Madcow Cosmos at Oyster Bay

- by Rezago Kokorin

At a recent Oyster Bay ArtTalk, Madcow dazzled everyone with the size and delightfully reckless creativity of his work - and the shear number of them. I've included a lot of photos in this article and I had a difficult time deciding which to leave out. Madcow Cosmos builds on a grand scale and favors skeletal works, as you will see. It amazing what can be made from the few basic types of prims there are to work with.

He has been in SL since last November and in that time he has, as he puts it, "...been tragically prolific."

Pictured above are several of the avatars he has made. "I really enjoy making avatars do the the freedom from prim limit and the whimiscal nature of them. I usually build the avatar like I would a full sculpture and then add the invisible parts afterwards. I like to check my avatars for flaws by using dance animations. Its a good way to check for flaws in the articulation and in the invisible prims. I can't resist making otherwise serious looking avatars less so with a hat."




He first showed us his air boats, which was his first love in SL. He finds creations fantastic more fun than real world ones. And you certainly can't see these in real life.

"One of my early concepts for a piece of land want to have a gaint airial battle above it, but I quickly got lost just making more ships..."

"I complete most projects in a day. Some of my largest take me two but I tend to zone out and work until its all finished. I am a firm believer in flow, which is a mental state where one is challenged and has their full attention occupied, but is up to the task."


"...linking objects is one of the challenges of building at the larger scales. I link what I can and then select all the linked objects and then either copy or take to inventory,.."

"My biggest piece is one I can't actually take out and is not quite finished. Its a steam punk robot that takes up the better part of a sim."

In answer to the question of where his ideas come from, he said, "Well some people have a delicate and whimiscal muse, one that gives them brief genus but is fleeting. Mine is 40 year old female foreman who wants to see production and she wants to see it yesterday. I just make whatever comes to mind often times I get stuck on a theme for a bit before moving on."



"Here's a series of smaller pieces that I did to commemorate Valentine's Day. A day that though I love as a chef its among the busiest days of the year so I equally dread."



"I like the more visceral feel for love, an enternal emotion carried by temporary flesh."

(...nothing says love like skeleton hands and an anatomically correct heart)
For the bones he uses a texture for a bone wall, stretched out so that the trim at the bottom can't be seen.







"Someone suggested I make some houses, I of course took the comment the wrong way. I made the most unlikely and inpractical houses available. Not really places to live so much as art houses."


"Next I decided to do some bugs and crustaceans. I figured the segmented bodies would lend themselves perfectly to the building tools."

"I am a simple man with simple beliefs and I think everyone has the right to do battle atop giant monsters."


"I like to set up these guys doing battle in the sandboxes now and again. I always like the old Ray Harryhausen movies for the giant monster fights."



"I often times use a model for the first in a series to get the details down and then do it from memory afterwards."







"This one was a blast to build but is based on a comment someone made to me. They said stairways were always to high a prim count. I don't think they understood that I considered that a challenge. So I made a dragon who's back bones are a stairway. .....a 10 M rise for only 529 prims."



"I like to call this one atalas even though he is a cyclopes, the police haven't taken my artistic license yet."




"This next dragon is among my favorite do to the possing. I always pictured the trees bending aside as his head thrust into a clearing."

"I usually start on the spine and align everything around it."

"I really like the look of rage on this one. Its the same feeling I get when I drop my toast in the morning."




"I have the center piece for an unfinished work related to goldfish heaven. Eventaully the little cats with pitchforks will punish the naughty gold fish."


Questions from the audiance:
How do you come up with the great textures?
Honestly I just look through the massive collection of free ones I have and try to picture them in different colors or stretched out. I've seen much better texturers than myself. I rely on prims instead."

Any significance to the voodoo themes? Perhaps just because of the bones?
"Well I like bones and silly hats so it comes unitentionally."

How do you manage a build this big? It has to be cumbersome.
"Well all the pieces are very easy to see. Some times it can be hard to find space to buld but that about the hardest part. The 10m limit on size is one of the major limiting factors on my pieces"

Who do you credit, or what in your life do you credit with your initial love of creativity and art?
My mommy :)
She would write down the stories I told about my drawing when I was very very young. She made them into little books for me. I have some and she has some, I guess I have her to blame for being a hopeless pack rat also. Which becomes dangerous in SL.


Landmark:
Art at Oyster Bay Aquarium, Oyster (38, 173, 82)