Lunar Threads

I've been digging through some of my old files that I have saved and I wanted to show these off. I try to save all kinds of LUNAR things that catch my eye that I stumble across.

A decade ago, these douga sketches showed up on eBay and - now in hindsight, very stupidly - I did not attempt to purchase them. I guess at the time I did not quite appreciate what I was looking at but now I realize I think I may have missed out on some really rare LUNAR items that sold for very cheap. All ten of these were in the lot. For those that possibly recognize what they're looking at, these are the master douga sketches of the full character portraits that appeared in the instruction manual. These were also used in other key character artwork and the first set of images is the color notes.

What I'm punching myself tens times over is that I'm assuming that these were very likely drawn by Toshiyuki Kubooka himself, and coming across actual used art assets even back in 2010-2011 from LUNAR would have been very difficult. Even without Alex, Luna, and Nall these are still pretty amazing pieces.

The images separated. Mia:

Jessica:

Nash:

Kyle:

Ramus:

These are incredible! Thank you for sharing!

Guessing that the numbers/letters are color references?

Also interesting that the stripes on Jessica's face are referred to as like wounds/scars (キズ, though using kana so likely this is just a shorthand and not meant literally).

Indeed they are. The numbers reference color 'index' identifiers which is a generic identifier to ensure color consistencies. A lot of animation in the cel era utilized very consistent palettes across various productions. Using the index numbers for a color would have ensured consistency even if other brand colors and such were utilized at different points or by different people. My very wild assumption without ever having seen it is likely similar markings are on any douga works that exist for any other LUNAR pieces such as cover art.

I assume the notes on Jessica were probably there to remind the person coloring at a glance what they were coloring being it's on her face. Indeed likely not meant literally, but more Kubooka always drew LUNAR beast people with face markings = at least I've personally never conceived Jessica's and the other beast people's face markings as scars.

Like I said; really punching myself in the arm over not buying these. These are likely the only examples out there and they went for well under $100 USD, which was probably very well bought by whomever picked them up.

If it helps, the person who picked them up really appreciates them and would've paid a lot more. Though I don't seem to have entered it into my collection spreadsheet, so I don't have a record in front of me of how much I paid.

Actually, I thought I posted pics of them before, but maybe not. I think I wanted to show an example of the progression from sketch to final and never finished taking photos, which would be extremely typical. One thing you can't see very well in those pics is that the line drawings are colored on the other side of the page. Here's a pic I took holding one up to light: