graphite & wacom from march08 to feb10

[Liam Harvey]

those last ones? they are top notch impressive stuff.

[voraz]

Hi Luness fantastic work you've been posting.
Keep it up.
cheers

[Moai]

Happy holidays!

[Redlynar]

Nice characters, it cool to see someone using a lot of different angles and views, it adds a lot of depth to the characters. Over all the pieces really work as a body, and that should be encouraging if you are applying for positions. One question though is what you think about your work in conjunction with Aaron St. Goddard's work. There are some striking similarities between you and him in regards to creature design, but I'm sure you're aware of his stuff. Again, nice views, and best of luck on the portfolio preparations(very exhausting and anxiety inducing).

[Adrian Wilkins]

okay, I've just saved a bunch of your stuff on my hard disk, thi is just fucktarded rad...I love your sense for design!

[UsagiYokai]

Let me just say I'm extremely picky about pieces I like but all of your work absolutely fascinates me!!! I really adore your style, something about it just jingles my bell. Keep up the awesome work and I hope to see more!

[mosavar]

very good!

[farscry]

Awesome work Luness...I saw your stuff in ImagineFX and then came to check this out - its fantastic, incredibly inspiring.

But guys, this isn't all - check out Luness' link to Photobucket - there is just so much more of his amazing work there too...

Keep posting Luness.

[luness]

Hello Hello!

My computer wouldn’t end 2008 without giving me a final major headache. I had enough with that so I got brand new components. Now I’m able to post some stuff I’ve done during the past two weeks.

andyhunt – haha, thanks man! Come by anytime

retardedmonkey – thank you! I will do more architectural props, perhaps with some SketchUp

nellement – thanks a lot!

Moai – thank you man! I’ll keep trying to refine my digital line art

`ej – thank you! I’m glad you like them

ashess – thank you! For me it’s ok if the character/creature is standing on a ¾ pose on a flat ground. Right now, I focus more on design instead of composition. I’m saving more posing, functionality, mouth charts, detailed props, etc for later, once I chose which designs to include on my final portfolio. For the moment it’s all about the design with some stationary or dynamic pose with a easy-to-read silhouette. I’m glad you enjoyed the buildup of the characters!

hunchbackmagee – I wanted to stop on that flat look on purpose, but it’s a good idea I'll keep in mind! Thank you!

grenappels – thank you!

MeTaL-Mike – haha, thanks man! Cheers!

DeKal – I’m glad you enjoy my stuff. Thank you for passing by!

iatriki – thank you!

vlad74 – thank you for the kind words

Gerbil Fetus – thank you!

voraz – thanks a lot!

Redlynar – thanks for stopping by and for the encouraging words! About Aaron St. Goddard's work, I checked his site and honestly, I couldn’t find “striking” similarities within our creature designs. Perhaps we make a similar interpretation of the different inspiration sources we could have, which in my case is music, horror movies, documentaries, Wikipedia, sites about oddities and curiosities of our society, nature, among many other; so then it might be possible to find similar elements in our designs. Anyways, it is somewhat a compliment because he is a talented artist, so thank you!

Hygami – hahaha. Thank you!

UsagiYokai – it feels great when someone says things like the ones you said about my work. Thanks so much.

mosavar – thank you!

farscry – thank you! I’m still trying to process the ImagineFX feature thing because honestly, it caught me by surprise. What an honour. What a great way to start this year. I haven’t checked the magazine yet (my copy is still on transit) but I’m very happy and excited and inspired anyways! And thanks for advertising my Photobucket account, haha, it has such a low rate of visitors.


So, posting time.
Some WIP of birdy diplomats, then some line art of desert creatures partially inspired on the star-nosed mole, and finally, after a long time of no pencil sketching, three character/creature designs I did last weekend, based on folklore and mythology around the world. Descriptions will come with the final rendered pieces. I hope you like them.

Anyways, have a great year everybody, starting today!

[meticulous]

Daaaamn - very very impressive stuff - Really enjoyed staring at your characters. Great imagination (and thanks for showing some of your process!)
Keep em coming!

[luismbf]

Your work is really very inspiring. Thanks for sharing it with us
Congrats on the linework

[JellevdVegt]

hey lunness, i really dig your stuff. creatures seem to have your most interest. but i have some tips, where i think your sketches could be even stronger...

i looked through your sb and your most strong point is your imaginativeness. you pull off some sick creatures... weird stuff the 'weirdness' of a creature could be reinforced if you keep a part of the creature somewhat realistic, something we can relate to.. so, what i would suggest is more life/photo studies.. if you would mix realistic stuff with weirdnes, your design will become even stronger i think... well, seewhat you'll do with it...

cheers

[JanushZygmunt]

GREAT! \m/

[comixnut]

bookmarked

[luness]

meticulous – thanks so much for stopping by!

luismbf – thank you man!

Teh Gosu – thank you! Well, yeah, creatures are on my top favorites to design, although I enjoy designing characters and weapons as well. One thing though, I do start with life and photo studies before designing (for textures, anatomy, poses, etc), it’s just that for some of my pieces I prefer to push a bit further, as design exercises sort of thing, and because of the fantastic and otherworldly nature of them. Actually, after plenty of revisions, I just finished a list of designs to do and there are some that will fit perfectly your suggestion, so I hope to have you around for critiques!

JanushZygmunt & comixnut – thank you guys!!


