Great thread, Holly! I'm always curious about which work artists claim as 'favorite'. I also love hearing the back-stories, so look forward to watching this thread develop.
My emotional, long-time favorites are these two series, both completed during my early self-training in digital art. They are among the first digital pieces I sold in the real world, which was a great validation in a not-so-long-ago time when digital art was rarely even allowed in most shows and exhibitions.
For years, I thought of creating something based on Da Vinci's Flying Machines illustrations. Inspiration struck, unexpectedly, as I was looking through some photos I'd taken of an enormous, hard-working, Aermotor windmill.
The 'Antiquity's Gold' images took days of effort, but I knew they were special from the moment I began work on them. These (and several other variations of them) have been my most popular over the past decade, and have found homes on four continents. They've sold on every online site I've been part of -- except for FAA . . . so far. ;-)