Luna the Moonlight Girl, Unlocked Movie Trailer and Legends Invade Pokemon GO

Storytelling and art, to me these two are one and the same. Whether it’s a watercolor painting or a pair of knitted socks each piece of art has a story to tell. Perhaps it's to do with my passion for writing and being a writer at the core of my soul but my art comes from stories. My story writing is the sole reason I began my journey as an artist, to visualize my stories and characters. Dream Eclipse is a novel I’ve been brewing in my head for a long time and while I’ve not had the utmost confidence in revealing much regarding the novel with my art and this blog it has really allowed me to open myself up more and in turn improve my story writing. That said I have a brand new watercolor character art piece finished. No, no it’s not Aeris Eclipse this time. The character this time is more on the pink side. This isn't a big reveal you’ve seen her before but I have finalized her design. For #WorldWatercolorMonth here’s Luna!

Ironically I came up with this idea in a dream during the night a week ago and I'm dubbing this piece “Luna and the Moonlight Skyline” because well it has Luna in it, it's night time and there’s a skyline in the background. I really wanted to try my best at illustrating a scene at night. Dark blues and purples are among my favorite colors so I wanted to incorporate that into this. Getting my watercolors dark enough wasn't actually that difficult and the city skyline is actually made up from my white gelly roll pen believe it or not. Luna was the character of choice because of her connection to the moon and the significance to the story and world of Dream Eclipse.

That specific skyline is none other than the city of Bruadair which I slightly introduced in my last illustration blog featuring Aeris. Bruadair is the center of a technological revolution in the world of Dream Eclipse, the city where dreamers come to make their dreams come true. Aeris and Luna live on the outskirts of Bruadair in a country village. Luna as you can probably tell is not your average lady, that pink hair isn't actually hair dye.

My first real drawing of Luna from Months ago. This really isn't good by any means and I'm not sure what's up with her stomach, maybe she ate too much who knows.

Luna is a special being connected directly to the Dream World and its energy. This energy is sought after by scientists, leading to corruption and people who will break boundaries to do so. Luna is targeted by a shadow organization and chased into a forest. Pleading for help her calls are soon hearted by a young lady asleep in her bed, Aeris Eclipse. Shockingly Luna turns out to have no memories of her past or who she is but instead of being completely amnesiac Luna has an incredible and vast knowledge of the Dream powers as well as intelligence regarding how certain things work. Luna’s power soon connects with Aeris leaving the blonde lady to discover she too is connected with the Dream World. Dream Eclipse’s story begins here and is going to be quite the ride so hope you guys are interested for what’s to come.

A digital art piece I did of Luna a few months ago, haven't really done any digital art since.

As far as Luna’s personality due to her loss of memories Luna is quite innocent to the world around her despite her intelligence and is extremely shy around strangers. Aside from that she’s quite bubbly and has a heart filled with kindness and love for everything around her. Luna isn’t into fighting and can be viewed as a pacifist at times but helps Aeris with her powers. Aeris tends to a bit of an influence on Luna with Luna soon becoming more bubbly and fun loving as the story goes on. Luna tends to look up to Aeris and shadows her often, which Aeris quotes is similar to how she was when she was a kid with her best friend Rachael Scarlett.

A much more recent illustration of Luna done when I really kicked myself in the butt and improved on my art style. I have just realized how on my newest art piece the flowers on the shirt are in a completely different position, continuity error folks.

There’s a lot about Luna I’ve yet to disclose, she may be one of the most important characters in Dream Eclipse so stay tuned for more! Don’t worry I’m going to try and get Book 1 finished as soon as I can, no more holding back.

Before I wrap this up I did this art piece using my Sakura Koi Watercolors I got for my birthday, a Sakura Gelly Roll white pen and some 140lb Canson Watercolor paper. This was kind of an experiment and my first time doing an illustration set at nighttime so my light is probably not spot on, making this surreal I guess in a sense but I prefer my art to be surreal anyway.

As I said my art always incorporates a story and as well as this featuring a character and setting from my story this is actually based a scene I have planned for my book. Aeris with her friends take Luna, innocent to the world, to the Bruadair Riverfront for the first time. Luna is mesmerized by the scenery and is looking back to her friends. This happens quite early on in Book 1 after Luna meets Aeris’s group of friends who I’ll be introducing in later blogs.

