Luka Palmer

I am a Brisbane based artist. I enjoy painting, drawing, sculpture and photography and am interested in animation, character design and concept art.

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I live and breathe! Surely 2025 will be the year where I get my tumblr tumbling on the right track... Now, to kick youse off you'd better get hyped for some fungus posting! Today's friend is Calyptella longipes, the trendsetting gilled fungus that did away with its true stem so that it could hang around on fallen logs. If you look closely at the inside of their sleeves you'll see the tiny ridges that used to be their original gills, but I'd warn against you asking about them. These fashionistas can be found growing in the rainforests of Southern Queensland, New South Wales and Africa. Every friday for the rest of this year, you can expect to see a new fungal fiend, so stay tuned!

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On the north-east coast overlooking the Sanguine Sea and Marbled Mountains, a solitary fairy stands on the dermal shore. A malevolent glint in his eyes, he watches you approach, a freshly refilled potion swinging from his hand. You weren't sure what you were expecting to find at this time of night, but it undoubtedly was not this treacherous fiend.

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Introducing Yahnp'armaq Chenmo'qa, my player character for a friend's Star Trek RPG campaign. Yahn was born in a peaceful isolated Klingon colony, a pacifist group who preferred craft over combat. While he was raised to enjoy making all forms of art, crochet is his true passion, which he dedicates most of his time to outside of work hours.

I included some more info about him on my instagram page that wouldn’t fit the format here, so if you want to know about his transporter accident feel free to take a gander most goosey.

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As a long time fan of the original Krom's Kastle series, I was overjoyed to be given an opportunity to work on its modern reimagining. Pictured here are the concept sketches and designs I did for two of the game's main locations, the titular Kastle and Krombus' Krib.

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Many centuries ago, the world was ruled by Hobgoblins, an elitist, militant, and highly intelligent people whose engineering abilities transformed and blighted Squemple's natural landscapes. Their high-tech society flourished until they experienced a devastating yet initially vague doomsday event, later dubbed the Utterly Tragic Collapse (UTC) by survivors. Nearly all of them were wiped out, disappearing along with their scientific and technological knowledge. No longer under oppressive Hobgoblin rule, the remaining lower class goblin workers and servants spread out and populated the globe. Lacking the knowledge to repair any of the damaged machines left behind in Hobgoblin cities, these new communities instead further disassembled them and repurposed them into their architecture. The Kastle is by far the largest of these buildings constructed after the UTC struck. Built by a wealthy family of goblins on the foundations of a pre-collapse alchemical factory, the Kastle was once an awe-inspiring structure. Passed down through the generations, each occupant of the Kastle ensured that it was kept in top condition, with constant renovation and redecorating to keep it standing. When the latest owner of the Kastle, an eccentric goblin named Krom, mysteriously disappeared, it was passed down to his only son, Krombus. Krombus loved to travel however, and had long since left the country by that point. A vessel was swiftly sent to track him down, the ship’s journey taking just over a year. Krombus returned with the vessel to claim the Kastle, arriving another year and a half later. During this absence the structure was worn down by the elements, stormed by roaming bands of goblin looters, and infested by strange and deadly technicolour creatures, quickly falling into disrepair.

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When a powerful extraterrestrial parasite finds a suitable host, the end result is almost always a great deal of otherworldly devastation. Thankfully this is not always the case, as proven by the recent transformation of local gardener Amideer Cronslowe. So far this eldritch entity has only been interested in caring for and expanding their lovely fruit and veg garden. If you're lucky, you can sometimes observe their orbiting collection on a cloudless night, granted you have a strong enough telescope. . . On the last slide is the original lineart I drew in my sketchbook on a long late night train ride almost a year ago . It was very fun revisiting this piece, and surprisingly challenging to decide what colours to use for their body and outfit.

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The Echidna Eternal

Large monuments are situated all across the Australian landscape, large natural structures that resemble native animals. The specific origins of these structures are unknown, but they are believed to have been formed by the creator-beings millenia ago when Australia was first given shape. One of these monuments is a structure locals have named The Echidna Eternal. The towering wooden quills of this monument have been decorated with complex paintings that are used as a way of storing and sharing knowledge for travellers and future generations.

These were the final compositions from the first assignment of my concept design environment class this trimester. Soon I'll post the sketches and other development work I did for this design.

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The masculine urge to take the stairs two at a time

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It just makes you feel so powerful... Or pained when you mess it up and almost trip over

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The last part of my assignment was to create a look shot and size comparison for my final three characters. I went with Cabracoco and Gojuuro inviting Nova into the head teacher's office for a little chat. . While this marks the last post featuring these characters for now, there will soon be more. I really like this story idea and shall be carrying them across into future assignments and projects.

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These are the last set of model sheets from this past trimester, for my other demon character Akuma Gojuuro. Upon looking at her design again, there's some definite changes I want to make, especially with her regards to her face. Her features feel a bit too humanoid, especially compared to Cabracoco's. I'm still quite happy with how this iteration turned out and will likely keep her overall silhouette and outfit the same.

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Here are all of Cabracoco's model sheets! I'm still happily surprised that I was able to make them look so friendly despite their creepy overall appearance. I'm hoping to sculpt and rig a 3D model at some point for them in the future, so I can try and animate the unsettling movements I had in mind while working on their design.

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Now onto the polished model sheets! While working on Nova's design, I grew very envious of her outfits and am still disappointed that people can't yet make clothes out of lava.

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This is the last batch of development work from this past trimester before I move on to posting the characters’ polished model sheets! Pictured is Akuma Gojuuro, the ruler of my game's setting and Nova's compassionate adoptive demon mother. I'll be reworking her design when I develop this project further, as I prefer some of her alternate designs looking back at them now.

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Some more development work from this past trimester, this time of my second character, the feared headmaster of Nova's school, Cabracoco. Out of the three, they were my favourite to design, even if their features made it hard to draw them from different angles. 

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Here's the development work I did for Nova Jones-Akuma, another character I designed as part of uni. For this assignment, we had to design characters for an original story that we got to create ourselves! The creative freedom of not having to rely on a prewritten story brief was fantastic, and I ended up coming up with a story I'd really like to develop further in the future. I'll share her finished model sheets later this week, as well as the designs of my two other characters, demons Akuma Gojuuro and Cabracoco...

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Here are all the early sketches and initial designs for Robbert and Rebecca. This was undoubtedly one of my favourite assignments to work on so far! It was good getting out of my comfort zone and trying to draw animal characters, especially given how much of my art features more humanoid designs.

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More Australian animals assignment work! These are the other model sheets I drew for Robbert and Rebecca, I’ll be sharing development for these designs on Wednesday!