Debby
Sharma: Congratulations for your recent achievement to transform 3D art to real
world. Would you like to say something?
Toysoldier Thor: In my desire to bring my SL
art into the real world which I have already done with my 2D canvas art. I can
now do it with my 3D by actually bronze casting my 3D SL mesh art. So many have
congratulated me but I see it as a personal goal or challenge achieved and an
opportunity to leverage it more now. I am surprised how strongly my idea of
bronze casting has been accepted by the SL art loving community because unlike
the art you see which anyone can buy for $2 to $5 USD, buying one of my Bronze
Casts is a much more significant investment for residents - this first one is
$155 USD. I didn’t think anyone would accept that cost, still 10 people have
already ordered. The first order being Ebbe Altberg blew me away. It validated
my business model behind my passion.
Art Name: Shattered
Debby
Sharma: What are the inspirations behind 3D sculptures and how long does it
take to make them?
Toysoldier Thor: Well the inspiration to
shift my art from initially 2D wall art to 3D sculptures was a trigger of the
right conditions that finally came together in SL. prior to focusing on art in
SL in 2010, I loved making actual 3D content for SL using sculpts - Landscape
Terrains but they were not easy to mould into complex forms. Then in 2012 mesh
started. I initially thought i would use mesh to make better landscape packs as
I have earned lindens from them, but because mesh has high Land Impact
penalized by size, I decided to make 3D content for my desire for art. I loved
how i could express my emotions, feelings and political statements in 3D
statues. As you will see with most of my 3D sculptures I also create a 2D
representation because 2D and 3D art can express my desired expression
differently. Also the quality of mesh resolution in SL is not to the level that
I create in modelling tool, so I capture it as an image and transform it into
wall art. I wanted to take my art out of
SL's art community and expand it to real life. To create a mesh sculpture it
usually takes a week or less when i put my mind to it. The hard part is to know
exactly how to properly express an emotion. I wait for it to come to me and then
it hits me out of nowhere.
Art Name: His Princess
Debby
Sharma: After the successful exhibition in October 2013 in real life are you
planning on a few more? Are there any other forms of art that you indulge in?
Toysoldier Thor: I am sure I will have
another one but not until I create a couple more 3D bronze statues to include
in my next exhibit. P.S. I need to have another exhibit. I have 30 of canvas
artworks in my basement that need to be shown and hopefully sold! If i showed
you my real life basement man cave, you would laugh. My A.D.D. personality also
makes it hard for me to exhibit rl again as its more like "been there
accomplished that now what". I have found that art has been such an
amazing medium to allow me to express and vent my pent up creativity and I have
been so blessed that SL introduced art into my life. I am surprised that people
in real life know nothing about SL, love my SL landscapes art as they think they
are paintings.
I do real life photography too and manipulate
it like SL photography then often blend them. It is a form of photography I
love. I experimented with this method and the results are fantastic. Let me
show my favourite of those. I refer to it as Flashlight Photography where the
subject and my camera are in pitch darkness and I use a flashlight for 1 minute
and paint the light onto the camera lens from whatever angle I want to. This
creates a surreal atmosphere.
Art Name: Petrified Petals
Debby
Sharma: Tell us more about your journey with photography? Do you make custom
sculptures?
Toysoldier Thor: Well, strangely, when I was
in high school I was President of Photography. It was back in the late 1970’s.
After that I never touched photography again. In 2010, here in SL I got
inspired to do SL landscape photography after I watched the amazing results my
closest friend in SL was accomplishing. I entered a photo contest and came in
2nd so I got hooked to it. The 80 plus photographs you see in this 5 floor
gallery are all created since April 2010. But within 8 months I got bored with
landscapes as they had little emotion. So I used my SL earnings and bought a
good DSLR camera and started taking RL photos to capture photos and manipulate
them to express feelings, story and emotion. I experimented with mixing SL and
RL images capturing the 3D mesh art. In 2011 when i first opened my gallery, I
decided to attach an Artist Comments notecard with each which was a big hit
with the visitors.
I have only made two custom sculptures upon
request till date. I generally don’t do it because there are limitations to my
freedom of expression. However, the dragonfly mesh was inspired by real life
friend and the other one “His Princess” had full freedom to explore my
creativeness. I focus on Low Land Impact. These dragonflies and humming birds
are only 1 LI and “His Princess” which is famous among those that love art and
dance for 9 LI. I was inspired with this art by a photo in a local newspaper. I
used to use Blender but it was so complex that I started playing with ZBrush. I
also loved a simple free program called Sculptris. It worked the way i loved to
create organically. Later Zbrush bought Sculptris and many of the functions of
Sculptris were introduced into Zbrush. i am not endorsing but for me it works
great.
Debby
Sharma: What are the other things that interest you in Second Life apart from art?
Toysoldier Thor: I love singing Karaoke in SL
since 2008. I am a huge supporter of the SL Artistic Dance community. I love
taking photos of them while dancing. It’s a great artistic challenge to catch
them artistically as an image while they dance. Guerilla Burlesque is one of my
favourites but there are so many others like Elysium, Image Club, Starlite and
so many others that i have worked with my art. Dance, music, fine art, fashion,
set creation is like a blending of art forms and I have loved building
landscape terrain packs but sort of left that passion and good revenue source
behind. Art is what i love engaging in most now. The only thing I haven’t
engaged in is the formal Role Play sims and communities. Although, I have
visited a few and observed but i am too restless to get into RL communities, I
am Toy in SL but Toy acts mostly as RL me.
Debby
Sharma: Is there any emotion unexplored and anything you are working at
currently which you would like to share?
Toysoldier Thor: I have so many ideas. Thanks
to my “Shattered” sculpture, I have been inspired to focus on a theme to my
future sculptures. Well one was inspired as an actual request from my real life
friend. She loved my Shattered and actually plans to buy one of the Bronzes,
but she asked me "Can you create a sculpture showing elation or success or
achievement?” Of course i could but I didn’t want it to be corny. So, I
pondered how to capture achievement in a way that when people look at the
sculpture they will feel the same. I want my sculptures to pour out the emotion
just by observing it. That is what i love Shattered. Its accomplished emotion
with the most intensity and it has also inspired my signature for my future
sculptures. Do you see the exaggeration of the hands in Shattered? My “Ah!”
moment to creating my signature of my future works will be to use the hands to
express emotions. I have two ideas in my head already.
Actually no I haven’t started on any of the
two ideas for my next sculpture but I will show you part of what one of them
which I will use in the next sculpture and the rest when i finish it. See this
piano. Imagine a pianist, his fingers pounding on the keys with passion and
pouring out his music soul into the piano to create his artistic piece of
music. How he will slump into the keys and how the fingers that hit the keys
will be the "key". That’s my vision.
Debby
Sharma: What would you like to say to your fans and friends through this
podium?
Toysoldier Thor: I would likely say what so
many have already realized known and expressed to anyone else in SL that has
not yet embraced something in SL they are passionate about. TAKE THE PLUNGE and
embrace it you will be amazed how it will actually transform and add a new
aspect to your real life. I was not an artist when I came and look what is
created in the gallery. If you love something in SL, grab it and run with it,
don’t be afraid.
Flicker: https://www.flickr.
Website: http://www.
Deviant art: http://toysoldierthor.
Marketplace Store: https://marketplace.
In world art gallery: http://maps.
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