My roommate's all-time favorite artist is painter and printmaker Yoshitaka Amano. He's famous for having done character illustrations for many of the Final Fantasy games [all of them I believe, though he only did character designs for the most recent ones] as well as for Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and the Vampire Hunter D novels. He works with lithographs, watercolor, oils and acrylics. He also designs kimono.
Right now, I'm using his graphic series of Goldfish Women for a project in my VisComm class. The women's gowns are transformed into waves and water, and the women themselves are surrounded by and enchanted with goldfish that swim through the "air" on the paper surrounding them. They're gorgeous pieces, though very difficult to find online since they aren't associated with any of his huge, popular bodies of work.
