Doll Rose Sweet is an artist who you need to know.  She is the lead singer and violinist of the band Obsidian Rose, a gothic Lolita model, Cosplayer, Seamstress who designs her own dresses, a college student and also someone who has overcome bullying, and is making something positive grow from her creative edge.
 
At the age of 13 Sweet jumped into the real world of her childhood fantasy and created her own identity as Doll Rose Sweet  remembers her first anime called Candy Candy where she got a liking for the soon to be known as gothic lolita style early.  As for influences into her art, Sweet  said,   “It has to be a combination of musical artists that I grew up and fell in love with and anime and fairytales, I remember that my mother always read to me when I was little, you know, the traditional fairytales and I would always fantasize, that I want to be a mermaid, or a witch, and then I discovered one of my first anime which was not new and a really old one from the 60s and one my mother watched which was called Candy Candy, and my likeness for my Lolita style came out, from the result of main character in the show, would wear these Lolita dresses, that I thought were so beautiful and doll like. And that is where my love for anime, started. Growing up I would imagine, and fantasize about it, and it would make me so happy. I also love classical music and really love Industrial music and am a big fan of Cruxshadows, and Emilie Autumn and I remember listening to how those certain bands would combine classical with an industrial edge sound. I was always a big classical music fan growing up, I loved to listen to the wonderful parts of Beethoven, or Vivaldi and listen to how beautiful and energetic the sound of the stringed instruments, and the feel of them it was so gravitating.”

She takes her designs and outfits to Cons and was a participant in the annual Dragon Con in Atlanta a few weeks ago.  The Cons offer a launching pad for area fans to assemble and delve into their fantasy world with dress and costumes self-made and produced.  She attended her first con at the Amine con Orlando at age 13 and soon found the platform to take off with her own creations.  “My first con was Anime Day Orlando, it was a very small convention, but it gave me the con feel that I really enjoyed seeing which is people dressing up as different characters and just enjoying themselves. I was really shy and I did not dress up my first time really, but son after my first con I was like hey I wanna dress up to this looks fun, and it just took off from there.”

 

“I always feel what inspired me was that one day that I would become something really great.  I really don’t know how to describe it, but I suppose you could call it a gut feeling, so to speak. I know what it is like to be that weird little kid, who was always odd, always being picked last, and I always told myself that things may not be working now, but they are going to get better, and I know that it is leading up to that big beautiful finale that is only the beginning, that I have my own style, that just consist of things I love get inspiration from, and brings me happiness in life, the music, the fairytales, the characters, the Japanese style, it is all of this is what inspires me and it is just building this inspiration in me to build this beautiful art with my life.”

Music also has been a major part of her life and is in her blood to move on with her musical outlet in Obsidian Rose which she sings her own songs and plays the electric violin along with Legion 6 on the Synthesizer and guitarist, She describes her music as steam punk meets electronica with a variety of influences including classical. “When I heard an electric violin being played for the first time, I listened to the music and thought to myself, can a violin really do that? From that point on I told myself I am picking up the violin. Hearing the electric violin, or just violins in general, just gave me the feeling of being entranced and amazed by it."

“My music consists of anything really, she said, from writing songs about fairy tales, to about trying to be a real life video game hero, to imaginary worlds, to heartbreak, and hard real life experiences that were none to pleasant; it all really depends on my mood at the time, when I am working on my music. What inspire my music sound wise are classical music as well as the original rock, and punk music that you got from the70’s 80s and 90s with it, that’s why I really admire artists, like Emilie autumn, Cruxshadows, Rasputina who have that sort of classical edge with their music. I also get inspiration from really early music like I said I love 80,s and 90,s 70,s music a lot, some of my favorite artists are Queen, Iron maiden, Billy Idol, The cure, Bauhaus, Soiuxe and the Banshees, Black Sabbath, --- I have my fill. Most of what I write about in my music is based on either real life experiences, fairytales, even anime or video games XD I have a lot of imagination,”

Sweet draws her influences from Japanese artists including Malice Mizer, Kanon Wakeshima and Versailles.  “I discovered most of them, through anime AMV vids, while I was looking through Youtube when I was 12 XD, I saw how artistic their style was and even more so when I saw the music videos for the songs, and how beautiful they combined the elegance with sort of a dark my serious rock look so to say, and they always incorporated lots of classical music in their works, when it comes Japanese bands like Kanon Wakeshima , and Malice Mizer. One thing people may overlook about me I think maybe that, I may just be all look sometimes, and nothing else underneath, and I want to show them that no, that I am a very sweet down to earth person.”