We were lucky to catch up with Josh DuCray recently and have shared our conversation below.

Josh, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Recently we began working with a client to bring awareness to lipedema through our art. The client had been searching to find some one to bring her ideas to raise funds to reality so she could begin helping to assist those struggling with lipedema with needed items to ease the associated issues. Her idea was to make vases that represent and show what it looks like and to help provide confidence to individuals such as herself, using herself as the example. She had approached many other people about the project but everyone that she had contacted said that her idea was not within the realm of possibility. When we were approached with her ideas and informed on the previous responses I decided that it was a good challenge, since I do not agree that many things cannot be done it became a personal mission. For the project it only required some ingenuity to get the desired outcome of the Client, Using a 3d scanner and 3d modeling software with a bit of time and effort we were able to bring the idea to fruition. The end result was vases made of a photo-polymer resin that was a full digital re-creation of her body showing the imperfections that are caused by lipedema that she has learned to embrace to encourage others to embrace themselves as well. The entire experience struck a chord with me as there are many issues seen and unseen that everyone can struggle with but many refuse to embrace themselves and be happy and proud of themselves and where they are in life.

Josh, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I always have had a passion for art especially in computer graphics for videogames and movies. Having gone to school at a university to try to continue and pursue a career in 3D animation, though unfortunately being unsuccessful finding a career in my chosen field my art took a back burner position in life. Feeling discouraged by that I kept working on my skills in my free time, life continued on with my passion on the back burner until I suddenly found myself with the inability to continue with normal work due to physical issues. My world took a major turn as I was no longer able to work and just a short time after my brother passed away, after his passing I received his 3d printer and decided that I could combine my skills with his 3d printer to create something beautiful for his daughters to have to remember him with. So with the loss in my mind and thoughts of how to keep his memory alive for my nieces I set to work and decided to create a lithophane light box for them to use as a nightlight in their bedroom, a light box is an image in 3d printed plastic that seems flat but has higher and lower portions that when light passes through reveals the image that was desired. Once I had finished the first light box it was so wonderful to find something that i could do with my passion that could bring happiness to others. The completion of that first lightbox opened the flood gates so to speak and was soon making quite a few for may different friends and other individuals that had seen them, so i began making quite a few and trying to see what else could be done to bring happiness to folks with the 3d printing starting to make figurines, statues, cosplay props, and custom jewelries.

We realized through all this that anything was possible to do, you must only find how to approach it to solve the problems. I feel that is one of the things that can set people apart in this world is not saying it cant be done but figuring out a way to approach things and accomplish the goals. With that being my mindset I always try to find a way to create whatever the clients are requesting from recreations of props to custom parts to solve many needs that people find.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Our main and only real goal is to bring people joy through our art. Even if it is as simple as a custom pair of earrings or a full custom built suit of cosplay armor, we just want to see people enjoy what they asked for and do what makes them happy and we thoroughly enjoy being able to facilitate and create whatever it may be to bring even the smallest enjoyment.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

The main Thing I have noticed that most people struggle to understand is the time that art can take. With my chosen medium of art it can be short on the design side on the computer and take a very long time to produce and or paint the item or vice versa. An example of this would be I created a prop gun for a client from his favorite videogame while the design time was minimal, only a few hours, but to print and paint it took over a week, on the other side i made custom vases for a client and the design work took several days for each iteration and many iterations to get the desired outcome but the printing time of the object is only hours. But there is always a large amount of time that can go into the art regardless of the form you use for it.     

Contact Info:

• Website: ducraydesigns.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ducraydesigns/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DuCrayDesigns/