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Here's a rundown of my favorites over the years:
Sai - Takeshi Obata
My favorite manga artbook. Every picture is gorgeous.
Tsubasa: Album de Reproductions - CLAMP
My favorite shoujo artist. I love their style. It's pretty but still luxurious, edgy, and sexy.
Color Walk - Eichiro Oda
My favorite shounen artist. Simple pictures but full of life.
An Assassin and White Shaman [fixed] - Tsuchiya Kyoko
My guilty pleasure. I was a huge fan of the Weiss Kreuz series, cheesy as it was. The art in the anime may have been rubbish but the manga art was gorgeous. Pretty enough to be shoujo but funky and sleek enough to be shouenen. This was her self-published complete book of sketches for all the colored art she did for the series + her unpublished work.
X Shuuseigengashuu - Nobuteru Yuki
My first Yuki artbook. I loved the art in the anime and enjoyed the sketches so much I ended up hunting down as many of his artbooks I could find.
Top 5
5) Escaflowne 1 - Nobuteru Yuki
My favorite anime. This book includes sketches from the opening/ending which Yuki drew himself and character design/development/concept sketches that you can't find anywhere except this book. I had his Escaflowne 2 book as well but it was badly damaged during my 2nd move. The beautiful dust jacket got ripped. It hurt to see it like that so I had to toss it. I also lost my 1999- A Work of Clover that way. The cover ripped during my 1st move. Moral of the story: cover your most important books in plastic!
4) Seikendensetsu III - Nobuteru Yuki
My favorite Yuki book. It's his only hardcover doujinshi artbook with finished (i.e. not rough sketches) colored pictures.
3) Spheres I and II - Range Murata
My favorite Murata doujinshi artbooks. I was lucky enough to be at Katsucon in 2004 when Range Murata was the guest of honor. I brought 3 doujinshi artbooks for the autograph session. When it was my turn, I wasn't sure if he would sign all 3 but he seemed happy that someone from the US was a big enough fan to have his doujinshi artbooks so I got them all signed.
2) Like a Balance Life - Range Murata
It's the 1st edition 1997 version and I found it- wait for it...still wrapped in plastic! I couldn't believe it when I saw it in Mandarake. I still haven't opened it.
1) Tempao Second Edition - Range Murata
This was the other book Murata signed. As there was still time for autographs and there was no one left in line, I lined up again and asked him if he could draw Claus from Last Exile for me. I thought he would draw a small doodle but then he drew a large, 3/4 profile face of Claus. So unbelievably lucky that day!
That's my 10 years of artbook collecting in a nutshell. I'll probably put together a for sale post soon in the Marketplace section of the forums but I'm not *quite* ready for that just yet
. What I do know is that I want to find them good homes. I'd much rather sell them cheap to artbook fans that will appreciate them.