Carol Phillips' "Sacred Pool" and "Turquoise"

Click thumbnails to visit artist's site.

Acaciathorn's "Modern Texcatlipoca" and "The Walls of Jericho"

Raj Ravi Varma's "Rama Conquers Varuna" and "Urashi and Pururava"

Click on thumbnails to view images on wikipedia:

Left: Prince Rama confronts Varuna, Lord of the Oceans. Read this episode from the Ramayana on Wikipedia.

Right: Pururava, a mortal king of the Lunar Dynasty, and Urvashi, a celestial maiden. Read this tale on godandguru.com.

Todd Lockwood's "The Lone Drow" and "Two Swords"

Included in Spectrum 11: The Best In Contemporary Fantastic Art.

Click on thumbnails to visit images on artist's site.

Charlene Le Scanff 's Cathair Mundi

Click thumbnails to view images in artist's gallery.

Mai El Shoush's "Drawn"

Journalist Mai El Shoush created her own graphic novel "Drawn" in response to the excess of objectified, largely decorative female characters in contemporary comics. El Shoush's heroine Rayann Lawsonia (the binomial name for the henna tree is Lawsonia inermis) receives her superpowers from a mystical henna drawing.

Drawn was released by Jabal Entertainment in 2013.

More info:

• "Drawn" preview and interview with Mai El Shoush on PRI
• "Drawn" on Facebook
• 'I created an Arab comic book heroine'

Jim Pavelec's Ameyanda

Jim Pavelec's illustration of the huntress Ameyanda in Chapter 1: Death, Debt, Doubt of  "Hell or High Water" , a Pathfinder Tale for Paizo's Pathfinder RPG.