1. How did you come up with your DeviantArt username?
That was a very long and complicated process. A lot of market research and customer focus groups were employed, years of careful deliberation has gone into this....... or maybe I simply used my SecondLife name here too.
2. Why did you join SecondLife? Why did you then join DeviantArt?
Ohh a two fer one question! SecondLife, I initially did to release some personal frustrations of an.. intimate nature. Long and personal story, but it became an outlet. At first I was simply a pose ball hopping (snuff) bunny. Then I had something happen and my world shifted into a Roleplay centered one. It went from a used and pose chasing person to intricate and detailed Roleplays. I got good at it and eventually discovered photography there. This leads into the second part. I am a fast learner and grasped the SecondLife mechanics and tools at a very fast pace and my pictures became better. Some friends there told me they were good enough to publish and dA was recommended. It still took me a while to build up the nerve to actually post here and the reaction to my in-game Screen captures did take me by surprise.
3. When did you create your first bondage drawing and what was it?
Technically, I never made a drawing. If it comes to actually drawing, I am still at the crayon to nose stage. My first picture taken in SecondLife was Friday, June 19 7:40:34 AM PDT 2015 -- 3 days into my foray at SecondLife as well as the first time I added some Linden$ to save the screenshot. Yes, I still have it in my inventory. Linden charges you when you add pictures to the game but saving it on your Disk and uploading it to a place, ohh say like deviantArt, that's free and a much higher resolution than the ones you can save in game.
4. How and when did you first realize you liked bondage?
Uhm... i should plead the 5th here. I actually came across a black and white picture of a random online girl in a swimsuit, legs cuffed, cuffs linked behind her back to a set of handcuffs. That made me for some reason VERY... moist.. and I started taking an interest.... Come to think of it... I probably should try and re-create that using my tools and skill set.. Dang it!!! Another idea for my ever expanding backlog!
5. Describe your creative process. What are the "tools of your trade"? And how do you decide what you will draw?
What I draw? That usually depends on what flavor Crayon I fancy at a given time. My tool of the trade is simply Firestorm, a SecondLife viewer. It has some very nice in-game photo tools. Anything I have published here (except one photo) has been created with in-game tools and props. Unaltered, unfiltered. The only Post-Processing I do is to add my watermark. What I decide, suppose I could say that's a long involved process, but it really ain't. Usually, I see something and an idea pops in my head, or I'm in a roleplay and something inspires me there. Or I see some pictures on here and those inspire me for a Cover Art. I've got a very veritable backlog of ideas and nowhere close of running out of steam. While doing this interview I already had two more ideas and we are only on question 5.
6. How did you develop your particular style of art here on DA? How (if at all) has it changed since you’ve been active on the site?
Not particularly. I am learning and improving my photography as I discover tricks here and there how to use the camera in SecondLife, but the style simply developed as I started to learn more and more about what I can do. I guess that doing pictures just about daily probably improves my skills and, if you go back, you can see where I posted some of my old, archived works, (such as in the trip down memory lane series) how much of a difference there is from then to now in terms of style and skill.
7. What is the meaning of the “screwball” that so often finds its way into your renders?
Hihihi, you were, to my recollection, the first who noticed those. I guess you could call it a hidden trademark, one I try to hide away in all pictures except the occasional spur of the moment inspirations and photo shoots where I have forgotten them. It started at my Crazy picture of Harley, easily my favorite comic character ever. After the Scene was set, I thought the background looked empty and thought "well, she is a Screwball," so I had this flashback to the old Loony Toons (take Daffy as example) and the little signs and flags of a screw and a ball. I rooted through my inventory and found a baseball. I had and a screw that I used before as a building component and combined the two. Afterwards, well, the parallels are obvious. I am a silly screwball myself so it got adopted as a hidden trademark.
8. You recently suffered a major personal setback with the breaking and entering of your home and theft of your personal property. How did you manage to keep such a relatively positive attitude afterwards? And how are you doing at bouncing back from that very unfortunate incident?
