Lunatique's Sketchbook

[Lunatique]

1 hour is crazy. I've pretty much only got a line drawing down in that time.

BTW, you want to see what a master can do in an hour, and painted from life?



That is Richard Schmid's portrait, done in an hour. It was for a painting demonstration DVD with an audience. If you look at the timestap in the video, he finishes around 70 minutes, but during the painting process he often stopped to explain things to the audience, so it was more like an hour exactly.

You can buy the video here: https://www.richardschmid.com/Articles.asp?ID=332 I highly recommend it to anyone who is even remotely interested in art, because seeing this master at work is one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed.

[cgmythology]

Your artwork from your teenage years still holds up incredibly well, incredible to see the quality of work you have produced then, and you've only improved since.

Your two current WIP look great so far, nice colors on the first one and great brushwork and texture work on them both. Looking forward to more progress, keep it up!

[Lunatique]

Thanks!

Here's the finished version of that WIP I posted before.

[ballpoint]

^^ The arm/hands gesture is beautiful. Along with the color, it's pleasing to look at!

[Lege1]

Really great recent hand gesture piece! Your skills are very admirable. It is really amazing how you go from the rough sketch to the finished product looking the way it does. Great and masterful work indeed and thank you for sharing the process pictures as always, they are very inspiring.

[Lunatique]

Thanks!

Just saw this shoutout from the team behind Rebelle: https://twitter.com/escapemotions/status...9953834488

[Lunatique]

Here are some stuff that's very different. Really old comic book stuff from the early to mid-90s.

These are from my own series, which I created/wrote/illustrated for a few years (during my early 20s) as my full-time job. And of course it's all analog since digital wasn't really a thing yet back then (unless you count the primitive pixellated stuff like D-Paint on the Amiga):













The series started as blackk and white ink art because the publisher wanted to see if it would become popular enough to justify the higher color printing cost, and when it did, we went full color and started painting all the interior pages. 

















Comics was always a huge part of my formative years as an artist. Here's a page from when I was about 14:


And when I was about 17:



And here are some other pencil pages I did for submissions and tests to different publishers. and none of them ever result in gigs:



















I remember standing in line at Comic Con to get my portfolio reviewed by the editors at Marvel, DC, and Darkhorse, and at that point I'd already been working full-time in comics for a few years and wanted to get higher profile clients. They would all tell me I had nice work and even asked me to submit official art tests based on their sample scripts, but I never got hired. Then one time, an editor said to me, "Your work is good, but I can tell your heart is not in it. You're not a superhero mainstream guy." Then he pointed to a couple of sample pages I had done of my own creation, and said, "I mean look at that. That is REALLY nice and I can tell you put your heart and soul into that, and its YOUR style that you enjoy working in instead of trying to fit the mainstream market's style. Unfortunately, as much as I love that, it's not a style we can use, but I urge you to shop it around with the smaller publishers because I think someone will want to publish that." 

These were the two pages he was talking about: 





Those two were early sample pages for the Enchanted series that kicked off this post, and I did indeed find a publisher who loved the style and signed me on as their new creator, and that's how I ended up working on my own series for a few years. 

What that editor told me had proven to be true more than once in my creative career, and I think it was an important lesson for me. Do what you're passionate about and focus on what makes you special instead of trying to fit in, because people can tell where your heart is from just looking at your work. 

BTW, the very first professional work I did was the art for a vampire series called Avene X. I had just graduated from high school and sent out my portfolio to various publishers, and a couple of companies hired me and thus began my journey as a professional artist. I had used screentone for that first book I did, and it was just a PITA that I never wanted to touch the stuff again:





I also did a bunch of these Robotech cover paintings:



If I didn't show these, I think most people couldn't have imagined I did all the stuff that was so different from the kind of work I do now. They really feel like a lifetime ago.

[Damien Levs]

Wow...this stuff looks incredible. I'm totally digging your comic book stuff. It's something I'd really like to do. Also, that's some seriously good feedback from the Marvel, DC guys.

Thanks for sharing this. I love your panels.

[cgmythology]

I agree with Damien, really great work! Nice to see some older pieces from you and how your style has evolved since then, very interesting to me. The panels are very dynamic for the most part, really well thought out and solidly drawn. Good stuff!

[Jephyr]

Hey — lovin' those old panels! Good stuff!