We are here to bring you the latest from the World of Warcraft and the community around it. It has been a very exciting week here, and we are excited to be here to give you another episode! Here are some of the topics you will hear about this week…
First, we want to give a HUGE thank you to Meowshka Workshop for working with us to make this great spotlight happen this week! Below you will find the entire transcript of the interview we did, and it also includes some great behind the scenes pictures for you to see how they create such amazing artwork! Be sure to follow them at their many social media links below!
Hi everyone! I am so much pleased to being interviewed and hope it will be interested for you to listen! Unfortunately, I can’t answer the question with my voice, so thanks The Worgen’s Howl for reading all of this and running the show <3
- How did you get interested in World of Warcraft?
I’ve heard of this game back in my school days, my friend was playing WoW and liked it very much – but I was preparing to enter university and this took a lot of time, so I couldn’t afford playing an MMO (but I was already playing WCIII). Then, when I entered, I had more of free time, so me and my fellow student decided to try playing this game. He was a warrior, and I was a priest, but soon we abandoned the idea and started leveling two druids – to have the same quests and always be together. But the time when I became really keen on WoW is when we met some good players and started raiding. Then we started our own guild 🙂
- Do you currently play World of Warcraft?
Yes, from time to time. Actually none of my friends still play now, and I don’t really like playing solo – I do some dailies/weeklies, main quest chains and farm Ulduar 🙂 Sometimes I think that when I get Mimiron’s Head, I’ll quit WoW – I farm it for such a long time (every week!), and it still didn’t drop! 🙂 As for the new raids, I have no time now.
- If so, What are your thoughts on Legion so far? (Things you like/dislike)
I like Legion’s atmosphere – like, this wonderful Suramar quest chain! I really worried about Thalyssra and her crew, and was so happy to grow my first fruit of the Arcan’dor! And indeed, every location is so detailed and well-designed. I also like when quests become available gradually.
But this is the minus itself. I always had a main character and a few alts, but Legion is very demanding when it comes to alts. If you don’t spend all your free time playing, you have to forget about your other characters. So this created some difficulties for me: I was playing pally tank for some time, and now I want to start playing my hunter, but this is not that easy, when I have to make a huge bunch of quest chains, to level my artifact weapon and get some loot – and everything is solo.
- What got you started doing art dolls?
As long as I can remember – I was always making something with my hands: paintings, toys, greeting cards, magnets and so on. So I am making toys for a long time already – you can see my pre-school works on the photos below. I just always liked working with my hands 🙂
- What are some of your favorite characters in the game?
Actually this game’s plot is so good, and there are so many well-written characters, so for every phase of our lives we can find characters, who are close to our own hearts. They are nearly alive, they change, and they make mistakes, and they make life-changing decisions – just like we do. Illidan’s story is a good example of what do I mean 🙂
And also I love animals from WoW – they are all so extraordinary, so inspiring and so different from each other. But my favorite is Loque’nahak, of course – the spirit beast, which is being tracked by many-many hunters 🙂 It is said that you don’t choose Loque’nahak, but Loque’nahak may choose you. And this is very true for me – each one of my hunters (I have a few) has their own Loque’nahak 🙂
- What would be the character you would want to make an art doll of the most of all, and why?
I’d really like to make a Ysera art doll. When I knew that one can see all the eyes of every living being inside of her open eyes, I immediately started learning the casting technique to make the most beautiful eyes for her: to put the whole universe in a small drip of crystal resin. And moreover, she has such a sad and beautiful story in Legion, so I also want to pay tribute to Ysera.
- What is your process for designing a piece or picking a character to create artwork of? (Thought process, tools, etc..) How many people work with you on your projects?
All starts with becoming keen about the idea (actually I am always keen about all my future projects). Then I sketch – sometimes in details, sometimes I just mark the sizes:
After sketching I make the framework. Usually that was a wireframe, but for my latest works I used super-durable plastic skeletons, they bear tremendous loads and are very flexible:
Then I make “muscles” from polyester batting:
Most of the details (legs, heads and so on) are modeled from polymer clay and casted from crystal resin (if needed):
Then I sew the body round with fur and fabric, paint the clay parts:
The final step is to assemble the toy and to decorate it (paint the fur, add feathers and so on). Making art dolls is a very laborious work, and there are years of learning, trying and making mistakes behind the result.
What about tools and materials, I have lots of them: from enormous amount of fur (I even have a cupboard for fabrics), to literally hundreds of dyes and paints.
How many people work with me? Well, honestly there’s my husband, who helps me with making photoshoots, sometimes with sculpting and actually he is my inspirer and my number one critic – I couldn’t have done anything without his help 🙂 From raiding times I realized how important it is to work in team on the common cause! And of course, every kind word, every comment and like in the social networks does not go unnoticed and becomes a big motivation for me to work more and harder!
- Do you open for commissions?
Yes, but not at the moment. And I take not as much commissions as I’d wanted to 🙂 I work from 2 to 8 weeks on each project – I try to make them really cool and high-quality, and also pour my soul into each one 🙂 And sometimes I need a break to become ready for working on the next toy. Those breaks are usually spent on drawing 🙂
- Where can people find you online? (Twitter, etc..)
I have a few accounts around the web, where I share my works:
But also I have a shop:
- What is the funniest, or best thing to happen to you in World of Warcraft?
The funniest thing I can remember… One day I went to Zul’Aman as a rogue. Loot was set so that anyone could roll anything that their class can wear – and as for I was a total noob, I just rolled on every leather piece, ones with the “intellect” too. Someone said like: “Oh gosh, that’s a girl, let her take anything she wants”. And so, happy and proud of myself, I wore all of this resto-gear and went to Stormwing for some duels. When I lost one, people swarmed around me, yelling: “What a noob! Rogue geared in intellect!”. I actually didn’t understand a thing, and so, angry and ashamed, I just deleted my character. Now it’s such a funny thing to remember, but back in that time I was really upset 😀
And one more thing that happened much later, when I was raiding with my guild already: we went to the ICC HM, to the Lich King. I was a priest, and was always dispelling the “Infest”. And once I went as a restoration shaman, and it turned out that nobody can dispell the debuff, so we can’t kill the boss. Oh, good old days when every class was unique and had their own features! 😀
Second, we want to remind you to be sure to get hyped for Con Before The Storm! This great event is happening once again on November 2nd. Both Frostee and Kaz will be taking part as panelists this year! You can find out more about the event by following them on Twitter or heading to their Website!
Next, here is this week’s community board! It has all the latest contests, events, and more! Please feel free to share this any way you like! The links to each contest are in the description below the video.
Finally, thank you all once again for all of your support! This show wouldn’t be here without this great community! Each week we think about how thankful we are to be part of the best group of gaming fans! Keep being amazing and have fun in the new expansion!
