All About... Jackie Victor [Propschick]

Out in the real world, we all have hobbies and interests in addition to the work we may be most known for. Here at Renderosity, our vendors have their own stories to tell. Things they do away from their products... special projects, awards, citations, or things of interest that most may not know about.

In an effort to better introduce our vendors to the rest of the community, we've asked them to tell us more about themselves, and share their stories. Rather than a straightforward interview, these are their stories, in their own words.

This week, we find out all about artist and vendor, Jackie Victor, better known to the community as Propschick.

Hi ! You all know me as PropsChick, the content creator for Renderosity.com, but there's so much more about me some people don't know!

I grew up with artists of different types around me. My mother was a watercolor artist and she paints amazing landscape and animal portraits, my father an architect, so he always had his drafting room, and let me doodle at his drafting table and use his tools. My grandmother and aunt were always doing arts and crafts around me and when I started school, the influence really had an impact on me in art class. I started out with discovering Garfield when I was 6 years old and taught myself to draw him from scratch. I knew, even at that age, someday, I would be doing something art related with my life.

Many years later, in 1998, we got our first computer. I believe it was a 386 with Windows 95 on it. We had paint on it. I found this program to be fascinating and found myself painting pictures pixel by pixel. This is how I found out about Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro and slowly began to learn about these programs and all about how graphics worked.

A friend of mine finished film school in the 90's and began producing short films and cute little family films and began to offer me production spots here and there. As I dabbled in wardrobe, sound, video editing, learning to use the camera, and even filling in and being an actress in some, we traveled to Chicago, North Dakota, and other surrounding states where I met a variety of creative people. I even met the guy who plays the green grapes on the Fruit of the Loom commercials! To me it was thrilling, some of the people I've met, you can see in everyday film.

As we produced commercials, video and short films, I decided to dabble in the bridal industry, and ended up doing wedding videography alongside bridal shows for several years in the early 2000's. This became so big , that the little town I lived in, featured me on the front page of their newspaper!

The real turning point for me, was a trip out of town to a production company in Green Bay, Wisconsin. There was an entire section of this company devoted to 3D modeling and animation. I was completely enamoured with the idea of being a 3D modeler. I came home from that trip and immediately began researching how to make this happen. Unfortunately, opening Wings for the first time, kept me overwhelmed and very confused.
Upon this research, I stumbled on a 3D community very much like Second Life. I played on and off for a few months until one day in 2006, I met a woman on there who explained how the program worked and where she found some of her inspirations. She pointed me to Renderosity. Leaving the bridal industry behind and working other part time jobs, I dove headfirst into learning Poser. It just so happens that around this time, Poser 5 and Daz Studio were both free. I began work on immediately trying to figure both programs out, and eventually I did.

The first month of making $35.00 for me off my first product, Hallorufus, was a huge celebration for me and I was so proud of that $35.00. That product failed testing twice and made it into the store after Halloween, but it didn't matter to me! I was proud and I knew what I was going to do for a living. I think maybe a year later, I posted in Rendo forums asking if anyone would be willing to tutor me through modeling and this post sat for a long time before Bobbie25 stepped in and had me modeling in a week! After that, the rest is really history. I was so grateful for the time she had spent with me, because without her this would have never happened.

So that's a little about my history in the creative business, and now I'll tell you some personal silly things about me...

I have 3 cats, and I sing to them every single day. I named two of them :
Lilly and Hally, my husband named the 3rd Veruca. Veruca does not know her name. Lilly walks on a leash. Hally squeaks when you talk to her and Veruca loves to be shaved.
I play World of Warcraft after work for a while daily....I find it inspiring for my work. For those of you who know WoW, I am a little 2 foot Warlock Gnome on the game.
I spent the last year hitting thrift stores because I was bound and determined to have one of those little frogs that hold your sponges on your kitchen sink. I did find one, he is green and cute.
My socks hardly ever match- sometimes I am wearing one rainbow striped sock and one argyle one. It's not that I lost one in the dryer, I just wear mismatched socks.
My upstairs bathroom is decorated like the zombie apocolypse because I live with all boys and they wanted their own room to decorate, so my shower curtain and bathroom rug have bloody handprints on them.
I save every single greeting card ever sent to me. I have a box of cards from so many people from so many holidays, and I don't know why I need them.
I own ghost hunting equipment.

My home is filled with digital art and paintings on my walls by myself and some created by family. Arts and crafts that were created by family and friends as well. Inspiration is everywhere, through your life. You just have to make sure you recognize it and walk through every open door.

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