The graphical image equivalent ofFanfic. Can be anything from parody to portraits, technical drawings to erotic indulgences.Chibi is a common form of these.

Most commonly sourced from animation (both North American cartoons andAnime), since by nature animated characters aredesigned to be easy to draw. People with an interest in visual arts are also more likely to be animation fans than most others.

As forlive action shows, it takes a certain level of artistic sophistication to depict real people with any degree of recognition. That doesn't stop anyone, however, and any visually interesting or unique show is likely to have some fan-made pieces floating around. Most often these areSpeculative Fiction shows, since most fan art based onnormal people is more about the actor or actress than the character. Then again, an entireYahoo! Group is dedicated to celebrity likenesses made with the Poser and FaceGen applications.

In Japan,Fan Art in manga form, from either anime or other manga, are calledDoujinshi. Technically,doujinshi can refer to all independently published manga, but to American anime fans it usually means a fan-made parody or erotica based on an existing work.

Of course, there's alwaysRule 34.

AndChibis.SometimesChibi Rule 34.

ManyWeb Comics (particularly ones with recurring characters and good quality artwork) have dedicated fan art galleries on their websites, with images ranging from single characters to full-blownguest strips that don't fit in thearchive.

See alsoCosplay Fan Art,Rule 63 (for characters drawn as the opposite gender),Side-Story Bonus Art (official art),Self Fanservice (whencanonically unattractive characters look better in theFan Art).

• SeeDeviantART for a large amount of Fan Art (as well as a wide range of original pieces). Beware, though --Sturgeon's Law very much applies. Searching people's favorite artwork galleries can help a lot in finding good work, even more if you share the same taste than those people. If you like someone's artwork, consider checking their "favs".
• For a different kind of fan art also seevgboxart, a site/community that focuses on the creation of Fan Art in the form of covers. It started as a site for video game boxes (hence the name), but now it can be described as generalentertainmentboxart as works vary from games to movies to books. All sorts ofCover Tropes apply for the fan work seen there, a lot of uploads are actually good, and a select few are much better than the official packaging seen in stores.
• As mentioned above, a lot of webcomics haveFan Art sections. For example,Gunnerkrigg Court,El Goonish Shive andZap!.
  • Casey and Andy, too.
  • TheWhateley Universe forums now have a fan art section, and some of that is links toDeviant ART pages.
  • Also, there is a section on theLooking for Group boards made forposting Fan Art - though it should be noted that there isa separate page for Fan Art feedback.
• Furaffinity has an entire category dedicated to "Sonic" art due to the enormous dump of Fanart.Sturgeon's Law applies liberally to this one.
  • Pokémon andDigimon have their own categories as well,with their ownNot Safe for Worksections.
• SomeImage Boards, like the dreaded4chan.
• The page image forRyu and Ken shows fanart of, well...Ryu And Ken.
• A notorious historical example was a couple ofSnow White fan-drawings found in an old cellar. They were found in Norway, dated to the late 30s, and were signed by a talented amateur artist called "Adolf H."...
  • Mr. H. apparently was amajor fan of Disney, and he drew a couple other works too.
• Ex-SNK artistFalcoon began his career at that company by drawing fan art for their various properties, such asThe King of Fighters andFatal Fury.
• The careers ofJim Lee andRob Liefeld both began with them being noticed for their detailed fan art.
• Avertedhard forCtrl+Alt+Del: A fan once made a little CGI movie using Tim Buckley's characters for a school assignment and Buckleythreatened him with a lawsuit because he wanted to save his artwork forThe Animated Series. Oddly, there was an earlier post from Buckley saying it's okay to make fanart... Naturally this only pushes theHatedom to new heights of hilarity (usually involving a"Loss Edit").
• Older Than Radio: The works ofWilliam Shakespeare have inspired art for hundreds of years, perhaps most famously Sir John Everett Millais' paintingOphelia.
• A remarkable amount forKim Possible, encompassingcrossovers, the KP cast in other roles,Kim and Ron in the future (in college, married, with kids, or just older) and alot of Kim andher nemesis Shego in alesbian relationship. Curiously, thoughRule 34 obviously applies, the last often tends toward beingcute rather than overtly sexual.
• There's a website called "Rule 34 - If it exists there IS porn of it".Guess what it's dedicated to. We're not going to link to it.
• Homestuck, naturally, has a ton of fan art but what makes it unique is that it also has fanmusic, enough for anentire (free!) unofficial album which is a fraction of Tindeck's Homestuck"genre".

• Trope
• Fan Art
• Fan Works
• Art Tropes
• Examples Need Sorting