It’s time for the monthly designer appreciation. This month I got the honor to interview Sleepy, a very talented and kind designer who has designed for VP for around 5 years now. It was a great pleasure to get to know her better during this interview, I hope you all reading this as much as I enjoyed making it.

can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Kajsa and I'm a Swedish 19 year old who currently works part time at a grocery store, it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life but I love that I have a lot of free time! During that time I love drawing, mostly digitally, and designing for VP (lets be real I just stare at Pinterest until I give up lol). Other than that I've recently tried to create some 3d stuff in Blender, which might be the most frustrating thing I've done, and I go to the gym a few times a week cause I want to look like Shiho Yoshimura... anyway.

why/how did you start designing for vp?
I joined GSM a looong time ago, like in 2008 when I was 8. I've been drawing for my whole life so I was obviously fascinated with the fact that you could make your own clothes for the pixeldolls over there. Male code (LE): JustALilTreatBro. When the site closed down I moved on to VP and I started designing right away, I loved how you could choose which program to use and that you could have your designs in game even if you weren't badged.

how long have you been designing for vp and when did you become a badged designer?
I started designing a bit in 2015, and I got my badge in the middle of 2016 through the design competition.

how long do you approximately spend on designing one set?
Super-hard to say, sometimes it takes me months to finish a set and some days I make a couple of items in just an hour. But usually I just can't make myself sit down and design even a few hours in a row because I get so easily distracted, so it's hard to determine. Maybe 10 hours in total for each design? If I don't include looking up references and inspiration.

how long do you spend on designing on a weekly/monthly basis?
I try to do it for a few hours a week, but that's very rare. I usually don't design for 2 weeks and then design for 2 days straight lol.

do you have a set that means something special to you or that had a special story behind it when you created it? can you tell us why/what that story is?
I don't have any emotional stories but if I have to pick it's probably this skin (and the other recolours)!

I feel like when I made them something just clicked and I understood the tools of photoshop better, especially colour adjusting with curves & colour balance. It's something that I've struggled with a bit before and always wanted to learn. I still think they look bomb even a few years later.

where do you get your inspiration?
Real life, Pinterest, other social medias, movies and other designs on this site! People are so creative and talented on here and it just makes me want to create something too. I've also always loved fashion so that's a big thing for me, just browsing clothes whether it’s online, in a real store or looking at runway looks or behind the scenes of movie wardrobes. Female code (LE): JustALilTreat. This might not be really related to the question but I think it's interesting to look at the limitations of what I'm creating for. Like, through my eyes there are many real life items that I could never imagine looking good on VP, while another designer executes the design perfectly.

what program do you use for designing? and do you use a mouse or a drawing tablet?
I started out using pixlr.com (YES I used to design in my browser and YES i had to start over when it crashed or I ran out of battery <3), then I used sketchpad (from App Store) and it sucked so I downloaded firealpaca. I still think it's one of the best free alternatives for Mac but now I'm using photoshop. The main difference is the editing tools.... whew they're so much better in photoshop. Definitely worth it if you also draw digitally or edit a lot! maybe consider pirating it though.