1. Your DeviantArt profile page says that you “like to play Damsel in Distress and some other fetishy roles, mostly in Second Life.” How long ago did you become involved with SL? What was it that got you interested in Second Life? What are the non-damsel in distress “fetish roles” you are involved with there?

I started on Second Life in 2008. One or two people had been nudging me to get on there for a while. The very day I got a PC capable of running it, I loaded it up. I liked the idea of a visual environment for the kind of roleplay I was interested in. I guess I got that and a lot more.

I intended "fetishy roles" to mean... I guess stuff like mind control and willing sub that doesn't quite fall under damsel in distress. I switch and play domme sometimes too, but I seem to get some questionable responses when I mention that.

2. What led you to join DeviantArt 11 years ago?

I think I signed up just to be able to follow certain artists. I first started posting my own pics... well as I remember it, most of my motivation was to help promote a Second Life roleplay sim I'd subsequently severed my ties to, but I guess after that I had momentum to keep going,.

3. How and when did you first realize you liked the bondage/damsel in distress genres?

Early. It was the usual, TV and movie scenes, and playing children's games. There was an odd kind of kid-friendly horror streak through children's media when I was growing up. I think Count Duckula introduced me to concepts like "dungeon" and "torture" and they were fascinating to me.

4. When did you create your first bondage drawing and what was it?

Literally drawings? I probably doodled stuff when I was young. I really can't draw; I've never gotten the idea of sketching an outline first and everything. Years ago, there was a Yahoo! group where the idea was to post five minute drawings with the whole intention of them being quick and scrappy. I gave that a try and got quite into it, but the group abruptly vanished as Yahoo! groups tended to do. I think those drawings are lost to time.

5. What bondage artists/cartoonists or photographers do you admire, and have any of them influenced your artwork?

I know this is going to be tricky because I'm going to overlook mentioning people I should. I've done pictures specifically influenced by... I know osvaldogreco was one; I usually mention it specifically when I've been influenced by somebody. vladen13 is another artist I like a lot (especially when he draws me!).


courtesy of vladen13 

6. Your dA gallery also showcases a host of other kinks and fetishes – magic, BDSM slavery, chloro/sleepy, hypno/mindcontrol, tickling, and quicksand/mud. How did your interest in each of those fetishes develop?

Oh boy, each of them? So I guess this is based on my individual gallery folders.

Magic: Seeing the Zig Zag Girl illusion on TV when I was young, being really freaked out but fascinated by it.

BDSM/slavery: I kind of waver on whether I'm into more conventional BDSM. There's roleplay-influenced stuff I've done that goes in that folder. There are people I do things with. but it tends to have kind of a DiD twist.

Chloro/sleepy: You know, there are kinks that have always appealed to me and there are some I never put together without being exposed to them online. The "sleepy" thing is in that category of seeing it online, having overlap with bondage, and thinking "oh yeah, I like this".

Hypno/MC: Well this has pretty much always appealed to me. Influenced by vampire stories, maybe... I always liked that vampires could control people.

Tickling: Internet thing. I never used to like being tickled. Seeing it related to bondage kind of opened my eyes. It's a kink that fades in and out for me.

Quicksand/mud: Again, probably an internet thing. It's interesting that it's a niche fetish that seems to get a lot of attention and discussion. The quicksand cliche had probably vanished from popular entertainment by my time, so it was more about online exposure.



7. Tell us about your OC, Miss Britain – Who is she? What inspired you to create her?

When I was first getting into roleplay on Yahoo! Messenger, I was curious about the superheroine community and wanted to have my own character. I kind of enjoyed it when people talking to me thought British women were sexy... Miss Britain was initially developed just to play into that. It took a while for her to grow into a real character. Doing group RP in Second Life was a real baptism where I worked out who she actually was.

8. Do you have any other original characters you’ve created? If so, tell us a little about them too.

Beestung is my other major superheroine character, a naive, enthusiastic younger heroine. I haven't done much with her in a while, but I consider her still active. I have Corporal Cain, my villainess that I'd still like to do things with. Rose Red, another heroine who's kind of fallen by the wayside. A few others I've tried out.

