Mayne Line Fashion

2012

2012-01-01T00:58:00.001-05:00

Merry Me

2011-12-23T20:39:00.000-05:00

All In

2011-12-21T18:55:00.002-05:00

@
*BEHOLD* Designs
try the demo

i am sure you will be amazed at how it moves.
i am!

designed for high heel foot shape height. it will dip beneath any flooring a bit still tho. depends on your aesthetics i suppose. learn to love it as much as i had making it.

Marketplace

YouTube

Liz

2011-12-18T13:38:00.004-05:00

the CoverUp skirt is out.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Choerom/246/141/547
Marketplace
150L$

fully modifiable

just for fun

When in Rome

2011-12-17T18:41:00.002-05:00

i'm having so much fun with this skirt. it's magically "rigged" (i keep tellin' ya there's a God) and aside from the odd kitten fights in the back it works quite well. if i'm happy with it, you must be ecstatic. i know. you were expecting more. and who am i to forbid you any things of your choosing.

how i ever managed to tame these unkept monsters to behave as expected is anyone's guess. i'm saving the files, backingup, and praying. if i get to do this again, that makes me an expert. haha. nonetheless, as aforementioned (i've always wanted to say that) it's as close to perfect as i've come to date. drinks all around, and let's not forget Santa Claus in your libations.

unfortunately, for me at least, comes the next chore to make the mesh dance with light and shade. painting the UVmap. this aspect of the process is only allotted to very strange people. they's almost like programmers. a funny bunch them all. Lord love em.

should we carry these garments to the market, on my back if i have to, i'm hoping you find them to your liking. i'll set them copy/mod. putting in your own pattern is gonna be rough since you don't have the UVmap. i guess it wouldn't hurt to pack that along with the skirt and alphalayer pieces. haha, price just went up.

WIP

2011-12-14T16:07:00.003-05:00

surprised the hell out of myself. i've actually painted a texture upon said flimsies. they're CoverUp skirts. for lingerie or swimwear i suppose. and they come copy/mod so your choice of colours is essentially unlimited.

i really should get it packaged up and marketed ad infinitum. don't never seem to stop.

Splendour

2011-12-13T00:33:00.002-05:00

YouTube

Just For You

2011-12-12T08:39:00.001-05:00

don't count me out, yet. i'm still here. or there. depending on your point of view, of course.

i'm still stumbling and bumbling in Mesh Madness. forming any particular thought bubble into the etherial digitized phantoms seems to be as easy as can be. i've always been shy packing them into pretty boxes. maybe a yard sale.

Hair: Queue Marlowe
Lingerie: Cocoro Lemon
Heels: Claire Messenger
Skirt: EnCore Mayne

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

2011-11-25T18:31:00.002-05:00

if SLife weren't as complicated as i make it to be ( i like to tip over every rock, look over every fence, peer into any and all compartments available to me) i'd have more time to craft some adorable and wearable art. as it happens, with the advent of Mesh designing, all the programs needed were there on my system's hard drives to use as i wished.

putting a workflow together from all the various bits and pieces of the puzzle was a simple matter of concentrating my focus on creating the hottest and sexiest women's clothing ever seen on any virtual space. as this serious obsession for Mesh Transformation develops i just might allow them a venue where you can fondle, caress, and enjoy what value you give to them.

as a matter of fact, my first skirt (pictured above) is at *BEHOLD* right now. it's modifiable so you can resize and recolour it as you will. i've set the price at 150L$ for the first week of sales. after that i'll probably put it out for 300L$. any stylists wanting a review copy can have a sample for free if you IM me with your name and blog URL. i'd love to see what you can do with it. any feedback or suggestions are always appreciated.

Big Brother

2011-11-19T19:51:00.002-05:00

in Christ's name...

the only way i can manage seeing my family
is carrying a very BIG stick.

thank you, Yahshua
GIFTS coming.

