Elise Rose is making fantasy worlds for marginalised people

Elise Rose is a London-based 3D artist known for her hyper-femme characters and otherworldly scenes. Drawing inspiration from nostalgic video games, sci-fi, and surrealism, she centres marginalised people in her neon-lit, larger-than-life fantasyscapes. From designing for QTIPOC arts and nightlife platform Pxssy Palace to collaborating with Nike, Elise has truly built the world of her dreams — and we got to experience it for ourselves in our latest Digivision. Watch the film and read the full interview below 💫

How did you start creating 3D art?

I started creating 3D art in 2020 — it was at the beginning of the pandemic and I had just lost my day job. I had already been thinking about ways that I could create my own 3D avatar and alter ego for my mixes and visuals and now that I had a little bit more time I decided I was going to go for it and began learning 3D.

I went into learning 3D with a specific goal in mind; I started watching as many tutorials and reading as many forums as I could, and just immersing myself in the software. Even if the things that I was making weren't relevant, it was still a way for me to develop skills or techniques that could be applied to my vision or the work I wanted to create.

What are your main inspirations when it comes to your work?

I think I’m inspired by a lot of things. I grew up playing a lot of fantasy games, world-building games and RPGs, and I loved watching sci-fi and surrealist movies. I think a lot of these influences play into the idea of escapist-fantasy, which is something that I love to explore in my work. I’m also really heavily inspired by rave culture and have a lot to thank queer raves in London for. I think queer raves helped me to find a community and find myself as well, so that's something that I always like to incorporate in my work and also the reason why I create art for the community as well. I was a photographer for years before I did the 3D stuff and David LaChapelle was one of the first photographers that I was really drawn to and inspired by. I was mainly into his use of colour and surrealism, and just this kind of playful sexiness that he has within his work. I think that's kind of the same thing for Takashi Murakami’s work as well. I have loads of his drawings and sculptures — I love his sculptures and the playful nature of his work and the way that he experiments with sexuality.

Your gaming setup is incredible! How did you get into gaming and how does it inform your art?

I’ve been gaming since I was six or seven years old. My mum was a big gamer and she was into playing Tomb Raider and The Sims. I remember she had all of these Sims skins and objects that she could buy in the game and would download from Sims forums. She would put them on floppy disks and organise them in different ways.

I think that was my first time seeing how you could have these different characters but push it even further and really experiment with building different worlds. So naturally we played together and I have really fond memories of playing different video games like horror games and RPGs, with my friends. Honestly, there wasn’t a lot to do in my hometown at the time; we were bullied a lot and these kinds of games were a fun way to immerse ourselves in different worlds and escape all the craziness in the real world.

Tell us more about your personal avatar and the meaning behind it.

My alter ego NVR_MND is an avatar that I created specifically for my DJ sets and mixes. For me, it was about having this character to almost hide behind. I’ve always been interested in avatars and character creation but this time I wanted to create a character that embodies the music that I make and the worlds that I wanted to create musically. My avatar has since grown into something that I like to think is more about empowerment, feeling good about yourself and being the fantasy, not just dreaming about it.

Your other characters are mostly Black women and WOC, is there any inspiration or meaning behind why?

I think often marginalised people are made to feel like we’re not enough and we’re not desirable enough. With my work, I like to centre us, especially women of colour, as the fantasy and feeling like we’re the fantasy. But I like to do it in a fun way and have fun with it because I think that there's a lot of power in joy, and I hope that people resonate with it and enjoy my art.

On a personal level, creating these kinds of confident and sexy unapologetic characters has inspired me to feed into that energy as well, and have that kind of confidence in the things that I wear and just in myself.

How did you start working with Pxssy Palace?

I started working with Pxssy Palace back in 2021. Before the pandemic, I had already been going to their nights on a regular basis and I was DJing for them as well so I guess it was just a natural progression. I started posting my 3D artwork online and Nadine, who is one of the people who founded Pxssy Palace, got in touch with me and asked, ‘Do you want to make art?’ and we’ve been making art together ever since.

Making animations for them is one of my favourite things to do each month. As a club night, they have different themes for each month and you can dress up if you want to. I really enjoy being able to create these different worlds around these different things.

How easy or difficult has it been to find work?

As a freelancer, you’ve always got that fearful voice in the back of your head saying, ‘When is my next job coming in?’ because it hasn’t got the same level of sustainability as a contracted job. In my opinion, the only thing that you can do is to continue pushing your work — I use Instagram as a portfolio to push out my work but also to showcase my creative process. I think that's a fun way to help people but also spread your work to a wider audience.

Do you think being a 3D artist is sustainable or how can one make it sustainable?

I think there's been a lot of conversation around 3D art and whether it’s sustainable, especially with AI and its prominence at the moment. I like to think that it’s sustainable so long as you’re making art that is true to yourself and you’re making stories that resonate with people. You’re also working with technology; while there are definitely a lot of issues with AI that I personally don’t agree with, there are ways to use technology to your advantage and work with it in new ways that can benefit your art and help it to grow.

Have you faced any discrimination at all in the industry or online?

Despite the fact that the digital space can be filled with a lot of misogyny and discrimination, I feel very lucky in the fact that within the 3D art spaces, there are a lot of communities that are trying to help artists such as DIGI GXL, which is an amazing collective that helps people to showcase their work and get advice. So there's all these different communities that are starting to grow and help you to feel less alone, as well as help to show you that there are people out there similar to yourself that are making the same kind of things and have the same kind of vision. Because of this, I haven’t really experienced discrimination — in fact, within these online communities there seems to be a lot more care and they often feel like a safe space for me.

What advice would you give to people who are interested in pursuing a career as a 3D artist?

My advice for anyone who is getting into 3D art or thinking about it is to honestly go for it. You can download software like Blender, which is a great open-source software that is free to everyone. There’s a great community around 3D art of people who want to help you, be it forums or tutorials. Even if it doesn’t feel relevant, still watch as many tutorials as you can and get involved in spaces online because there's someone out there who wants to help you and a community that wants to help each other grow. So just get stuck in as much as you can and before you know it you will have those techniques and skills to put out the kind of art that you want into the world.

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