Hi everyone ! Thanks for visiting my author page.

I think I´ve been an illustrator since I was born.

Although things "seriously" started when I was seven years old back in 1977 and I first saw the classic TV series "Space 1999". After that I spent days trying to draw their spaceships ( and build cardboard models of moon base Alpha) and so my love for creating imaginary stuff was born. Then of course came Star Wars and all the subsequent early 80s cheap space operas like Battle Beyond the Stars , the Italian - Starcrash or even Tron and that sparked my imagination even more.

Because I couldn´t download all the movies that I loved (remember kids, this was before the internet or Netflix was even invented ) , I tried my best to learn how to draw so i could make my own space comics and so I learned what I could from trial and error.

But what really got me was the book and movie ; THE NEVERENDING STORY back in 1984. That book and that movie changed my life. In particular the first landscape of the Ivory Tower seen in the movie. That was the scenery that shifted all my imagination from simple starships and aliens to whole fantasy worlds. From the moment I´ve seen that movie I wanted to learn how to create imaginary landscapes like that and that is what I´ve been doing for the last 35 years +.

I´m now 52 years old (what?!!) and I´ve been an illustrator for about 30 years.

Because of the initial portfolio with drawings I built when I was a teenager after seeing the movie The Neverending Story, that lead me to my first job. After I left the army in 1992, I learned that in my town , Portimão located at the south of Portugal, a new company was gathering a team of creatives to try and build the first PC video game made in Portugal.

The Lemmings were the PC craze in those early PC days , when everything was still in DOS and there was no Windows at all and so this company , was putting together a fresh team to do that first professional game project.

I took my ancient landscapes illustrations still in real watercolor and color pencils to the director and I found myself as the creative director for the game GAMBYS from night to day with the responsability of not only creating the game characters but also to work on the 3D and 2D animations for the game. At the time I was one of the first persons to use 3D Studio here in Portugal and I think my company bought one of the first legal copies.

I spent three years on that project and then in 1995 , GAMBYS was released to excellent reviews and sold really well. Remember, this before the internet really took off.

And then my career was on. After that I spent about 10 years designing software for the same company while at the same time doing part time illustration and improving on my portfolio. At the same time the internet was becoming what is nowadays and so I started to spread my work around.

Between 2004 and 2009 I created my insane comics Once Upon a Time On Mars, all done in real watercolor and color pencils and it was my big school of trial and error where I learned a ton of stuff that also became the basis for all the techniques I now use in digital artwork nowadays.

I did 190 pages of fantasy without a single page planned. It was pure creative fun and even me , I had no clue what was going to happen in the next page of the story I was creating. This because it was the time I discovered the great late Art Bell, and Coast to Coast, along with Richard Hoagland and the Face on Mars mystery and my imagination went through the roof. I almost had to stop myself or my comics would have had a thousand pages instead of 190.

Around 2008 after ten years in graphic design too, I became a full time freelance illustrator and I´ve started to work in board games, concept art and above all children books. Children books appear out of nowhere due also to the fact the market was changing and no longer big publishers had the full reign. Independent companies and even a bunch of self publish authors of success started to arrive and so my work range expanded a lot too with that.

So what can I say... Over the years I´ve illustrated dozens of books, children books or school manuals, worked for board games, book covers, posters, concept art and anything you can think of related to imaginary worlds and fantasy type stuff. Scifi is still one thing that I love too.

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I still live in the South of Portugal, in a beach town called Portimão which has great seascapes which are another thing that are totally part of my artwork. There´s an ocean somewhere in most of my pics , a little wave, a stream or a bit of water because the sea is something that keeps inspiring me.

I draw, I paint, I photograph and I do talks about illustration in schools and local universities when I get invited. I´m the co-author of several books about the historical past of my region and when I´m not painting, I´m watching cinema as I probably have about a million blurays now.

I love Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Nightwish, Kamelot and Jazz or Bossa Nova. Actually , I love all kinds of music as its another of my great inspirations.

So if you read everything here and you want to learn more about my artwork or you have an illustration for me please visit : www.icreateworlds.net or contact me through luisperesillustrator@gmail.com

Thanks and I hope you enjoy my books at amazon too. :)

Luis

Mother, English teacher and eco-conscious author, Serena Lane Ferrari writes books that encourage children and parents to engage with environmental issues.

Nature inspires her stories, and she fills them up with magic and fun. Her young readers learn about climate change, pollution and activism, but they also get inspired by friendship, optimism and hope.

Her books help build a better future for all.