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RenDragonClaw — Lunami Sketch
Published: 2012-12-17 05:21:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 682; Favourites: 9; Downloads: 80
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Description
First take of Lunami. She's one of the kaiju I've had in my list of planned monsters, first actually introduced via Hydrune's Bio. The base animal is owl, thus the practice sketches from earlier. I've incorperated rabbit into her design because of the mochi pounding rabbit in the moon in Japanese folktales. So yes, it's an owl with rabbit ears. Was going to do some neat pattern stuff regarding phases of the moon with her breast plumage but found it very unnatural looking and so did crescent sort of texture instead. The feet are my merger of owl talons and rabbits foot. The two tail pinions are modled after the pom pom strings found on mountain hermit/tengu hats *Tokin*.Thing I'm iffy on is the size of the neck. I'm not sure what's more eerie, an abormally large neck with a small owl head or a larger owl head with next to no neck like on a normal owl. Ear design is also subject to change if this look is a bit too silly. I'll come back to her design later after I finish Hydrune and perhaps some KAS stuff if I'm actually feeling productive in that direction.
-RenDragonClaw
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Comments: 9
She looks pretty neat all around, though as you and others have said, the eyes are a little too..."cute." I like the rabbit bits on her, it's just such a bizarre mix that you have made work somehow. Prey and predator mashed up and made to be a cohesive whole.
I think the neck length looks ok the way it is, personally. If you upped the width and length of the wings it would balance it out with the neck length.
A little idea-perhaps for the head some tufts of feathers leading from the eyes up to the ears?
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That...might work. I'll have to experiment a bit.
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Owls are tricky for many, many reasons. One, we identify with them as people because they have forward facing eyes and almost humanlike facial proportions, kinda like the larger, animatronic muppets, in many ways. Another is their bodies are very deceiving, they're mostly feathers and they can change the appearance of their proportions quite easily. A noteworthy example: [link]
For a large part I really like the look of Lunami. She's distinct and I freakin love the feet, if the talons are retractable I say you don't need to change a thing about those. A barn or barred owl style face would certainly help give a more full personality, and Wan shi tong makes a good reference for a long necked owl monster, too. [link] In fact, owls can stretch their necks out to an extent, so a little bit of both wouldn't hurt.
The big thing about owls is variety, not just in size and appearance, but with temperament, expression, and really just character in general. Just do an image search and you'd be surprised at the sheer amount of contrast owls are capable of with faces, posture, and more. Youtube has a lot of great stuff on them as well, photographers are absolutely enamored with owls it seems.
Here's some good examples of expression with owls:
15 seconds of pure Murderface: [link] A very, very pissed eagle owl on high speed, and pretty exactly how I picture owls as monsters.
Why owls are considered malevolent in many eastern mythologies: [link] They're like the reverse of snakes, who are revered in the east and loathed in the west. You might be able to play off that.
And a couple reasons why people like 'em. This is a great grey, one of my favorites: [link] and the barred owl, [link] whose character and plumage fit Lunami pretty well in my eyes. Beautiful, serene looking birds that instill the 'wisdom' feeling.
And my all-time favorite, spotted wood owls. [link]
They're expressive, beautiful, and pretty scary in the right lighting. But I don't think they really fit what you're going for, I just wanted to show them off, truth be told.
There's a LOT you could do for cosmetics with her, but I'd suggest a stark white barn owl face and dappled grey patterns of varying shades on her breast. Owl wings are typically huge for their body size, especially eagle owls and I think that would really make her seem larger and possibly menacing in the right place. Because regardless of how peaceful they look, owls are all silent killers when active, and like the moon and ocean the mood seems to change often.
Keep the feet like that, it adds a lot of distinctness to her, and the tail pinions really do fit, strange as it sounds, gives her a more mythological look. I like her a lot.
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I had a feeling you'd have quite bit of feedback for this one 
All of those are good suggestions and now that I remember what Wan Shi Tong is (I missed that episode) the direction I'm going at the moment has some basis in popular culture. Larger wings will also definitely help, I'll remember to make space for them next time.
With all these possible expressions, I could even make a emotion chart for her as a way of further fleshing out her design.
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Not a big fan of the eyes, others than that, the rest looks good to me.
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Owl kaiju! Beacons of light in the dark realms!
Sorry mate, but owl kaiju are very special to me, what with maybe five existing in all of kaijudom and it pains me greatly to see such a worthy creature be so underrepresented.
As for her design, there is something up with her eyes that just doesn't jive with me. She looks like she's giving you the doe-eye, though not quite pulling it off as well as you might expect. As for her neck I don't see anything wrong with it, owls have wide fluffy neck feathers around a semi-muscular neck, if anything it looks like she's got her feathers puffed out. I imagine if you shrink the size just a tad it would look much better.
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More Barn Owl features will making it into her face in later renditions so the doe eyed look should then resemble more of the eerie grace I'm aiming for. Especially if I incorperate more of the marking around the eyes themselves. SirK and I discussed her quite a bit over chat and he also suggested cutting the neck by about half and it would be fine.
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I think I pinned down what annoys me about the eyes. The dark lines above them make it look like she has big, dark eyebrows, which sort of clashes a bit with her softer features. On her neck again, I think keeping it long and semi-serpentine is a good idea, though cutting it's girth.
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Certainly something I did not expect at all. I hear Lumani, and I thought of some regal creature of the night that was basically Moth-Man nightmare fuel. Buy this is oddly cute. That face, man. I expected Tail Pinions too, and that delivered fantastically.
Now I want a plushy of her.
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