Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting
Iggypop Starflare is celebrating the Olympics in Second Life with her hybrid Second Life pictures featuring places and events in SL with her own hand-drawn graphic characters. Here she is competing in the Equestrian events. On her Flickr feed, you can also see her playing beach volleyball, judo, and weightlifting.
I wrote her a note asking how she went about creating her pictures and got the most delightful answer. I will just share her pictures and let her tell her story.
Thank you so very much for your surprising and wonderful message.
I will share this with you, for it is mostly just about factual.
My favorite form of digital art is creating digital drawings. I have tried to do Digital photography within Second Life to mixed results.
Unfortunately for some time my meanderings in Second Life have been deeply curtailed by circumstances in Real Life. I still love Second life, and the many friends I have made there. So many wonderful people, and having participated in so many glorious adventures.
I now mostly capture my Second Life memories, using my drawings as stories. The drawings begin as pencil sketches, then are scanned to create digital files. Opening these files in Photoshop, I ink them, and then color, generally using many layers. The layering helps me add some various backgrounds. To hopefully create an overall image that others will find to be fun, and hopefully evoke a smile or two.
To explain how I came to use this technique, I shall share with you my autobiography, which is more or less completely, sort of, kind of, pretty much exactly the way it happened.
For her just about factual autobiography, click here:
My name is Iggy Starflare, I was born in a tiny village clinging to the icy Northern edge of South Eastern Tibet. My early life seemed to revolve around the ancient arts taught by the local Buddhist monks. From an early age, I was seen as the village’s prodigy, though my primary artistic subjects were the local yaks who, despite their majestic appearances, didn’t seem particularly interested in being immortalized in charcoal. I would spend hours in the fields, sketching BigNose, a particularly grumpy yak who was as indifferent to art as he was to the weather.
As I grew up, my obsession with drawing yaks and an ever-growing collection of yak-themed art led to a brilliant idea: why not take my sketches beyond the village and share them with the world? After scanning the artwork, I embraced the modern era with open arms and a graphics tablet, converting simple yak sketches into digital masterpieces using Photoshop. I even added snazzy digital backgrounds, like neon galaxies and underwater scenes, just to spice things up.
My online debut was met with a curious blend of fascination and bemusement. Yak enthusiasts from around the globe found the digital renditions strangely enchanting, and soon I became known for “Yak-tastic" artworks. Social media platforms were abuzz with discussions about whether BigNose's digital makeover was a profound commentary on modern art or just a yak’s bad hair day captured for eternity.
Despite newfound internet fame, I tried to remain humorously detached. It would seem to me to be very amusing the idea of BigNose becoming a global sensation, while he blissfully continued grazing, seemingly oblivious to the digital world’s obsession with his likeness. To my embarrassment the village, meanwhile, proudly touted my artistic endeavors, my efforts had turned the local yaks into internet celebrities, proving that even in the most remote corners of the world, a little creativity could go a long way.As my fame seemed to grow in the digital world, I became increasingly curious about the strange new realm that I had stumbled into. One day, while I was fiddling with Photoshop layers, I discovered a digital portal to Second Life, a virtual universe where people lived out alternative lives through avatars. I became Intrigued, deciding to explore this virtual wonderland, armed with my trusty sketchpad and a new digital stylus.
In Second Life, I was delighted to find myself surrounded by a menagerie of fantastical creatures and eccentric characters—though none were quite as stoic as BigNose. I quickly found myself sketching everything from pixilated unicorns to cybernetic dragons, capturing the bizarre and often hilarious antics of the digital denizens. My sketches ranged from a unicorn stuck in a perpetual dance-off to a dragon trying to fit into an avatar-sized hot air balloon.
As I navigated the Firestorm interface through digital festivals and futuristic cityscapes, I couldn’t resist using my newfound digital art skills to bring my Second Life adventures to the world. To my surprise virtual art became an internet sensation in its own right, showcasing everything from a high-tech yak fashion show to a virtual yak summit where the yaks discussed world issues like "best virtual grass" and "most flattering digital fur colors." There are so many incredibly great talented creators in Second Life. I tried to use my ability to blend the whimsical charm of Tibetan roots with the quirky nature of Second Life that made my work a unique hit.
Even as I grew more accustomed to the new digital surroundings, I tried so very hard to maintain a grand amount of characteristic humor and lightheartedness. I would often joke about how virtual yak companions were far less grumpy than the real ones, and how they seemed to have developed a rather curious taste for pixilated hay. Despite the seemingly constant barrage of digital adventures and art requests, I never lost sight of my humble beginnings; I would often share stories of real yaks with my virtual friends, much to their perplexed amusement.
In the end, my long journey from a small Tibetan village to the sprawling expanse of Second Life was a testament to a creative spirit and adventurous nature. My art continued to bridge worlds, merging the serene beauty of the Himalayas with the boundless imagination of the digital universe, all the while capturing the delightful absurdity of my virtual escapades.
** Yak names, and locations, have been changed to protect the innocent. **
Thank you ever so much
Yours
Iggy ♥♥♥
I don’t usually turn my column over to someone else, but seriously, could I have written a better story?
All images copyright Iggypop Starflare
See all of Cajsa's Choices here. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter, on her blog, and on her Ko-Fi.
Want to recommend amazing SL artists for future posts? Posts links to their image feeds in comments here. (Self-promotion welcome!)
Cajsa’s Choices is devoted to unique, artistic, and innovative virtual world-based images and screenshots that showcase the medium as an art form and Second Life as a creative platform. (Generally not images that fit on this Bingo card.)
Cajsa Lilliehook is a sixteen year resident of Second Life, where she owned a photo studio, spent several years as a DJ at The Velvet, and for her first SL job, cleaned up prim trash. She co-founded and runs the It’s Only Fashion blog with her best friend Gidge Uriza. She also has a book review blog, Tonstant Weader Reviews and a cooking blog, Single Serving Recipes. She spends a lot of time researching and reporting on Republican sexual predators. In her first life, she is a retired grassroots leader who has worked for economic and social justice issues most of her life. She is also the minion of a cat named Nora.
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