[2022] Community Focus - milkpack

In the Russian Destiny community, people call today's community star “Picture God.” milkpack is a frequent guest in Artist of the Week section in TWABs, the host of a popular Destiny podcast “Guardian.FM,” and all in all is one of the pillars of the Russian Destiny community. Today, we’ll talk about what Destiny weapons and music albums have in common, recording a podcast and cozy warm trips in the car with friends (while everything is burning), and many other topics. Without further ado, let me introduce you to milkpack! 

Hey milkpack! It's a pleasure to talk to you. Please tell our readers a little bit about yourself. What do you do? How did you get into Destiny? 

MP: Hey! Thank you for this opportunity, it is always a pleasure to talk about the Destiny universe in all of its meanings!  
My name is Seryozha Parshakov, I’m an artist, a graphic designer, one of the hosts in the Guardian.FM podcast, and a Void Warlock. In my daily routine studio life, I’m working with lots of creative things like branding, architecture, fashion, or industrial design. (Did I just say something about the routine, lol?) 
I've lived in Destiny since its announcement. It is amazing that Destiny brought me back into the gaming world. Before it was released, the last game I played was Morrowind.  And then I saw one of the first presentations I thought, “Oh, these guys are mixing Swiss graphic design traditions with heraldry, Futura, and Haas, sci-fi, and fantasy. And the overall aesthetics are so clean and not overwhelmed! They are definitely on the same page as I, and I should give this game a chance.” And here we are.   

Hunters might have seen this mask somewhere


Trials of Osiris

Oh, that's a very precise and professional way to describe Destiny art style. Also, I can see a lot of similarities between your art and art from the game. So, you have been drawing Destiny-inspired art for years. Where is the inspiration coming from? 

MP: Using RPG terminology, inspiration is a buff that you can achieve by doing different efficient actions. It doesn’t create a supernova in your head with lots of visions, but it multiplies all your skills and motivation, buffs everything that will help you to solve the task.  
Before I start working on something, I deconstruct the subject of art into different components and play with them like it is a puzzle that is impossible to solve (like those glass pieces in [the Danish fairy tale] The Snow Queen). Watching puzzle combinations under different angles creates wonderful scenarios and visions. As you might mention my Destiny fan art is most often different from each other.  
But nonetheless, there is one trick that works for me, maybe someone could call it a part of “inspiration”, I don’t know, but it helps me a lot. It is music that contrasts with the art’s spirit. For example, when I create something kind-looking I’m listening to mathcore and sludge; when [working on] something primal [I listen to] drone or synthwave, and so on.  I believe that the coolest stuff is born on the edge of opposite or sometimes incompatible things. And I’m always trying to create a resonating environment in my head to achieve this.     

Hive relic

Zarya
(Editor's Note: Let’s all put on some mathcore before reading the rest to see if we'll get some inspiration!)  
Can you tell us a bit about your favorite Destiny weapons from a visual perspective? 

MP: Tricky question! I can’t answer it, really. I treat them all like the music albums of my favorite band. Every Season I’ve got a new experimental long-play with a new mood. And this mood is unique, sometimes it hits the target right away, sometimes it needs to be tasted. But anyway, every new release (aka Season) is a unique experience, and you feel the love, the effort, and the concept behind it. And this is one of my favorite things — a lot of ways to be surprised. Sometimes me and my friends discuss different weapon sets and remember something cool and special about every one. And for me, this is very similar to when you remember how cool it was to slam to the specific song on a gig. This is an awesome feeling. 
So yes, every weapon is a banger and every team at Bungie is a kick-ass rock band.  

These weapons were drawn by milkpack for Ermak.guardian.fm

What a great comparison. Thanks for your kind words. Please tell us about your connection with the game. What is so special about Destiny that keeps you engaged with the universe?  

MP: I love that the Destiny universe gives the devs freedom to play with moods and integrate new genres. The idea of the universe and its guidelines can perfectly absorb any kind of story: pirates, westerns, horrors, fairy tales, space explorations. Super flexible with a solid core. Everyone benefits from this. 
I believe this is a rare quality in the present time when you need to fight for attention in a world overwhelmed with information. You need to constantly make something new, something fresh to fight for the audience's attention. Many are trying, but as we can see, changes usually do not take root and look just unnatural. But not in the case of the Destiny.  

Talking about audience attention, can you tell us a bit about Destiny podcast that you are a proud member of? 

MP: Gladly! Thanks for asking. As I mentioned in the beginning, I’m one of the hosts of the podcast called Guardian.FM. Four hosts (one lives in New York, one in Kyiv, and two in Moscow), four different views on the game we love, and lots of jokes. Every two weeks we gather to discuss everything that happens with the game, studio, and the universe. We analyze all aspects from different perspectives: numerological, scientological, zodiac, predicting the story with tarot cards. And It sounds more like a cozy free talk than something prepared with a scenario. Keeping it simple is our main idea. It is like a cozy warm trip in a car with friends, in which we are all burning, and the car is burning, and we are all in hell. Absolute madness of joy. It’s a cure for boredom. 
And you know, this is the essence of happiness:  

• You found new friends in-game that are becoming your second family.  
• You start a creative project with them, the team is growing (besides the four hosts there are a lot of awesome people in the team). 
• One day you realize that there are a lot of people who like what you do and support you. I’m grateful for this. I even made a tattoo dedicated to this family — the black engram.  

Guardian.FM and our second podcast about Destiny lore ‘Lovushka Savathun’ (Editor's Note: Savathûn's trap) is consistently ranked in the top 10 of the best gaming podcasts in Russia. And this year we will celebrate its seventh birthday.  

Grasp of Avarice

Shadowkeep
Where can Guardians follow your creations? 

MP: Short and simple: You can find me over on Instagram and Twitter. 
<3 

Gone but not forgotten…


Rituals


Thanks for your time, milkpack. It was a pleasure! I know for a fact that your art inspires many people (including Bungie employees). Can't wait to see more of your works!

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BNG_Ivan out, thanks for reading.