Very slowly. In many ways the apartment is like a scab I keep picking at each time I come here. There is, of course, the financial loss, but also a huge emotional one as a lot of my memories are gone. Things that can't be replaced. I do have to say that the outpouring of support and sympathy I received here on dA was staggering. It probably kept me from giving into my prevalent depression and doing something very stupid. It certainly was by a magnitude greater than anything I've gotten at work from people I have worked with daily for almost 10 years. Some amazing people visit here!
9. What bondage artists/cartoonists or bondage photographers do you admire, and have any of them influenced your bondage artwork?
On dA; Piroro, oxode, Vazarush, katzenauge1, montycrusto, pyperhaylie and a few others. Several of the artists you tend to feature / publish, as you may recall, have been sources of several pieces of cover-art I created. You could say some of them influence my work or inspire it. Some caused for more shapes / Avatars and outfits to be put together in SecondLife to use for photos. Outside of this, some works from Dolcett and Bishop have been an influence to get me to where I am today.
10. Is there any one piece of your work are you most proud of and why?
Probably my Warrior Series. Why? Not that easy to quantify but it simple speaks to me. one of those things you look at and it just comes together for you.
11. What has been your most challenging work? Why was it so challenging?
The RGB series. I created a Studio, a sky box for it. SecondLife does not really do mirrors and I managed to create the illusion of it to some extent that can be seen in the Warrior Too set. Working the RGB lighting in it was another challenge that took me a little to get together with the in-game building tools. Working the shadows to make it fade into the black... It was a challenge, but I think it was worth it.
12. What fetishes do you explore in your dA gallery and how did you develop your interest in those fetishes?
Oi! There is a lot of that. Overall, I do enjoy perils, which was a reason I started SecondLife as you can live out stuff there. Asphyxiation, snuff in other forms like beheading. Gynophagia. Overall, I do like peril situations, dangers, etc. However, I am also very happy to make and deliver sexy pinup, fantasy creatures and simply erotic cute and sexy pictures. How I developed those? I suppose once you've seen a few pictures and your body reacts in an aroused way, you tend to look for more; in my case, Dolcett has been one of those sources. Coming to SecondLife, I found communities that play those things and it allows one to "experience" it.
13. What is your policy on taking requests and/or commissions?
I don't have a policy, not per se, but I have worked some commissions before. Given what my medium is, it can be limited in what I can do even though, as you might have noticed, I am quite flexible in my work. Still, it is a game I work with, so there are limitations.
Requests I've done before if it was among my own interests, but with my growing backlog of ideas, they do tend to go in that pile and do come up eventually. Those aren't forgotten tho.
14. What have you enjoyed most about dA since you joined the site in June 2017?
The Banter in the comments and the support from this community. I NEVER would have thought that what I considered silly screenshots would get such an amazing reception.
15. If you could make one change to dA, what would it be?
The reporting system. It seems to easy for some special snowflakes to click a button and get something or even an artist removed with what feels like no real recourse or an actual person looking at the picture before a warning is sent or the art gets removed.
16. What do you enjoy doing when you take downtime from DeviantArt?
What is a "downtime"? A new bread spread? I do tend to play in SecondLife, at least as much as my current machine lets me since my computer wandered off. I also used to enjoy time in VR (Oculus Rift), but that's also something that got stolen.
17. What else do you want people on DA to know about you and your art?
I like making others happy. It's my nature, so I hope that my silly screenshots do that for you. I love the banter in the comments. And, I do enjoy the interactions with others on here.
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May both of you keep up your great work here on DA....
Thos. Merchant
All recuperated yet???
Slowly getting there, back to work (aaarrrgghh!). Might try some shoots in August with Rachel and Little Alice.
As I commented to Vicky today, I first visited her dA page in Sept 2017, then somehow forgot about it, until today. Whoosh! A whole pantloaf full of images from SL. I loked at every one, and thenc ame over here to read the interview. Comes together nicely, and I'm glad I'm getting to know a new artist here. Thanks, Rob, for the connection. And thanks, Vicky, for sharing your work with us!