So, some new stuff I’m working on:
Dragons and monster serpents heads, based on turtles, wolves and a bunch of stuff in between. I will be sketching bodies and then I’ll pick up a few and develop each design with orthos and such. I did these while watching a romantic flick. How weird.
Some modern/futuristic radar station thumbnails done in PS, with the idea of building some of them in SketchUp. I have limited patience with 3D software but I’m working on that.
These folklore-inspired colored pieces are all WIPs, lacking bg, better depth and contrast and some other details. There’s an ogre, then we have the red little man called Yara-Ma-Yha-Who that sucks blood through his feet and hands, and then the strange Bunyip I started coloring yesterday, a lake monster featuring dog-like face, dark fur, a horse-like tail, flippers, and walrus-like tusks. I decided to portray this monster has a lake shore lurker, instead of a swimmer.

Anyways, that’s all for the week.

Cheers!

[luness]

Some bodies for some dragon heads and my C.O.W. entry for this week.

Ciao!

P.S.: I'm designing a sort of stamp or signature or logo, to paste it on every post (just for the copyright thingy and because it looks cool) and replace these large banners with my last name on them (which I might use just for portfolio presentation)...so yeah, it's exciting

[Cam Sykes]

dude that last one is nuts! Thanks for posting

[Untouched24]

Awesome stuff. Very imaginative and interesting characters and creatures. Very cool designs. After looking at your first page I noticed you did a page or two of sketches in the last Imagine FX, congradulations. I remember those sketches catching my eye when I was flipping through it, very nice. Subscribed.

Edit: I just spent over an hour looking through this sketchbook, its very seldom I look through an entire sketchbook, just amazing stuff. Very inspiring. Not many people how this level of creativity and imagination, which is what makes this sketchbook so addicting to look through. Makes me want to go draw now, which I should have been doing over an hour ago : / oh well, I got to see this SB.
Two questions if you have the time: A few pages back (to someone asking about line quality) you suggested tracing over rough drawings with single lines to develop better line quality, something you did in animation school. Do you still do this in your process? Or do you just erase the rough lines around the final lines?
Also, when going about creating creatures what is your thought process? Do you just kind of sketch around looking for interesting shapes and forms, do you have something already in your head when you start, or something completely different? Thanks. This is now one of my favorite sketchbooks, looking forward to more.

[bharat]

wow...!!!.....just awasome...! great work....! no word 4 u...!

[PeNcIl ReBeLlIoN]

Man, great work flow, you can really see the way you develop your shapes. Strong organic feel to much of your work, and then you incorporate it into your armor and tech designs makes for a great combination... love it!

[William b. Hand]

Oh, my god, Nessi...

It's been a while since I stopped by here. [*slaps own hand*]

That last creature is fucking fantastic! I'm at a loss as to what to even comment on... especially being so tired... I'll come back tomorrow and say things about it, as well as flip back some pages and see what I've been missing. Love it Love it Love it Love it.

Great Job! We should bond.

[Nubb]

See that You're dealing with color better and better! Keep that direction

[Verehin]

Cow awesome!!!

[Diverse]

Great creatures. Just love them.

[Quinn Simoes]

Always great to see what you have been up to.

Outstanding updates! Love your "Creature of the Week".

[retardedmonkey]

Romantic movies make you draw awesome creatures luness. These all look hot.

I'm sorry if this has been answered already, but are all these creatures for a certain project or just for fun?

[Kaffinated]

Damn d00d. Your killin it! Congrats on the IFX Sketchbook!

[luness]

CamSyko – thank you!!

Untouched24 – thank you for the kind words!! Now, answering your questions:
1. If it’s a clean rough or an illustration, yes, I just erase the gesture lines that I will not use. Sometimes gesture lines help me with the designing process since I see shapes and then I get ideas of what to do with those shapes; and sometimes they only help to define a silhouette, and once I’m happy with the pose or general design, I get rid of them, looking for a cleaner work space. If it’s a rough though, I don’t mind leaving them there. It’s just a personal thing.
2. My process? hmmmm, I write down the characteristics, browse my nature-related reference folder for ideas, and then start sketching. Sometimes I do thumbnails, sometimes I just go with the flow. I try to avoid the first approach that comes to my mind and instead, push the idea a bit further. I’m not a big fan of following a design trend, unless I want to show to a studio that I can work within different styles, etc, but I prefer to just push my creative skills as much as I can. It’s kinda hard to explain, really.

bharat – haha, thanks!

PeNcIl ReBeLlIoN – thank you! I’ll start doing less organic stuff though, just for a while, to add more variety of subjects to my portfolio. It’s something I haven’t tried that much, so I’m thrilled.

William b. Hand – haha, it’s been ages since somebody called me by my last name. I don’t mind though, it’s on the banner anyways I’m very happy with the creature too. It’s a learning process, slow but satisfying.

Nubb – hey man! What’s up! I’ve been kinda busy browsing other SB but I miss looking at your fantastic art, so I’ll pass by soon. Thanks for your visit!!!

Verehin – thank you! You’ve got a nice COW too! It’s one of my favourites actually.

Diverse – thank you!

Quinn Simoes – thanks so much for stopping by!

retardedmonkey – hahaha, yeah, I guess. About your question, well, the ones at the first pages of my SB and some in the last ones are part of a personal project that is giganormohuge. The rest are pieces that I might include or not on a new portfolio I’ve been cooking for quite a while.

Kaffinated – haha, thank you! I’m still trying to digest the IFX thing. It was a big surprise, it left me speechless, and very happy.


Anyways, I will be designing characters for the rest of the week, but I want to try doing it digitally, like I did some pages back. This time though, I’m practicing digital gesturing first in a way to get smoother lines. It is hard, but I’m getting there. Some tit…GESTURE drawings! for practice. Enjoy.

[Jamesy]

Love the fluidity of the life drawings...actually I really like everything! I just picked up a copy of the february edition of ImagineFX yesterday and noticed you were featured in the sketchbook section. Just wanted to say congrats on that dude! Keep at it!

[jacobsteel]

cool curves!