Necessity

It would seem that there is no way to continue to do the things that I love to do without getting more involved in the world that we live in. I will have to have some version of photoshop. For one, I now know that I can make some of my own props for the game that I play and create some very stunning realities in this special universe. Um... I should probably show you a picture.

It is very "boyish" in its sterility.  Utilitarian.   And to me not the slightest bit comfortable. But with the application of in game tools you can create just about any reality that you can imagine. And you can pay someone who has more time and skill than you might have to bring your vision to life. I suspect that some HTML coding knowledge would make me so much happier in this reality. As I am sure that it will make me happier in the real world. It makes more money than I could ever make in the laundry room. And building tools for people in a game is a lot less drama than all the crap that I have to deal with in the laundry room. But I digress. After you get done playing with the tools to add color and images you get something truly amazing... if you do it right.

And you can build just about anything. Of course it isn't like a 3D Google like replica of anything. It is a little closer to an 8 bit reality because of the cartoon quality. But I do not need super realism (says the girl getting frustrated because the Christmas Wreaths aren't quite real enough. Pardon me while I choke on my hypocrisy) but it is good enough to convey the thought and the feeling of a place. And really that is what using your imagination is all about. The imagination fills in the gaps and lets you make the place real to you. As you can see in this next shot.

These two pictures are so very different. This is all light and expansive. And there I am in the middle in a designer gown I could neither afford nor would be caught dead in were this the real world. And the dress was free. This was designed with two thoughts in mind: one it is very different from where I live in the real world. And with the right music plugged into this room it will help the seasonal effective disorder tremedously.

My other thought was that since the game world is a place for people to explore their own nature and test limits that the homes I have here need to be somewhere safe for me to feel comfortable being something other than a tomboy. It isn't that I have a philosophical objection to fancy gowns and a nice hair style. It is that a fancy gown doesn't get much accomplished in the real world... other than as a decoy in a Bond game of Spy v. Spy. The gown in no more utilitarian than the whole of the Roccoco period. I happen to like a lot of fluffy decorations on my cakes and old buildings but not anywhere that I am responsible for cleaning. There is beauty and grandeur in the places that serve as models for this stained glass manse. And there is very little grandeur in me.

This is a place where I get to be the princess that I want to be (Danielle in Ever After). Maybe later I will explore the Anna in Van Helsing part of me since everyone here seems to want to live a vampiric life. But for now I am just playing Barbies with the complete freedom to play how I see fit and build my own game without being told I was using my imagination wrong.

But I still see that for this and other art projects that I want to do, Photoshop is going to be as essential to my artistic growth as a trip to Germany.