For some time now, the =Manip-Equips group has had an extremely generous and talented lady at the helm. Michelle, also known as `chasing-butterflies has gone from strength to strength in the DeviantART community, not only with her own art but with the support she lends other promising artists. It's was my pleasure (and unmitigated cheekiness) to interview Michelle as our special featured member for the month of December as a send off to a great year. Michelle was surprised but gracefully agreed to answer my silly questions for your enjoyment.

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We'll get the obvious out of the way first...
What... is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

An African or European swallow?



Haha! No seriously, what was the real reason for creating a stock account on DA and then your own personal stock (~michmellow) and resource site, MellowButterfly.com (~mellowbutterfly)?

Back in ancient times, ahem, I mean a couple years ago, when I was the proud owner of Photoshop 4 (no, that is not a typo!) I discovered that there was this whole world of custom Photoshop brushes and they could do such amazing things! Well, I broke down and upgraded to PSCS2 and discovered dA when I was looking for a place to share all these great brushes I was making. Things just evolved from there. It's become quite the expensive hobby for me!

As far as MellowButterfly goes, I became a bit disgruntled by the blatant disregard for my terms of use and the ripping by other websites. But I really missed creating resources and sharing them with other artists. And I knew there were a lot of other resource makers who had taken there resources down for the same reasons. So, I came up with the idea of a shoppe where resources makers like me could come together and share our resources in a more secure environment. We've got a great little community going there!




What is your favourite sort of stock or resource to create?

Ever since I got my Wacom last year, I would have to say that I've become a bit obsessed with creating dynamic brushes. I love being able to take a static image and create a brush that can be painted with instead of just stamped.

Spice Girls - then or now?

They're still together?

You run mellowbutterfly.com which also runs alongside a more personal website, Hope for Madison which is a tribute to your young niece who is very ill at the moment. Tell the community about that and what we can do to help out little Madison.

Thank you so much for asking! Back in October, my niece Madison was admitted to Children's hospital where she was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, a fast-growing, malignant cancer of the soft tissue. She has a large tumor in her pelvic region and the cancer has also spread to her bone marrow. Because her specific type of cancer is rare and the prognosis is not so great, her parents have her in a clinical trial where she's undergoing 54 weeks of intensive treatment, including chemotherapy and radiation.

Those deviants who'd like to get involved can visit the
Hope For Madison portion of MellowButterfly.com where they can purchase exclusive resources that have been donated by some great deviants or make a monetary donation. All proceeds from the sale of the Hope for Madison products will be given to Madison's family to pay for her treatment and expenses during this most difficult time.

For anyone interested in donating a resource that can be sold to help raise money, I'll be accepting those donations until February 1st - all the information can be found here [link]



Personally speaking, who are your favourite stockers on DA and why? (Feel free to name names!)

Oh that's a tough question! There are so many wonderful stock and resource makers on dA, but here are some that I find myself going to often when I'm looking for inspirational resources:

*Lisajen-stock =lindowyn-stock =LongStock =cookiekitty-stock =CausticStock *Mehrunnisa-stock =Shoofly-Stock `tExTuReMaTtIc ^thespook `exchanged-stock ~spiritsighs-stock *miss69-stock ~Pfefferminzchen

What do you wish you could do to people who don't credit stock artists properly or even at all? Be as imaginative as you like.

Personally, I've gotten over the whole not being credited issue. The thing that gets me upset these days is redistributing my work and/or claiming it as their own. Honestly, any sort of art theft. Art theives should be flogged.

Chocolate Fudge or Choc-Mint ice cream?

Mmm, I'm a chocoholic - how about Chocolate Mint with fudge swirls?




How do you think the stock galleries in DA can be improved?

Overall, I think the GDs are doing an excellent job improving the galleries and connecting with the community. A lot of the responsibility for improvement lies within the community - making sure that we don't upload garbage, that we upload to the correct categories and report miscats and copyright violations. I'd love to see stock and resource artists get more respect.

As we all know (and those who don't should certainly take steps to find out), you are a wonderfully talented artist in your own right and a shining example of what one can achieve if you keep practicing and trying new things. What inspires you most within DA to create your masterpieces?

Why thank you! Right now I would have to say that I have been most inspired by ^cosmosue's Learning to Paint Digitally articles. They've really inspired me to push myself to my limits creatively and to learn new techniques that I would never have otherwise tried. I've been a fan of Sue's ever since discovering dA - she is a true gift to this community!



Hey boss, can I have a raise?

Sure - double your current salary and you can even have off for the holidays!

(Maybe I should ask for an actual salary first?)

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Thanks for reading! And don't forget to stop by =Manip-Equips and check out some of the fabulous resources we have listed in our gallery and join our ever-growing community!

Interview taken by: *Renilicious