Hello all you wonderful folks out there! Everyone’s favorite feline intreviewer is here yet again with another interview with an artist from outside the Kemono Cafe.
Speaking of the Kemono Cafe, let’s raise our foxy coffee glasses for hosting this interview yet again.
You foxy foxes rule!
Time to get the ball rolling.
Introducing…LUXAR!!!
Hey everyone! Thanks for having me here.
It´s my first time getting interviewed so hope things go well.
HA HA!
Trust me. You’ll do just fine!
And thank you again for agreeing to do this interview!
How is March treating you thus far? Enjoying the Spring weather?
It’s nice and all, but I don’t really like the heat here.
It can get pretty bad this time around.
I’m more of a cold kind of person!
Yeah…this summer isn’t going to be cool from what I’ve been hearing.
So tell me a little about yourself. What is your preferred username? And for that matter, what is the origin of your username?
I usually go by Luxarman, but everyone just call me Luxar.
It’s just my name backwards with an X in the middle. In retrospect, I didn’t put much thought into it hahaha.
It used to be a nickname I had on a MIRC gaming server I frequented back in like 2010 or so.
I got the inspiration from my favorite Pokemon, Luxray.
Luxray?
OH! That Pokemon!!!
It’s a lion Pokemon!
Nice.
And I must confess that I came across your TWITTER first and notice that you have a ton of feline cuties. Can you introduce each one and give a short bio on them?
Totally! The main one and probably the one people recognize my brand for is Dandee. She is a nerdy lioness. Gamer, otaku that kind of nerdy girl. She is the mascot of my brand (she is even in my logo).
Next I have Kitzy the Jaguar. I always wanted make my girls represent kind of the “average” type of girl. Someone you could meet or relate in real life. Kitzy is meant to be the average Mexican girl (since I’m mexican of course).
Then we have Pancake the golden tiger. She is meant to represent the hyper active/sporty girl.
And then my most recent one is Orio the Snow Leopard. She is the artsy girl of the group, a projection of my experiences both as an artist and graphic designer.
OH MY! That’s quite the inspiration behind all those girls!
I just adore how you added flare and personality to each one in their own special way.
And I notice that you have a thing for fashion as seen in those images and in your Twitter feed. Are you a fashionista of sorts?
Not particularly…
But I do really find super fun to draw vintage 80’s and 90’s clothing.
A lot of vintage sport stuff.
I really love the vibrant colors they used to have. Something we don’t see much nowdays.
Also, I really love to draw lolita and goth dresses which I usually paint my characters on.
So much fashion goodness too!
For that matter, what do you do outside of art?
I guess it doesn’t look too different from art but I’m actually a professional graphic designer, and sometimes do freelancing jobs for local projects, nothing too fancy.
And as a hobby I really love videogames!
Really most of the inspiration of my art comes from videogames.
A graphic designer!?
That’s awesome!
And a video gamer too!?
Sweet.
What are some of your favorite video games?
I really love 2d games! Metroidvanias, platformers, retro games in general. My all time favorite is Castlevania: Symphony of the night for PS1!
Also really love 2d fighting games, the Street fighter series in general being my favorite, but also i have tried most of the big ones (can’t really say I’m very good at them though).
And you have such a unique style when it comes to highlights and shading in addition to detail of female attire. Did you have education in the art and fashion industry? Or did you go to school for another field?
I went to graphic design school!
But to be completely honest the focus of the study field is something that’s way too different than what I wanted to do, and most of my art process was self taught, both by watching how other artist work and by reading tutorials and drawing books.
Not that there is anything wrong with graphic design. There’s a lot of principles of graphic design that are also shared with digital art, but for the most part they are completely different beats.
I had no idea about how different those two professions are.
While going through your FURAFFINITY, I noticed that you have quite the a central focus on species. But for clarification, I have to ask, what is your favorite species to draw?
The Lion of course!
Hence why Dandee exist and represents my brand.
But I usually focus a lot on big cats from the Panthera family, both because I love those animals and because I’m trying to create a world where it’s habituated by anthropomorphic big cats from the big five: The Lion, Leopard, Tiger, Jaguar and Snow Leopard.
And each of my girls represents the basic design for each (with the Leopard girl still in the works!).
I’m not going to LION, but that’s quite the PRIDE.
Wow, I’m not feline that pun… like cat all…
A reverse pun!?!?!?
Impressive!
And from what I can tell, you don’t seem to have any male characters. Is there a particular reason for that?
It’s just because I enjoy to draw girls more than boys hahah.
I have done genderbend versions of my characters in the past, but I have no interest in having a recurrent male character (as of now).
If I ever start a webcomic set in this universe, probably that would be the first thing in the drawing board I will work on.
Finally, who is your all time favorite character?
Dandee of course! she was made for that exact reason, she is everything I like in a single character!
NICE! I’m looking forward to seeing more of her.
Thank you so very much for the interview.
And best of luck to your future webcomic endeavors.
Thanks for having me! this was a pretty fun interview!
And now if you excuse me all, I’m going to LION around. XD
Until next time, stay fresh folks!