You can read about Aeris by going to this blog right here: https://zakentertainment.blogspot.com/2017/07/aeris-eclipse-kicks-off-world-watercolor-month.html

To view my art in a more gallery like setting visit my DeviantArt: http://zak-art.deviantart.com/

Before we move on from art my sister has an awesome new blog up on her blog Lady AnnaVintage. It's called "The Forest Dream Part Two of Two" and features a large ish scale illustration and some awesome bird watercolor illustrations coupled with a awesome photograph of a wild rabbit we have hanging around our backyard. You can read that here: http://ladyannavintage.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-forest-dream-part-two-of-two.html

Until next time let’s move on to some movie news! Yes there’s a new movie trailer released for a movie that’s caught my eye. Remember my two RED blogs? (RED 1: http://zakentertainment.blogspot.com/2017/05/painting-town-red-movie.html RED 2: http://zakentertainment.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-best-never-rest-in-red-2-plus-new.html I’m a big fan of the RED franchise and while this reveal is not RED 3 sadly it is coming from Lionsgate and the producers of RED as well as stars John Malkovich from RED and RED 2. This movie is called Unlocked and stars Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo), Orlando Bloom (Pirates of the Carribbean), Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense), Michael Douglas (A whole bunch of good movies including the recent Ant-Man.) and more. This movie seems to be based in the UK with Rapace playing a CIA interrogator by the name of Alice Racine. After a major ruse it seems London is now at the risk of a major biological terrorist attack. Seems like a pretty cool action movie, not as comedic as RED but cool nonetheless. You can check out the trailer below.

This movie releases in the US September 1^st but apparently has already been released in the UK since May the 5^th, which I apologize for not mentioning this movie before but I’ve only just discovered the movie myself. It looks pretty awesome so it’ll be cool to see when it releases.

One last announcement I want to discuss is one that will please you Pokemon GO fans out there. The game isn’t as highly popular and mainstream as it was last year but it seems to still be holding a player base and this update might bring in more people again. A new update was recently released and it’s building up to what might be the biggest addition and most anticipated since Gen 2 Pokemon, Legendaries. It begins with the addition of Raid Battles. Raid Battles occur at Gyms randomly and allow for players no matter what team you’re on to team up and take on a boss Pokemon. If you win you receive Premier Balls and the chance to capture the boss Pokemon, only using the Premier Balls apparently. (Nice to see the Premier Balls have a purpose other than looking cool finally.) There are different ranks of Raid Pokemon Bosses with there even being a Magikarp Boss, which will probably be tougher than any legendary. These boss battles can be fought like any Gym Battle, where you can bring up to 6 Pokemon. To make things easier Raid Battles will start with an egg on top of the Gym with a timer and if you’re in the area of the gym you’ll get a notification.

As announced yesterday Niantic will be adding Legendaries to the lineup of Bosses for these Raids. Which brings everything full circle as this entire method of battling legendaries with a group of people in a raid takes us back to the first trailer dropped for Pokemon Go picturing everyone fighting against Mewtwo, remember that? Yes it seems this raid battles have been planned from the start and it’s awesome to see this feature finally added. (Niantic is slow.) You can check out the trailer below it’s pretty awesome.

Whoever put this video together this was so  engaging it makes me wish Pokemon GO actually was like this in real life but then again if Pokemon was real then this would be pretty dangerous wouldn’t it? (WANT IT TO BE REAL REGARDLESS OF DANGER) You will not be able to place these Pokemon on Gyms unlike normal Pokemon but you can use them in Gyms and future raids so that’s cool, seems to be balanced for the most part. 

The first of these Legendary Raids will begin during the Pokemon GO Fest at Grant Park, Chicago USA. This is happening tomorrow July 22^nd so if you’re in the area check it out! Apparently it’s going to be $20 per ticket (They’re already sold out, go figure.) and there’s going to be a mass of events happen. From 6pm to 7pm Chicago time it’ll be Legendary Raid time in a big kick off event. Players not in Chicago will have the chance to take on Legendaries beginning the next day, July 23^rd as Legendary Raids begin to appear, of course this will only happen if the Pokemon GO Fest is a success so get out there and team up Trainers! You can read more here: http://pokemongolive.com/en/post/legendarypokemon

That’s about it for today everyone, no news regarding Ultra Sun and Moon other than a few fake leaks so I guess we just have to be a bit more patient. There was that strange lore filled Pokemon movie posted by the Japanese Youtube channel (Link here: ) and it really seemed to dive deep into the Pokemon Lore but sadly it's only an event in Japan that won’t see the day of light outside of Japan. Hope you all enjoy the rest of your day! I’m going to finally be filming a new video tomorrow that you artists might enjoy so be prepared for that next week!

That was ZAK Entertainment.

See you on Monday!