Artist Spotlight: Ironhawk

Artist Name:
IronHawk
 
Artist Gallery:
http://www.renderotica.com/artists/ironhawk/Gallery
 
Q) what brought you into 3D?
I saw some of the 3D images SirJeff started to publish on his ponygirl site years ago, which led me to the old Renderotica site, and gradually into taking the plunge myself.
 
Q) How did you choose your nickname?
I'm hiding in plain sight.
 
Q) How long have you been creating your artwork?
Nearly 10 years. You'd think I'd be better at it by now. To an extent I think my existing vague competence with Photoshop was and has remained a crutch - when something in a render doesn't look quite right I tend to just abandon it or say "meh, I'll fix it in Photoshop" rather than actually learn how to make it look better in the render. I've just always seen renders as the pre-work to a Photoshop project, rather than Photoshop as the postwork to a render, and that mentality seems to have stuck with me even now my time is spent predominantly in the 3D package. 3D technology still intimidates me!
 
Q) what are the specs of your render machine?
A desktop PC with an Intel core i5 of some sort, 8 gigs of ram, and a GeForce GTX 750 video card, which I think is 1 gig of video ram but I can't remember. I'm not techy.
 
Q)Poser or Daz Studio and why?
DAZ Studio, because it was free. At first I only planned to use 3D to create sort of 'paper dolls' to form the basis of Photoshop projects - by the time I knew I definitely wanted to progress at least a bit with the 3D, I was just used to using DAZ Studio.
 
Q) What renderer do you use? (Stock Poser or Daz or 3rd party) And what lead you to use it?
DAZ Studio's native 3Delight. Photorealism highlights flaws in ways that are harder to correct with postwork, and I feel I don't have the skill or knowledge to do justice to unbiased renders (or the patience to change that!)
 
Q) what is your favorite work you’ve created?
Until fairly recently, I would have said "the last one" - since I always tried to make sure each image I uploaded was the best I could possibly do at the time. But since my PC and my postwork have both got faster, each image is not such an endeavour, and now I'm comfortable not always trying to one-up the last thing I did. So I'm going with this attached image, which is actually the oldest thing still in my gallery.

 
Q) Is there any image you’ve made that you wish you didn’t? why?
Not really. I've removed a couple of things from my gallery that I feel don't really represent my taste any more, but I don't regret having made them in the first place.
 
Q) What is your favorite ‘style’ of art to create?
I got into 3D to emulate what I'd seen in traditional and comic-style art, and I'll use whatever method enables me to realise a particular idea. The "style" of any given image of mine is often a workaround to mask an imperfection in my 3D skills, or something I stumbled on by accident. I do tend to like vivid colour, strong lines, clean surfaces and dramatic composition though.
 
Q) Where did you get the idea for the “Throne” (Jungle Witch’s Throne)
I can't really remember, except that it was definitely inspired by some artwork I must have seen on the internet. I didn't come up with it out of nowhere.
 
Q) How long did it take you to make the throne?
Not that long this time, because I was reconstructing an old render so I had a reference for the poses. That original took several days though, not least because on the PC I was working on back then, it would take about 20 minutes just to save the scene with that many human figures in it.

 
Q) What got you into making “Pony Girls”
I have no idea. I actually came up with the concept of ponygirls, and even the word "ponygirl", on my own. It was just the latest peril in a sequence faced by my first ever "naughty" heroine, whose adventures I was authoring with a biro and notebook when I was about 14. To this day I don't know how I dreamed up the idea of a girl being used like a horse from scratch, but even back then, I knew something was different and powerful about this idea compared to the other generic fantasy-world scrapes she'd got into. It needed to be its own story. So without having really planned to, I made it that heroine's ending, the only peril to defeat her!
 
Then the internet got big, and just to scratch a mental itch, I typed what I thought was my made-up word, "ponygirl", into a search engine - feeling like an idiot and a complete weirdo as I did it. And then I saw the number of results. My jaw hit the desk.
 
My taste has definitely changed since then though. At first I saw it as kind of bondage torture porn - the kind you see a lot of in places like Renderotica, which eroticises the suffering or degredation of a victim character. But these days I prefer to add mischief rather than malice. I like to create worlds where the dominant characters are actually the heroes you root for, and the submissives are treasured and celebrated (even if part of the fun is that they don't realise it).
 
I think that two-way power dynamic is probably what appeals to me about the whole pony-play thing - it's a particularly primal expression of a dom/sub relationship in which the seemingly diminished party actually holds just as much power as the other, if not more. It's like yin and yang symbol - at the core of the submissive party is desirability and value and therefore power, and at the core of the dominant party is dependence on the submissive.
 
Q) Describe your process of creating “Skill Check Failed” (and what did she roll ;) )
Definitely a natural 1... I just started with an itch to do a tentacle pic and followed my usual workflow of procrastinating until something stuck. It was originally a modern world setting with multiple characters in it, and didn't feature the whole getting stuck in a box angle.


 
I suppose the advantage of this is that it gives me stuff I can go back to and branch off in a different direction. I've done that a lot lately - there are common threads in a lot of the recent ponygirl pics I've done for instance, because they came from the same starting point, and halfway through I'll get inspiration for what kind of setting or scenario might better suit one of the poses, outfits, backgrounds or whatever, and go off on a tangent.
 
Q)) Out of all the various art mediums why 3D?
It's because I can't draw! No other reason. That's why I don't call my own work "art". It's not even porn really. I don't know what the fuck it is. Therapy maybe.
 
Q) What are your plans for the future?
None per se. One day I'd like to make a genuine attempt to make comics, but at the moment, my reliance on trial and error and lucky conincidences to make half-decent pics is so great that consistent quality with any practical speed would be impossible. I'm just going to continue to see where each session takes me.
 
Q) who are your favorite artists other than yourself?
Poser community wise, EmmaS, Shadoman, Shorterbus and RJLbwb were instrumental in me deciding to take a shot at 3D myself, as they were illustrating the kinds of things that existed in my head, showing me that it was possible to do the same. My 3D idol is SnowSultan, who has a page on deviantart - he makes renders that look like sword and sorcery fantasy paintings, but in a way that looks tantalisingly (and deceptively...) achievable for mere mortals with no traditional art skills. And Ferres (who also has a deviantart page) was, and is, a big inspiration, with his gorgeously illustrated "serious fantasy story that happens to have paraphiliac porn in it" schtick.
 
As far as professional artists go, Luis Royo and Alfonso Azpiri have probably left the biggest impression on me.
 
Q) If someone reading this wants to start creating their own artwork what words of advice would you give them?
Invest a bit of time editing poses and facial expressions. You don't need any technical skill for that, and natural poses and expressive faces are nine tenths of the way to a successful image.
 
Q) Speech time! any final words you have for your, fans and fellow 3D community?
"Fans". lulz. Anyway, nothing specific other than thank you for all the ratings and comments, every last one is greatly appreciated. Plus the words of the two wisest characters of all time, and the only two laws that should need to exist: be excellent to each other, and party on dudes.