“Justice League Second Life” by Flight of Osiris - click to enlarge
Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Pop culture fans are sure to love the Flickr stream of Flight of Osiris. He has a fascination with characters from film, comic books, and politics, and memorializes that interest in Second Life. He also shoots portraits of other people that are excellent at revealing personality. Often there can be a flat affect in SL portraits, but his are full of life. From movie superheroes like Batman to popstars like Beyoncé to a portrait of Putin as a popstar supervillain, his works are vivid and realistic. Since my interview, Osiris changed his Flickr display name to “Project 17-73” in honor of a photo project he is working on to photograph men at all ages as depicted in Second Life. For all that that more, read my interview with him below:
“Lemonade” by Flight of Osiris
Pop culture seems to inspire a lot of your work, superheroes, characters from television, music icons, and politics. How do you approach creating such effective SL images?
I have a big interest in politics and pop culture and its relevance to everyday social commentary, whereas once it was simply the purview of geeks and old men, so I always try to imagine that if I was creating a GIF for Twitter how would it translate through a SL picture.
If you apportioned the time for each shot to preparing the avatar and scene, shooting the raw shot, and post-processing in some editing software, how much of your time is spent on each part? Can you describe your process from your initial idea to the final product?
The inspiration takes ages to come up with, I can go through a dry spell where I'm not satisfied with anything but once I get an idea, then usually takes me about an hour to make each picture.
As mentioned above, the idea for each pic comes from imagining what a GIF looks like through an SL pic as most people use GIFs on Twitter to convey a message that through words would take ages -- I try the same technique in SL. I'm not interested in conveying a story like some people, more I just want to provoke an emotional response as quick as possible.
Much more below:
“Unite the Seven (Part One) - Age 42)” by Flight of Osiris
I love your Superman - the composition with the cape, etc. He feels lonely. You crop him at the edge, giving more space to his cape, as though suggesting his role is greater than the man, that adds to the feeling of alienation...was that intentional or just me reading too much into it?
Well I did 2 things: I wanted to give Superman as big a cape as possible because that’s as much a part of his identity as his logo or more so, otherwise he looks as generic as any other superhero. I used a black background to signify his alien heritage whereas most of the superheroes I have on white backgrounds
“Puppet Master - Age 71” by Flight of Osiris
Some of your pieces - such as “Good Luck America” and “Thug Life” provide social commentary, how much does that inspire your work?
The political pictures were because by nature I'm very political but I'm also pessimistic, and at the time, I thought it was important to make social commentary. However I'm sure come the midterms or some new scandal I'll get inspired to make few more political pics
I am curious about “Whiplash”, what inspired that picture?
Whiplash was inspired New Orleans. I was listening to a lot of Louis Armstrong at the time and the movie Whiplash had given me a new appreciation for jazz, but the idea for the picture came from the first time i saw someone playing sax, which was in Back to the Future in the “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance, and I wanted the avi to look like one of the band members.
“Batman - Age 40” by Flight of Osiris
What is your favorite picture? What did you hope to express with it?
My fav picture is “Batman - Age 40” because I felt it’s the first picture I printed in real life and hangs in my 2 year old nephew’s nursery. The majority of the comic book pics are for his nursery to hang up on the wall, trying to inspire him to be a hero.
“Diconay Boa Art Attack” by Flight of Osiris is a wonderful example of his portraits.
Who are some of your favorite SL artists?
I have 2 fave artists whose pics I always look at: Volupturaptor Perl (blogging at I Got Dressed.) Her Flickr is an amazing source of info and Miaa Rebane (MiaaRebane.com) who has the fiercest Flickr.
What do you think your pictures say about you? Not so much your client work, but the ones you do for yourself?
Well first that, I'm a comic book nerd at heart and secondly, that I like showing the variety of SL avis. When people complained that all the Bento heads looked the same, I decided to show a variety of males aged 17 to 73 to show how a male could look any age he wanted, and thus, show men that they had just as many options as women with regards to skin. [See below]
“Old Gangsta Age 73” by Flight of Osiris
What do you like to do in SL when you aren't working on photos?
Gossiping about SL Secrets [laughs].
What do you want people to know about you?
I would like people to know that I'm not after fame -- just want to make them feel happy, laugh, or think, when they look at my Flickr.
Cajsa Lilliehook joined Second Life in 2007 and has been enjoying the art of SL ever since. Disliking the common practice of critiquing poor photos, she decided to highlight good ones and explain why they work in hopes of inspiring with praise instead of criticism. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter or on her blog.
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