Lunarstudio Architectural Renderings Releases New Heart Series

July 17, 2009 - PRLog -- Artist Cleo, who runs the company Lunarstudio which specializes in architectural renderings and illustrations has released two more images in his heart series of artwork. His heart illustrations are some of the most downloaded images on the web. This is what he had to say in regards to his artwork:

"Years ago, I came up with a 3d illustration of a grenade in the shape of a heart. I believe the illustration stood well on its own. Shortly after the image was released, a very popular band released an amazing album that also had a 2d grenade in the shape of a heart on its album cover."

To see an image of the Heart Grenade, please visit here:
http://www.lunarstudio.com/portfolio/illustration-renderings.html

For more information on Lunarstudio's Architectural Rendering services, please visit:
http://www.lunarstudio.com/portfolio/architectural-renderings-commercial-interior.html

"It was a major coincidence. I don't watch TV, and I also don't listen to the radio. And since a lot of the times I work from home stuck in front of the computer for long hours absorbed into my own work. I don't even get out of the house. I don't like being influenced by the media machine and marketing propaganda that's currently out there. And to be quite frank about it, I didn't like that group either because whenever I did hear them, I thought they were also part of that huge, corporate brainwashing machine."

"A year later, a friend mentioned that their album was great, and at the time I shrugged it off. I think I had a closed-minded attitude towards them. Eventually, I decided to give it a listen and much to my surprise, I really enjoyed that particular album. Not to mean, but it was almost as if I didn't 'want' to like it, but I ended up being one of 'those' people that really did. It really is a great album and if you get a chance, be sure to check it out."

"I get a lot of traffic but none of it ever turned into anyone ever wanting to hire me to do traditional illustrations for them after all of these years. Hopefully that will change. My source of income has pretty much been my architectural renderings and architectural illustrations. But I am capable of producing non architecturally-related works and would really prefer the opportunity to do more 'traditional' types of illustrations that aren't put under some type of microscope to be analyzed."

"The reason why I talk about it is because I really believe a lot of my website traffic comes from people and kids searching on the Internet for a 'heart grenade' due mostly to that band. So I've received an amazing amount of indirect traffic. To top things off, my 'heart grenade' image itself appeared in the top 3 positions in search engines such as Google. So traffic was extraordinarily high."

"The 'heart grenade' image is a mixed-blessing - almost like the meaning of the image itself. I've had a lot a traffic. I can't say I've had any illustration business due to it. I never felt right 'selling' it either. And I had a problem with watermarking all of my images for protection because I want to present artwork as it's meant to be presented and without any additional visual distractions on screen."

"So my image skyrocketed in popularity. A lot of people ended up using it as an avatar for various forums, profile pics, wall paper, and sent it in messages to one another. I never had a problem with that."

"But in monitoring my website links and traffic, I started noticing some issues. People started altering the heart grenade. I've had people strip out the background, someone started spray-painting it in Amsterdam calling it his 'love bomb' (which is kind of cute in a publicly-destructive sense - I'm not advocating for that...), the image has been tattooed according to one blog, another person claimed the design was his on a tattoo forum, several people also claimed the image was their artwork on sites such as DeviantArt, Behance, and Photobucket. Many people just 'hotlinked' to my Lunarstudio website in various blogs which caused a lot of traffic and connectivity issues."

"I never minded people admiring it, using it as wallpaper, or keeping it around the house on photo paper even. Art is there to be enjoyed. However, I had to start drawing a line when I noticed people starting to sell the image online in different formats."

"One person who I haven't been able to track down, turned it into a necklace pendant. Another incorporated my image into her artwork without asking and started to sell the images as stickers, buttons, buttons, skateboard art, and other items on Zazzle. A different person made minor modifications and sold it on Cafepress."

"As an artist, it is very difficult to make a living and I've found that copyrights are a thing to be honored. The Internet is the Wild West - a lawless territory. I think people see an image or music and they don't give it a second thought to grab it or copy it unfortunately. But I like to compare it to a store - if I was selling, let's just say cell phones - you couldn't just walk out the door with that. The store owner is not going to say, 'hey, put that back.' They're probably going to call the police. However, I think the sentiment is different with music and images - they see something they like, copy it, change a thing or two, and call it their own. It's really a 'no-talent' hack" and a disservice to truly dedicated artists who are trying to put a roof over their heads and food on the table."

"So, I've had to 'crack down' on people using it as a derivative and sometimes flat-out copies. It makes me feel bad doing that. The least they could do is pick up the phone or write an email asking permission to use it. My information has always been readily available so it's not like I'm a difficult person to find. They could also have the common decency to at least give an image an attribute back to the original source. Most of the companies have been very compliant and helpful in my request to cease and desist. I had a little lip-service from DeviantArt, but they eventually honored my request after a second 'not so friendly' letter. Myspace has yet to get back to me in regards to this. Another person has been difficult to track down. I hate playing the 'cop', but if you don't keep it under some control, it could take off and you're the person left holding an empty bag and not being given any credit whatsoever."

"All that being said, protecting one's own work should be something we as artists shouldn't have to think about. But in today's online world, it is unfortunately something that needs to be considered because it's very easy to copy things and redistribute. I've recently watermarked all of my images due to a big surge in online traffic to the website. Hopefully the watermarks act as some form of deterrent."

"Getting back to the 'heart grenade' image itself, you can take whatever message you want away from that - that's left for you to interpret. It represents many things to myself - mostly volatility in love. Maybe some of it is repression and a holding back of feelings - begging to explode. It also represents the danger of sharing oneself too openly to others. With it's spread amongst the online community, it's even taken on a different meaning of sharing things with one another responsibly."

"I've also released several other variants on the 'danger' and 'love' theme recently since it seems to really register with people. This includes a bomb in the shape of a heart as well a gas mask covering a different heart. If you have a moment, please check these out and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear feedback."

For additional heart images and to see more of his artwork and architectural renderings, please visit:
http://www.lunarstudio.com/portfolio/illustration-renderi...

# # #

Lunarstudio specializes in 3d architectural renderings, architectural illustrations, architectural visualization, architectural animation, and a variety of other graphics-related illustrations. Please visit our website at www.lunarstudio.com for more info