Artists who can provide drawing inspiration seem to be harder to find. It isn't so much that they don't exist, more that there seems to be a bias towards paintings in museums and media. I've found a couple of sources that get around this. One is finding artist sketchbooks and books of artist's preliminary studies. I find these interesting on several levels. You get to see paintings as a drawing / sketch and see how they developed. Oftentimes they also include ideas that didn't make it into the final work, some sketches are significantly different from the final. These usually include some fairly rough unfinished work as well, and these can give some insight into the artist's thought / work process. I found a book of Edward Hopper drawings (simply called Hopper Drawings). Hopper is mostly known as a painter of urban scenes. Nighthawks is probably his best known painting. So here is this artist known for his paintings that I would never have looked to for drawing inspiration but then I found this small book full of great sketches, doodles, life drawing work, and layout work for some of his paintings. It was dirt cheap at a used book store. The 1850s-1920s or so is another good place to look for artists, as etching and line drawing was popular for publication. Media began shifting to full color work in the 1930s. There are some big names like Howard Pyle and Arthur Rackham, but there were many lesser known artists working. Comics and cartoons is another place to look. There is a wide variety from realistic style to, well not at all realistic. I see no reason not to look at tattoo art if that appeals to you. There have been a couple of students in the art classes I've taken at the college who are tattooists trying to expand their range. They seem to have a similar issue as the students who like to do cartooning. That is they are used to doing lots of linework in their drawings. When we do exercises focused on working from the inside out, lost edges, drawing negative space etc, exercises meant to get away from lining everything, they have to fight against their urge to make lines. Just something to watch out if using that kind of artwork for inspiration. I don't know how to leave a link, but there is a youtuber Pete Beard who has made a couple hundred videos on illustrators, including a series of "unsung heroes of illustration" where he covers some of the lesser known or forgotten. Most of his videos are 10-30 minutes long, and very heavy on artwork. I've found this a great way to discover new (to me) artists.

So they talk about being able to see pitfalls of certain art parents... Anyone able to articulate the pitfalls of Jim Lee? I was always a fan as a kid. Now I see what I liked about it, but can't place what it is I don't.

Hey Tim! It's called a museum haha. Almost every major city has one. I'm sure your local art museum would love to have you come visit. Take an afternoon to have a walk through it and you'll get plenty names to look up. There are tons of museums that also have great websites that show off their collections. The Met is one of my favorites, as they have many high-resolution images of seriously famous works. Just have a browse and see what catches your eye. I always find new art parents in museums. For contemporary work, swinging around your local art galleries (and their websites) is a fine way to connect with current artists, especially local ones. You can get an idea of your local art market, too. See what's selling/popular. Gallery people also love to talk about art. It's their job, after all! Ask them who their favorite artists are, who they admire the most, so you can check new names that way, too. There's always wherever you get your books. I love physical books, so book stores and libraries are my personal choice, but Amazon or whatever is good. Books on historical art movements or collections of famous artists' works are a great way to discover art parents. Finally, you can ask around here, too. I've found quite a few artists I now love just through conversations with people in the Proko community. The best resource I've come across for this kind of stuff is, well, talking to artists. Hang around long enough and people will start dropping names. And the Tom Waits of the drawing world? Haha, I love that. Check our Thomas Fluharty. He's got that kind of old-school 70s art teacher vibe. You know, the one that comes into class smelling mysteriously of certain smokeable plants haha. Got a similar energy to the man in black, I think, haha. Have fun! Good luck!