Meet Daniel Poynton, founder of 2Filthy, the design company combining traditional art and Virtual Reality to create mesmerising storylines through their new medium.
London native and digital artist Daniel Poynton has not always been the model student. A self-confessed troublemaker as a child, he dropped out of school without any GCSE qualifications and was left wondering what on earth the next step might be for someone like him was. Luckily, his passion for art, drawing and doodling led him to Photoshop, which led him to a career as a graphic designer. Now based in Taipei, he is forging a new path, bringing his skills to the realm of Virtual Reality. He sat down with HiveLife to tell us how his journey sprung from chance encounters in the early days to forging a new frontier now.
“I joined graphic design forums and message boards with anonymous people,” he tells us, of how he honed his craft – and was exposed to some pretty brutal honesty along the way. “If I posted my design work, they’d be like ‘that’s terrible, uninstall Photoshop! They were so brutal with their criticisms, and it really pushed me to be better. From there, I finally got to a point where I was, ‘ok, I’m good enough to make money from this.” Not long after, aged just 19, he was stuck at home with a broken leg and plenty of time on his hands. He reached out to record labels and the British DJ, Goldie in the hope of work. Impressing the latter, the two soon met and before Daniel was doing freelance work for Metalheadz, a well-known drum and bass label, in a break that essentially kick-started his freelance career.
Daniel made the move to Taiwan five years ago whilst working for a fashion agency. “When I came here, I fell in love with the place. I know it’s such a cliché, but I love Akira and Ghost in the Shell. I’ve always loved those kinds of aesthetics, cyber-punky, neon lights. So I stayed.” Not long after, he also fell in love with a whole new medium – Virtual Reality. Impressed with the immersive impact of 3D design, he set about creating mini movies and games that took his graphic design skills and disseminated them through VR. “I use photogrammetry to capture the environments we show, to make them 3D, so you can walk around them. And then I also make all the props you see in real life first, before scanning them in so you see them in VR. It’s like bringing old school set design to make a modern kind of game.”
Daniel has definitely encountered opposition to the idea that traditional art forms can be combined with modern realities, but, while he thinks he will always be a strong supporter of more traditional art forms, there is always room for collaboration. “I want to combine our forces and approach this from a marketing perspective as traditional art meets 3D, that’s what 2Filthy is all about.” He concedes that the audience for VR is pretty niche at the moment, particularly because the price of entry is so high, however, sees this changing as the tech becomes more affordable and accessible. And, until then, he highly advises anyone interested should just jump on board. “Just do it, because you can be so creative. It completely opened up my abilities.”
Click here to check out his work: https://www.instagram.com/2filthy_/
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