Imagined Realms Favorite 

Julie Dillon is a critically acclaimed illustrator, having been nominated and won multiple awards, including two Hugos and a Chesley. Her work often deals with science fiction and fantasy stories, and her work in the field has made her aware of the lack of diversity in this optimistic speculative fiction.

Why should all of the dwarves, elves, aliens, and space travelers all look like they are of European descent? Why does it seem more reasonable for a green skinned alien or purple skinned elf to exist in these worlds than a black or brown skinned human?

This is the driving motivation for her collection of works, Imagined Realms and Imagined Realms II: Earth and Sky. These books are a compilation of Julie Dillon's illustrations depicting characters of all races in these scifi and fantasy worlds.

Their strong lines of action and rich environments in every image make viewers yearning for more, coming up with stories about what is going on to fill the void that these images make viewers realize is so pervasive in scifi and fantasy media. The works are accompanied by brief stories, but even these are not enough to satisfy most viewers.

Both of these books were crowdfunded and raised more than 200% of their goals, demonstrating the public desire to see more diverse science fiction and fantasy works.