This month, we are getting to know Misjel - the ray of sunshine, who also happens to be an incredibly talented designer! Only having designed for a few months, Misjel has already made a name for herself and I think I can safely say that we are all looking forward to seeing where her design journey goes from here. But without further ado, let’s get into the interview!

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

My name is Michelle, I’m 17, and I’m from Sweden. I currently study social science in high school, as for hobbies, they change very quickly, but I usually find visual hobbies interesting. I love when things are fast paced and get bored incredibly easily, I also enjoy interacting with people, but for some reason the slow process of designing still caught my interest.

Could you give some examples of what visual hobbies you enjoy?

Anything from dancing, photography, drawing, clothing to notetaking because I have nothing better to do in class hahah.

How long have you been designing for vp and what sparked your interest in trying it out? 

Since late august 2020, so a little less than 6 months. It was very spontaneous, I had recently rediscovered vp and found this super cool vest on instagram, I hadn’t seen anything similar in game so I just decided to go for it!

Do you wish to be a badged designer in the future? 

*whispers* DT, let me in. I would love to become a badged designer one day, to see how it works from behind the scenes, and be able to upload my own designs. Also to access the clothing system, imagine how much DollzMania I have missed out on hahah.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Usually Pinterest, sometimes Instagram, and of course DollzMania for my pixelated designs. I also get very inspired by designs in game, people are so creative on vp!

I have some canvases where I like to experiment with silhouettes, if I get inspired enough that silhouette gets made into a design.

What program(s) and tools do you use for designing?

Procreate on my phone, although it would be more convenient with a drawing tablet I don’t find it very hard to design on my phone. I may try to do it with a trackpad or mouse, I’ll just have to figure out how to work the computer softwares first.

Do you just use your finger when designing on phone, or do you have some sort of pencil?

I use my finger! I zoom in and out a lot in order to color the right pixels at the same time as having an idea of how it looks overall. 

How long do you approximately spend on designing one set? 

It varies a lot depending on if I’m in a flow or if I’m just staring at pixels, for pixelated designs I would assume 5-8 hours, for other designs maybe 12-30 hours? I usually do male and female matching sets on the same canvas, so that may or may not be the reason why it takes a bit longer. 

How much do you usually design on a weekly/monthly basis? 

According to my screentime report I have averaged 20 hours a week for the past 3 weeks, but that will (hopefully) decrease now as school has begun.

Do you have a set that means something special to you or that had a special story behind it when you created it?

I like my first set because I was so new to procreate and used the normal brush pen to create the design, it was new, challenging and fun during the process. It was also exciting to see it get raffled as it was the first raffle I "participated" in after coming back to vp. 

I also like my Christmas set. December was a whole ride with all the designing and advent calendar updates, despite it being a little hectic I enjoyed December month a lot. The set went through so many changes, but I ended up with a Christmas design I really like, especially the female skin, it’s so cute!

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Thank you Misjel for allowing me to create this article!

Click on the buttons to the left to see Misjel’s very first and latest designs, in addition to links to her design blogs from 2020 and the new one she created for all the upcoming 2021 designs.

And lastly, a little LE treat from Misjel to all of you;

Female: MisjelsTanger1neHappiness

Male: Fr3shlySqueez3dOJ