Eshi Otawara Turns Second Life Avatars Into Real Life Paintings on Squares of Sanded Glass

Juliet Ceres, the Second Life avatar, and the acrylic portrait by Eshi

Eshi Otawara and I were recently commiserating over the suckage of missing out on SLCC, when the metaverse artist and fashion designer showed me her latest project: Real world paintings, based on Second Life avatars. She does these on commission, creating them on 12x12 squares of sanded edge glass. "I haven't been painting for a few years and this is a very important step for me," she told me, "going back to my original medium. I would love to merge SL and painting through the avatar portraiture which makes avatars look so much more alive and radiant than [screenshots]." To do that, she puts a lot of thought in her brushwork: "I think of the paintings as records of my fluid dance. The strokes are long and clean, I try to make them look very confident and elegant." You can see more of her works on her Flickr page, or take a look at reproductions of them in Second Life, at her gallery: SLurl teleport here.

Comments

[Nat Merit]

Artists painting avatars is news worthy now? I have a friend who's done this on and off for years...

I only recently created a pastiche of the Goonies movie poster portraying eight of the Second Life Goonies in the place of the original characters. Going to lengths to ensure that the likenesses were spot on even though they were taking poses and using facial expressions not seen in world.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Have you ever tried to paint on sanded edge glass? Then you know it's risky to the artist, the medium is poor at holding normal paints, and it's all done in a non-digital form.

It also means that you should at least shut up if you can't appreciate the effort it took to paint these portraits, even if they're a bit on the lousy side IMHO. (Sorry, eshi, I really do think you've painted better, but keep practicing, you'll get better in a few months of revision)

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I find the work simple, subtle and effective.

Not every piece of art needs to be a hand grenade in a punchbowl.

[Winter Jefferson]

Hey Nat; maybe next time find a way to mention your art, but without putting others down, eh? It can be done, and your hostility here was unecessary. Maybe send Hamlet an IM directly about your Goonies project, I'm sure he'd have been interested in it.

[Nat Merit]

Apologies, I seem to have worded my comment badly, and been misinterpreted. I think Eshi's art is great and I'm aware of the skill involved in painting on sanded edge glass. I'd encourage anyone to go enjoy her art, and to make their own Second Life inspired artwork. I'm involved in communities elsewhere promoting and celebrating art of all types and ability levels.

What my excruciatingly badly worded comment was attempting and failing to ask was whether Hamlet really hadn't come across artists creating portraits of Second Life avatars before, as I thought this was fairly common, in fact I was more frequently exposed to Second Life before joining through other people's traditional and digital art of avatars and in world scenes, than I was to machinima. I think it's another example of how art forms can expose Second Life to audiences who would never come in world.

So sorry again for my comment giving completely the wrong impression. By posting my artwork I was hoping other artists who create portraits, landscapes, sculptures etc inspired by Second Life would come out of the woodwork and share their art here too. Instead it apparently looks like I'm bashing Eshi's artwork to promote mine, which could not have been further from my intention. Maybe Hamlet could do some sort of artists open forum for that in the future. And hopefully I'll think more carefully about how my comments will be perceived before I fire off any more quick replies...

[Hamlet Au]

No problem. I have written about other "RL painting of SL avatars" projects, actually, it's something I'm interested in on an ongoing basis. Share links!

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Arcadia:

Not every piece of art needs to be a hand grenade in a punchbowl.

That gives me a great idea suddenly!

*runs off to sculpt a nuclear handgrenade and drop it in a megaprim bowl full of watermelon punch*

[Arcadia Codesmith]

While not every piece of art needs to be a hand grenade in a punchbowl... some art should be. Go for it ;)