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Virtual Reality artist Collin Leix, talks about her creative evolution; From oil painting to exploring the intricacies of VR art.
"Before I became an artist in VR, I began as an oil painter focusing on portraits. In the course of time, this changed when I began to become more intrigued by the ideas behind the process of MAKING.
The artist evolution; starting with music, then classic artwork, and finally to creating the Metaverse
I'm a violinist, and became interested in the visual musical scores and various ways of interpreting illustrations as musical directions. I also discovered I had synaesthesia - a neurological condition that causes a blending of various senses, in my case, numbers, as well as colors. The experience led me to experiment more in the way I created images."
"In 2009 I started a Master's degree that focused on Fine Arts at the University of Michigan, where students were encouraged to explore a lot. I started as a painter and finished with a thesis project that was a huge installation on the ceiling, with animations projected onto it. My first animations that I worked with were rudimentary stop-motion animations with paper and paint, using the natural landscape as a subject matter. It was so challenging as a medium that I was certain that I would want to continue to work on it.
After my Master's In 2012, I attended the local community college in order to take a course on After Effects, and since then have mostly self-taught. I began exploring apps for art, Cinema4D, and have tried a bit of cel too, but have was primarily focused on After Effects. I created animations direct-to-client for a few years and made sure to always do my own artistic experiments with animation, and then put them on the internet.
"I was dealing with an enormous health issue and had a spell of depression, which often had me lying on the ground with my dog. This was how I saw it. I challenged myself to make every week a new thing and even if it wasn't a lot so that I could meet my goals of exactly where I was.
In the year 2018 I was hired by the animation studio Gunner located in Detroit in the city of Detroit. I've been there since!"
How would you describe the style you use in your work?
"Realism still has a place in my heart , even from the beginning of my career. In the past, my style has a bit more surrealism and playfulness which is why I'm always studying how color can communicate mood.
My personal style has completely changed as well since joining the Gunner team. Gunner. We are often working as a team to support diverse styles. This means that I have the opportunity to experiment with some styles that aren't necessarily my own. Some ways of using loose brushwork, lines and reducing design elements are some examples of what I've tried and kept doing afterward. For example, the piece "Crocus" is a mix of drawing textures on three-dimensional forms. Both using realism as well as simple forms, using VR sculpting along with traditional Photoshop painting."
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"One reason I like working at Studio A is because the lines that define me' and 'my style' have blurred. Consider the film "Interruption," for instance. I was invited to make an Instagram video for Gunner as I began to explore. I was looking to incorporate a bit of surrealism to illustrate what it's to be at the forefront of making music, as well as the images you can see within your head and what it is like to feel interrupted.
When I worked on the animation, and a lot of the design, my fantastic co-worker Ian Sigmon pushed me a lot in character design. We wouldn't have gotten to those crazy long arms or the simplified shapes of body on my own. This led us to realize that women's bodies could dissolve back into the shape when she is ready to play."
"I remember losing a high-school art contest due to my work because it were not all cohesive, or in the same style. I thought this was the curse of my life, however it has turned out prove to be a blessing given my current work."
What is the key to making your illustrations?
"For me, it's always must boil down to a gut feeling. It's always a little bit of interest at the beginning of any new piece. often it's a new color scheme I want to try out or maybe it's an expression, or reference, or perhaps a tale.
The thing that makes my art distinctive is that I'm always trying out various new media. Right now, I'm so in love with painting and drawing in Virtual Reality. The team is also creating a short film at Gunner that covers everything from of painterly cel in Photoshop and 3D rendering, to sculpting in VR and then projecting a painting on the sculpture. We've added a scene of the film, titled Sync to give you an unofficial preview. This is Gunner's debut film that was directed by a woman. it's about three strangers who travel on an aircraft and an unexpected event occurs to them on the flight.
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What do you suggest to anyone who is just beginning with VR art?
"When trying to make sense of any new technology that I am interested in, I have always a little image or a narrative of the changes I'd like to do first. This is a hint I would offer to anyone who wants to expand their skill set - do the style frame or create a little sketch or story you're planning to write before incorporating the latest tech. It's important to have a goal that you can explain a reason for. Otherwise, you're just flopping about tutorials, attempting to imitate different styles and narratives of others.
We created this piece for the conference Blend at Gunner during 2019 where I created several of the natural objects within Virtual Reality. I'd played around with the sculpting process a little bit, but when I had an answer to the question of "why" my creativity and capabilities grew dramatically. This video is a tour of the landscapes I made."
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"I'm very busy in Instagram and I've also created a class on how to create your own illustrations using 3D space, with Tilt Brush. You don't have to be a VR artist yet However, you need to be wearing a VR headset in order to participate in the course, however I walk people through the process from there. The love I pour into this!"
