Interview with the Decorator: Divine’Angel

DivineAngel-Interview
Introduce yourself. What’s your name? How long have you played Tibia?

Hi, my name is Divine’Angel! I’ve been playing Tibia since 2006!

When and how did your adventure in decorating houses in Tibia begin?  What were your first decorations?

I started paying Tbia in 2006 and got my first house in 2007 which I decorated in pirate style. I was one of the 3 first people in Titania to get the full pirate outfit, which was quite prestigious back then and I was obsessed with pirates a lot.

Divine'Angel Interview 14
Divine'Angel Interview 4
What made house decoration your passion?

When I got Lucky Lane 1 in Venore, I saw a lot of people passing by my house. I wanted to make such decorations to provoke passers-by to stop and look at my decoration. Thus, I started spending more and more time making them unusual, weird, and unique so that I could reach my goal and make people stop to admire the original decorations I did.

Divine'Angel, Lucky Lane 1 (Shop) (Bonelord Eyes)
How come you’re such an arty person? Is your work or hobby in real life related to the art?

I don’t think I am arty at all. I have never been able to draw well and I’ve never been good at crafting. I learned how to do tibia-like graphics in Photoshop and that’s it. I sometimes try to do some pixel art based on the existing objects and I try to design some new items but that is just for fun and I’d never stand a chance in an actual contest. I think that I lack patience if it comes to that!

What style of decorating do you prefer? Classic house decorations, or arranging shapes, images of characters, and animals?

I like both but my heart really belongs to classic house decorations. I have an impression the shapes and images are only good for Instagram as they generate a lot of likes but in real Tibia, nobody is really able to see this kind of decoration unless they enter your house and stand in the middle of it. I like decorations that reflect your Tibian adventure – the things you got or bought, some rares, items of sentimental value. I like a house decoration with a story like: “this the room where my character sleeps”, or “this is where I keep my rares” or “I keep my wedding rings next to my bed because they’re important to me”. Do you know? I am old-fashioned if it comes to that.

Divine'Angel, Snake Tower (Brown-Purple)
How would you describe your style? Do your decorations have any distinctive features?

I would describe my style exactly how I described it above! My house represents my story as a player. I also always try to give it some magical touch. I want them to look like a woman sorcerer lives there, haha! Therefore, I always try to make purple dominant there and I arrange everything in a way to be visible from outside of the house in the game. If I have some favorite items, they need to be seen, e.g. my wedding rings and goblets must be near the walls so that passers-by can read them. My bed has to be on the ground floor so it can be seen who sleeps there. I think my style is just very RPG.

Divine'Angel, Lonely Sea Side Hostel (Light Effects)
What is your favorite house decoration you’ve done of all time?

This is a question I usually have a problem with because I like all of my decorations for other reasons. But if I had to pick one, I would certainly say the decoration I did in the Low Water’s Observatory in Ankrahmun. The house was so huge, decorating all of it in a way so it doesn’t look empty was a real challenge!

Divine'Angel, Low Waters Observatory (Whole Deco)
Does decorating houses in Tibia have its downsides?

Of course, there are some downsides to decorating, just as there are some downsides to every style of playing. Regardless of how absurd it sounds, there is sometimes some drama going on around decorations, but of course us, decorators will never win with PVP’ers in that matter, haha!

Divine'Angel Luna & Yeti
Is there anything you would change considering fansite contests based on house decorations and crafting?

It’s controversial what I’m about to say but I honestly think that crafting and decorations are kind of contests that will always meet with a lot of criticism and there are reasons for that. The results of such contests strictly depend on the taste of the jury. Just because some decoration wins, it doesn’t mean that it was the best entry – it was just something that several admins liked the most. The same thing goes for crafting, although if it comes to crafting we can, at least, assess the aesthetic of the work as a plus. Unfortunately, I also think that decoration contests are the easiest to rig. One can always say they simply liked a certain decoration more than the others because it just speaks to their sense of aesthetics. Such contests generate too much drama and negativity and I would totally resign from doing them. We don’t do such contests on TibiaGoals because we never want to deal with the drama afterward. One solution is that we could simply pick a top 5 and then do a top 3 with a lottery. We usually define the TOP 3 with the lottery on TibiaGoals exactly for that reason. However, defining ONE, the best decoration out of many is just impossible. Everyone has a different taste or the admins simply pick something that makes them feel a type of way – it’s shocking or unusual. But is the goal of the contest to make the most bizarre decoration or to make the best decoration that works in the game? There are many doubts I have in this matter.

Divine'Angel, Marble Lane 1 (Ogre Rune Stones)
House decorating competitions have become extremely popular. What do you think influences the quality of a contest decoration and what does not?

Well, if we really have to make decoration contests, I think that what we, as admins, should look at, is whether the decoration makes sense in Tibia as the role-playing game that it is. For example, if there is a Christmas contest, we shouldn’t put 60 white tapestries to draw a snowman on the desert in Ankrahmun but rather decorate a house in a Christmas style, with some garlands, a chimney, and a table with food. I know it sounds cliche, but if someone can make a beautiful decoration in this very style, which stands out, they clearly have talent. I feel like nowadays a lot of people simply go for surprising the jury with something weird that just doesn’t make sense in the game because that is the easy way to get a spot at the TOP… Do you know what I mean? I pretty much believe a house decoration should simply remain a HOUSE decoration. And, sure, I know a lot of people love the pixel-art deco – don’t get me wrong – I also love seeing in on Instagram. That is just my opinion on it in terms of actual in-game competitions.

Divine'Angel, Marble Lane 1 (Purple)
What do you think is missing in the Tibian house system? Is there something you’d propose to introduce?

Yeah. Two separate spells: one for your friends to be able to move objects and use beds, and one spell to enable people to enter your house but without the possibility of moving or taking any items.

Apart from that, I wish we could move doors, windows, bins, and some in-built objects. CipSoft did it with beds so I am sure it could be done, too!

Divine'Angel, Cloud
Describe your dream store furniture that you could design on your own.

That would probably be something purple with an animated glowing effect! 😀

decorator: Divine’Angel

prepared by: Makadamia

If you want to see more of Divine’Angel’s decorations, visit a subpage about her body of work in our “Decorators” section!

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error: Content is protected !!