9. Which one piece of your work are you most proud of and why?



Xmas 2012 is one that seemed to come out just right, with the pose, angle, the expression, the just-sexy-enough outfit.

10. What has been your most challenging work? Why was it so challenging?



FMP: Penelope Maidified stands out as one that... seemed to take a lot of work for something that doesn't really look like much. I guess that I was doing an homage to a couple of other artists and really wanted to get the details right. It had a number of "back to the drawing board" moments.

11. How did you come to be a regular member of BMovieVillain’s cast of damsels?

This goes back to before I was active on DeviantArt, when bmovievillain was on Yahoo! Groups. Somewhere --2004-2007? I think -- I followed him and commented occasionally, so he was aware of me... I don't remember if he asked about the first model of me or just surprised me with it, and I started appearing in my own peril sequences. I was in the first bunch of online damsels he used as models, there were just a couple of others. That's how I've been part of his pictures for over a decade now.


courtesy of bmovievillain 

12. In your favourites gallery, there is a “Me” folder that nearly 127 pages of artwork featuring you and a “Miss Britain” folder with 17 pages of art that features your OC. What do you think makes others here on DA so interested in featuring you and your OC in their work?

I'd like to say it's my personality or something... I think I did a lot of networking in my early years on DA, and I had a distinctive enough look and people were willing to depict me... And after a while there's a snowball effect where people I haven't actually seen before are contacting me because they saw me in someone else's art. With Miss Britain I think she fills a niche in the superheroine peril community because nobody else had that kind of UK-representing character... She does, I'll say myself, have a very memorable look to her.


courtesy of amazonarrow 

13. What other dA or SL artists have you collaborated? How does the collaboration process work with you and those other artists?

Collaboration is anything between me outlining the concept for a picture, to me providing my SL shots and somebody doing additional work on them. 

"Collaboration" in SL is kind of different since it usually means at least two people piloting avatars... Often my shots are just me and friends doing a roleplay scene, more like candids really. Sometimes I've worked with people to use their avatars in one of my pre-planned shoots, but it can be more trouble than it's worth getting exactly what I want... With all the "turn a little to the left. No, my left." There's a reason I've often run multiple avatars myself.

14. You’ve mentioned comic books a few times in journals and status posts. What comics do you read and for how long have you been into comic books? Do you have an all-time favorite comic or storyline?

This is actually kind of touchy because I quite publicly quit comics a few years ago. I've been inching back into DC's output without really committing.

I pretty much learned to read from comics of the DC Thomson school, and got into American-style superhero comics via the X-Men cartoon in the mid 90s. The New Mutants is a particular favourite of mine (Claremont and about half of Simonson - yes, I'm that one person who really likes Gosamyr). The New 52 Justice League International is a touchstone I keep going back to since it introduced me to Godiva. I'm currently reading Doomsday Clock - in part because it finally got us an update on her - and I'm skimming Heroes in Crisis just to see if the deaths are going to stick.

15. As an 11+ year veteran of dA, what do you think are the best and worst features of the site?

Favourites, gallery folders are great. Sta.sh I'd have to say is a really undervalued addition.

For worst, I'd have to say I hate that people can deactivate their accounts on a whim, or have it deactivated for them for some reason, and have everything permanently vanish in a few weeks. It seems like I've spent a lot of time lately scrabbling to archive people's art offline.

16. What do you enjoy doing when you take downtime from DeviantArt?

I enjoy film, music. I've been getting more into theatre in the past year. I've got some shows booked for next year, including seeing Cabaret live for the first time.

17. What else do you want people on DeviantArt to know about you and your art?

I'm going to say... I'm pretty sure I started the whole thing of SL bondage pics on DA. Maybe somebody was doing it before me, but I remember looking around when I started, and seeing landscape and fashion pictures but not really seeing anyone else posting fetish stuff from SL. And a lot of the early stuff was pretty poor quality, screenshots with HUDs and UI visible. I started to up my game with editing to overcome the limitations of SL. Now I'll see people who've surpassed me; shots where I really have to squint to tell whether it's SL or something else. Looking at the sheer volume of stuff out there now, it's a weird legacy to have.