasn't big enough to warrant a weekly post.

Discomfited, I did what any self-respecting scientist would do. I went looking for evidence that I was wrong. I looked past the most well known and prolific Wheel of Time artists, focusing my attention instead on the nomads of the fan art world, the devious denizens of the doodle-and-dash.

For the next three weeks, I've decided to push the boundaries of my role as a curator of Wheel of TIme art in order to demonstrate the surprising breadth and staggering talent of the Wheel of Time art community. For each artist, works on the top are inspired by Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time. Works below are original works (or fan works for other series) by the same artist. I hope you are as amazed by this hidden wealth of talent as I was.

Note that, while many of these artists are professionals, none of them (to the best of my knowledge) are officially licensed Wheel of Time artists.

1. ~Mudora

Above (Wheel of Time): Rand and Mat Sketches

Below (original work): We Are the Secret Books

2. Paul Duffield (deviantART gallery: ~spoonbard, online portfolio)

(This week he posted a beautiful painting of Rand and the girls called "Distractions Outside the Void." It's rated R for full frontal nudity though. Consider yourself warned!)

Above (Wheel of Time): Twice, the Heron

Below (commission for a multi-media fiction called Runaway Girl Army): Die Database

3. ~Lorrain

Above (Wheel of Time): WoT 6 (Egwene and Graendal)

Below (original work): Rest

4. ~Stuuuuu (online portfolio)

Above (Wheel of Time): Bain and Chiad

Below (original work): Ambush

5. Michelle Tolo (~Manweri)

(Okay, so her art is actually very well known in the Wheel of Time fan community. But I couldn't resist featuring her non-Wheel of Time art anyway!)

Above (Wheel of Time): WoT: Ta'veren

Below (original work): Quest for the Dragon Treasure