When I was a kid, pre-Star Wars, an illustrator captured my imagination and made me fall in love with what pictures could do. That illustrator was John Berkey. 

I'd forgotten about him until I saw one of his images today. While he worked with only brushes and paint, this guy had it going on. I was disappointed to discover that he'd died in 2008. 

But, seeing his work once more, it makes simply want to make cool images all over again:

http://conceptartworld.com/?p=113