Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Deidara
Content Notes/Warnings: smoking, blood, injury, insects, drugs
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: evartandadam | invisibleninja12 | イーヴァ on pixiv
Why this piece is awesome: This piece reimagines Deidara in the modern world - as a graffiti artist, which I think works really well with his canonical destructive artistic tendencies. I rather like this artist's clean, sharp lines, and in this particular picture I absolutely adore her design of Deidara, the bright colours saturating the whole picture, and the really elaborate detailing of the background graffiti, the shirt, and the tattoos.
Link: on tumblr | on deviantart | on pixiv

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Hidan/Kakuzu
Content Notes/Warnings: male nudity, explicit sexual situations, alcohol, violence, blood, gore, death, dark/horror elements
Medium: Pencil, ink, copic pens
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: hoppspindel | hoppspindel | immortal-assholes (just KakuHida fanart)
Why this piece is awesome: I honestly have a hard time articulating reasons for reccing this piece, as it is one of my favourite doujinshis ever and I have overwhelming feels about it. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to formulate some sense-making rec! This is a comic about the slowly developing relationship of Kakuzu and Hidan from their canon platonic partnership into a sexual and romantic relationship. It starts after their canonic "death" and thus could technically fit seamlessly into canon. The first chapter, in black & white, is 72 pages, while the second chapter, in colour, is 64 pages. So really lots to sink your teeth in!

On the less artsy side of things, I really appreciate that the author/artist got their characters write - they bitch and moan at each other and fight a lot, but they also do actually clearly value and appreciate each other. And unlike a lot of authors of this pairing, they don't woobify the characters or really emphasize the (barely canonical) height and power difference. Plus, it's finished! A finished comic! IDK, I think that's super cool.

On the more artsy side, I really admire the way the artist consistently managed to keep the panels interesting and have lots of different expressions for the characters while still managing to make them look like themselves. Plus, character and background actually look like they're part of the same world rather than separate layers of picture pasted onto each other. While the characters very occasionally look a little wonky, the art is solid from the start and only improves over the course of the comic, which is something I always love seeing. The first chapter, in black-and-white pencil shading, is already super cool - the artist manages to convey a lot of depth and variation in colour just through that. The second chapter, in colour, is occasionally absolutely visually stunning (the autumn panels!), and always high quality.

If you can handle the warnings above, and if you know the characters or don't mind reading up on them or being a little lost at first (I don't think canon knowledge is strictly necessary to read and understand the comic, since it takes place pretty much entirely removed from canon events and the two main characters occasionally seem very much in their own little world of two), I highly recommend checking out this comic.
Link: reasonch1 (Chapter 1) & reasonch2 (Chapter 2). Both tumblr blogs have a link in the first or second post where you can read the comic chronologically, but I wanted to link to the tumblrs themselves as the first few posts also contain summaries and ratings and such.

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Haruno Sakura
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: jam-art
Why this piece is awesome: This is an absolutely gorgeous portrait of Sakura in an AU where both Sasuke and Naruto died and she became Hokage. I love the soft colours and the way the cloak and hair flutter in the breeze. And there's something I really love about the artist's shading technique.
Link: 15 Years After on tumblr (If that link breaks, I have also reblogged it here.)

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Sabaku no Gaara/Uzumaki Naruto
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital
Artist on DW/LJ: kosmonauttihai
Artist Website/Gallery: on pixiv | kosmonauttihai | artist website | original art tag on tumblr | fanart tag on tumblr | art ship ask tumblr: ask-narugaa
Why this piece is awesome: This is one of my favourite artists and definitely my favourite NaruGaa artist. It took me a long time to decide on which piece of art to rec here, but in the end I settled on this. (Either way you should definitely check out the rest of the ask blog and also their art tags if you're so inclined!) I really like the black and white shading of the comic, and the topic of the comic - a short chance to catch up after Naruto and Co. save Gaara from the Akatsuki at the beginning of Shippuuden - is adorable. Most of all, though, I adore expressions in this comic - the excitement and the tenderness and the surprise - and also the style of the characters - the artist has taken the canon characters and reinterpreted them in their own style and I think it works fantastically well and makes the characters five times more endearing to me.
Link: on tumblr

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Akasuna no Sasori, 3rd Kazekage puppet
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: kuroi-okayu
Why this piece is awesome: For some reason I really love Sasori's expression in this. And I like the general composition and the focus on his puppeteering and his role in the Akatsuki.
Link: on tumblr (if that link breaks, I have reblogged it here.)

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Ame Orphans (Konan, Nagato, Yahiko)
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: watercolour
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: umaken
Why this piece is awesome: Watercolour takes a lot of skill, and this is really well done. I like the subtle differences in their expressions and most especially the reflections in the water.
Link: on deviantart

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Uchiha Itachi, OC
Content Notes/Warnings: blood, blades, crows
Medium: digital
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: Orcagirl2001 | nekkyousagiart | ATJartworks | The Art of Allyson Tierney Jones (personal website)
Why this piece is awesome: I utterly love the woodblock print-inspired art style and the efforts to make the ninjas look more like they might have been part of this world's history. I love the entire series, but this piece is my favourite.
Link: on deviantart

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Kakuzu
Content Notes/Warnings: creepiness, body horror
Medium: digital
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: WermoongRey
Why this piece is awesome: I love how creepy Kakuzu comes across in this picture, what with the emerging from darkness and the single red eye and the stitched-together mouth. It's an angle on Kakuzu that's rarely seen in fic and fanart, but one that I think really fits to the character.
Link: on deviantart

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Kisame
Content Notes/Warnings: half-dressed male?
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: red-sakura
Why this piece is awesome: I love the inclusion of/inspiration drawn from classical Japanese art here. And the hair is great!
Link: on deviantart

Fandom: Naruto
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Tayuya
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: NA
Artist Website/Gallery: driimr
Why this piece is awesome: I love the colours and the textures the artist used, and Tayuya's expression is great too.
Link: on tumblr (if the link breaks, I have also reblogged it here.)