Larry Elmore gets a lot of shit for being one of the old-school cheesecake artists of Dungeons & Dragons, I tend towards old-school myself so I’ve always kind of liked him even with all those “chainkinis in the snow” type Dragon Magazine covers.
The Dragonlance books similarly get a lot of flack for being derivative (TSR certainly milked ‘em to death) but I gotta tell you when I was twelve and Laurana went from lovestruck elven princess to bad-ass warrior general facing impossible odds, I was pretty sure it was the best thing ever.