All About... kaleya

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 best known to the community as kaleya.

Kaleya :: 50% Store Sale

August 30th 12:00am (cdt) - September 1st 11:59pm (cdt)

Physical - Genesis 8

dforce - Bewitching Capes - Genesis 8

Devilish - Genesis 8

Shameless - Genesis 8

Hi, I'm Stacy, you may know me as Kaleya.

My love for digital art began many years ago when I purchased my first windows PC. It was an amazing top of the line 486 with Windows 3.1 and 4 mbs of RAM. It came with a copy of Paint Shop Pro.

I had always been interested in art and had always drawn and painted but this digital art was something new and to me amazing. I was hooked. I started out making graphics and things for Websites for myself and friends and I found that I was good at it. So I decided to take a web design course just for fun with a friend of mine and there I was introduced to Photoshop. After finishing that course I knew what I wanted to do and I threw myself into learning every thing I could possibly learn about the program . I spent all of my spare time reading and doing tutorials and I really fell in love with digital art during that time.

During that time I also discovered the MMORPG Everquest and was hooked. This discovery led me to poser and 3d art. My vendor name is in fact the name of my character from that game. While playing Everquest I joined an art community called Norrath's Studios which was a great community, full of some amazing artists. That was the first place I encountered poser. It was just the coolest program I had ever seen and I set out to learn everything I could about it.

I actually came to texturing via an art exchange in that community. I needed a pirate outfit and at the time I had decided to go back to school and pursue an Art Degree. Since I was a poor student I couldn't afford to buy a pirate outfit but I did have the old DAZ tunic set. I decided I would turn it into the pirate costume I needed and my first texture set was born. I spent weeks looking at textures and learning all I could about the way people made textures for clothing. I fell in love with texturing during that project and proceeded to make loads of freebies. From there it seemed a natural thing to try my hand as a vendor.

During that time I was still going to school and working on my Art Degree. When I was finished with school I jumped into content creation full time and never looked back.

When not working on my various 3d related projects I spend my time advocating for Feral Cats and animal rights. I have fostered several rescues and rehomed them. I regulary participate in the local Trap, Neuter, Release program to help reduce the number of unwanted kittens born.

I spend much of my free time learning new ways to do things and new skills to enhance my work as a content creator. I am also an avid gamer and like to relax by playing various MMOs and role playing games, both computer and tabletop. I grew up playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering and still love these games to this day. Much of my inspiration for my work comes from these games.

I am very bad about talking about myself as you might have noticed from this article. I never know what to say. I am much better with visuals than with words.

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