Oct 5, 2019
One-on-one with our Voxel Artists
The Sandbox is a world-building platform, a game where the focus is put on both players and artists who are key to developing a well-balanced ecosystem composed of great land, unique experiences and amazing NFTs. That is why we designed VoxEdit, our voxel-editing software, because we want to provide our protagonists with an outstanding tool to create and edit anything they want to. We talked with two of our most popular voxel artists, Alina Siniakova and My Little Bunny. Alina is a 23-year-old full-time voxel artist from Ukraine while My Little Bunny is from Russia and works as a voxel artist and digital illustrator. This is what they had to say about their path so far and their collaboration with The Sandbox.
Being a voxel artist is a rather new profession. Although every day there are more and more games that include voxel art, it is still not that common. How did you become a voxel artist? Was it a conscious decision?
AS: I’ve always loved computer games and always wanted to be a part of this industry. One day I saw some voxel art and really liked them because of really cool graphics, so I decided to try it myself. I can say that it was one of the most conscious and right decisions because now I can’t imagine my life without voxel art.
And what got you interested in collaborating with The Sandbox? Why do you think the Creator Fund is important?
AS: I was really surprised and happy to get a collaboration offer from The Sandbox. I’ve heard many times that voxel art isn’t so good and popular for games. But The Sandbox shows everybody that this is not true. The Sandbox has many talented artists in its team and together we create interesting game content. And with the Creator Fund every voxel artist can create unique voxel content, share his creations and truly get paid for them. It sounds tempting, doesn’t it?
The idea behind The Sandbox has been all along to create a game that includes blockchain technology to give our players and artists the ability to truly own their creations and to be able to trade them and sell them freely. What do you think about this value proposition and using the blockchain to empower Creators to truly own their creations? Why is it groundbreaking for you as an artist?
MLB: I like the idea of controlling the number of copies of my creations that exist in the world. In the art world, your work gets stolen a lot and it’s very hard to trace something back to the original artist.
That is one of the many perks of including blockchain technology in our game, every creator is free to control the available copies of an asset, to have real and verifiable control over scarcity. In addition, as every creation is stored in this digital and decentralized ledger, creators are able to keep track of their assets which minimizes the possibility of stolen work. Taking into consideration that monetizing art is extremely complicated, do you think that blockchain can change the way it’s done?
AS: I think that blockchain can favorably affect the monetization of art, making the art market more transparent. It’s a good solution for copyright protection, creating demand and enhancing the value of artistic content, especially digital content.
As we all know, NFTs are unique, non-fungible tokens. Those are the same characteristics that make any piece of art valuable. Tell me, what’s your stand on NFTs?
AS: It’s great when you know that each of your artworks has its own value and personal advantage compared to others. And, as I said earlier, NFTs can prove the authenticity of each artwork and this is very important for digital artists, too.
Can you make a prediction on the intersection between NFTs and art in the next 10 years?
MLB: I’d say in 10 years NFTs will become a standard in gaming and digital art industries and most of transactions will be done via those.
We know what you do, but not how you do it. Could you describe your general creative workflow with us?
MLB: I start off with a set of references, sometimes a rough sketch for composition, an empty palette and an empty working area. Some artists prefer to “carve” things out while I prefer to “grow” them. I organize colours by material and purpose in my palette and love randomizing colours to create more texture.
Please tell us about some of the interesting projects you have worked on, and what work you enjoy doing.
AS: I think all my projects are interesting, but now I am especially interested in creating assets for The Sandbox. It’s very nice to understand that your creations will be in the game and many people will see what you were working on. I like doing environments and everything connected with that. In my free time, I like creating big and saturated scenes.
Your work is very good and the team behind The Sandbox is glad to have you on board creating unique voxel art. You live out of this form of art but there are still many great artists out there that don’t… Just yet. What tips can you offer to new artists?
MLB: Study things you like and reflect on what makes them appeal to your personally; pay attention to how different people do the same thing (say, trees or spaceships), so you can see where your heart is. Don’t give up on your art easily, as it takes a lot of time and effort to achieve things, keep in mind that artists are almost always too hard on themselves — keep your attitude positive and never stop creating.
We hope you enjoyed this interview with our amazing artists and hopefully we were able to shed some light on this world of voxel art. Make sure to check out our community on Discord and Telegram and join the discussion!
