Harriet Davey practices art in a digital format using a selection of softwares to create virtual work. She likes to describe her artistic outcomes as ‘visual vomit’. From Instagram face filters to 3D animations, Harriet has immersed her skills into the wondrous world of futurism. “The ability to fully immerse oneself or another into a new space and experience is really what draws me to these virtual worlds” as explained by Harriet whilst talking to Coeval about her interest in the topic. Read on to hear more from the young artist and learn how you can get involved with her workshops via live streaming on Twitch.

Can you tell us how you originally immersed yourself within the creative industries?

I’ve always had art in my life. From visiting art galleries with my mum, to being so obsessed with dragons I would draw them constantly in little sketchbooks I carried around as a child, I can’t imagine not having some form of creative outlet.

Your work plays with fantastical and futuristic aesthetics - what influenced you to design in this style?

I guess it’s not something I purposely sought out, but have kept falling into the more work I make. I have always loved the aesthetics and world building in video games, and fantasy environments. The ability to fully immerse oneself or another into a new space and experience is really what draws me to these virtual worlds, manifesting as cathartic escapism, but I find more often they reveal new ways to view our ‘real’ world. They have an ability to recontextualise the truths of the physical and uncover values we might have overlooked or forgotten. I hope to unveil and critique similar truths in the speculative digital worlds and creatures I create and explore myself, challenging the beliefs or constructs the viewer resides in.

Who and where do you draw inspiration from?

I have a lot of weird fantastical dreams. I think some would view them as nightmares, but I find them wonderful. I’ve found that the more I draw from the scenes and characters that visit me during my sleep, the more vivid they become the next time. I’m not sure if my work fuelled the dreams or vice versa originally, but they are now entangled in this circle of influence I can’t (or at least don’t want to) escape from.

I see you have created a few face filters made for Instagram - what are some of the concepts behind them?

My work on AR face filters is much more of a comedic and personal outlet. Many of them are stupid or simple ideas I had and quickly, cheaply, and cheekily execute. The kebab, and fan face filters are probably my favourite ones. They’re just silly and fun, and for me, it’s not that deep ;)
However, I did write a large portion of my Bachelor’s Dissertation about face filters and the dysmorphia they are causing in (especially) the youth of today. It’s something I’ve spoken about fairly intensively before, and there’s definitely too much to go into right now.

You personally call your work ‘visual vomit’ - can you describe more specifically what you mean by this?

This term came into my head when I was going through a period of time in which I was obsessively creating new works. I was finally confident enough with the softwares I was using, and starting to form a stronger visual style. I would wake up and spend hours poring over YouTube videos, furthering as many techniques as possible, which would end up with sometimes multiple final pieces of work I’d made in a day. When I start a new personal piece, I usually don’t go into the process with a particular outcome in mind. The joy of my still far from technical expertise in the software results in ‘mistakes’, twisted forms, strange lighting, warped scenes. I allow myself to explore the process and tweak new settings I’ve never touched before, each time I go in. I think this sort of unassuming approach leads me to create things I never would have perceived before I even started, and that’s really the essence of my idea behind the term ‘visually vomiting’.

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How do AI perceive human faces? Process work for a project with @__paulius Taking inspiration from the neural networked designs of drones and their relativity to nature, bone structures and evolution. How could AI visualise differences in class structures? Introducing: watched over by machines of loving grace. A collection of filters exploring those hierarchies. This is the second filter of the series.

A post shared by Harriet Davey (@harriet.blend) on May 23, 2020 at 4:52am PDT

You create digital art that demonstrates a wide range of technical skills - can you talk us through what sort of softwares and techniques you use to create?

When I’m creating a character I start with Daz Studio for a human base model. It’s essentially Sims on steroids, with an online marketplace for people, hair, skins, objects, animals, and more. Once I’ve tweaked them there to my liking, I take the model into Blender to work on the materials, lighting, environment and further modelling. Often I take the skin maps (a 2D texture image of the skin) into photoshop to add marks - which can be everything from tattoos, to freckles and makeup, and beyond! In blender for stills I use cycles to render, and often for fast animations I’ll use Eevee. I’m currently also learning Unreal Engine after I challenged myself to build an experience to house and publish my dissertation as well as curated submissions from other writers.

The softwares I work most with are free, with Blender even being open source. Whilst it may not be considered up to ‘industry standard’ believe me, it is. Let’s be real about this, Blender is starting to set a precedent for what a program should and can provide for its users, and the rest of the industry is having to play catchup. For example, Z Brush just announced they are adding cloth brushes to sculpting - something Blender added months ago. It’s clearly something I have a lot of emotions in regards to, so hit me up if you want to nerd out over softwares! I have also recently started live streaming some workshops/tutorials covering my workflow on Twitch that I’m hoping are useful to people starting out. You can check it out here https://www.twitch.tv/whowle/

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Here was my result of the twitch workshop. Thanks to everyone who joined in! 🥰🥰 Send me your animations if you finished it, I wanna see! #blendercycles #mixamo

A post shared by Harriet Davey (@harriet.blend) on Jun 27, 2020 at 5:06am PDT

Do you have a favourite piece of work you have made?
It’s always the last piece I worked on! I feel like my skills and aesthetic evolve with every project I work on, and I fall in love with each one, each time.

Where do you wish to direct your creative career in the future?

For now I’m looking to continue freelancing and working directly with clients. I’ve been loving what I’m doing up until now, so if I can continue doing just that, then, I’ll be super happy :)