Smith

2011-11-19T04:10:00.002-05:00

in the wider global matrix, as you will, i've got an itch to release some of my WILD mesh items to the grid. i've not tried this before, i'm taking them to the full perm untextured market. i figure they're good enough to show up in any number of fabrics complementary to the fine tailoring. i kid you not. i'm that impressive!

i've collaborated with one of my all time favourite designers (her texturizing is a thing to behold) and from what she says we could make a big splash. handling the UVmaps as easily as she did confirms for you cynics still reading my mail that at least one other person has achieved some measure of success with them. seeing just how deliciously sexy she looked modeling the garments on her dolly got me all exited to see more dolls adorned with my *BEHOLD* MESH.

i should buy an island! haha.

Pornography

2011-11-16T09:07:00.000-05:00

there's a contagion
unleashed upon the earth

be mindful

just sayin'

All of God

2011-11-15T17:23:00.000-05:00

let's put Christ above us.

under God, yes, but still very much above us.

so far above us i don't even want to start.

One God

should your god be Satan, Lucifer, the Devil,

your neighbour down the street, whomever;

then worship them.

they are all still beneath the one True God, no?

like Christ is, right?

all below our one True God.

so put these lesser gods eye to eye

shoulder to shoulder

tow to tow

however you want to describe it.

they're still on the very same level.

beneath God.

no matter their choices.

still,

children of God.

All of Us.

.:No Matter :.

Friends to Murderers & Thieves

2011-11-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

i live amongst the most heartless, deceptive, and deviant monsters you can imagine. to have them admit they have sins, let alone forgive them gives my life an interesting spark.

forgiving anyone of their sins is a high plateau. especially if they've sinned against your fine self.

i do so forgive them as i do so for my self.

it's not like the boss left us with a bunch of rules. nor did he say break them all before you're twenty!

it's a mixed bag. acknowledging you have sins is like getting out of bed. it's obvious. we all sin. we all recognize our foibles. are we in his Kingdom?

is it a prideful miscomprehension? are they mindful of their "exalted" place? just HOW BIG are they? i'll show you mine....?

not knowing what is declaratively right (you sophisticated monkees) does NOT absolve you from your own set of antithetical responsibilities. it prevents you from being responsible. avoiding responsibility? exit stage left. buhbye.

i feel, not acknowledging your sins, makes you slightly retarded. there's pride in being right there's pride in being wrong go figure. pout.

you DO know you have always known. admit it. you know Your Self!!!

of course, that doesn't prevent you from hiding it.

(wink, wink)

Giving My Life to Christ

2011-11-13T17:18:00.002-05:00

all paths lead to Christ

there is one path to God

Growing Up

2011-10-28T15:32:00.002-04:00

when LL announced mesh designs could be brought into Second Life's virtual world i thought the huge 3D artist's community (Renderosity, Daz3D, Poser, et al) would embrace our little world and bring us all manner of fantastic new wares. so i waited.

when the ultra secret beta testing was over and the gates were flung open i thought the world would be inundated with newness. so i waited.

when the initial offerings trickled into the feeds i jumped in with both feet. unfortunately, in the majority of cases, i came away disheartened.

not only did no new artists come into the world, only one existing SL artist, Siddean Munro of SLink, showed any formidable skills for what i had thought rigged polygonal mesh designs could be. it would seem, to me, that the initial technical aspects at this stage of development, for lack of any better discernable phraseology, SUCK!

that's not to say that it won't get any better. there is a move towards helping the Lab get the coding right. currently, the worst failure of mesh's implementation pertains to wearable fashion. i'm not so sure just how many residents want to show off a designer's art in all aspects of their animated Second Life (as opposed to the fashion blogosphere's overly reworked static 2D renders).

i, for one, thought the greatest potential of mesh was the ability (read: hope/hype/dream) to have the clothing conform to the movement of the avatar within our unique and dynamically activated virtual world. let's pray that Karl Stiefvater (the former Qarl Linden, principal coder for the Lab's implementation of sculpties) can move us along towards that dream.

presently, most top of the line wearable sculpties look fantastic (without considering the laughably deficient disability of adapting to avatar movement). there was absolutely no where we could go with the intermediary mesh technology Qarl's sculpties brought. should one ever hope to realize a fully animated wearable design we had to go full mesh, full UV mapping, full skeletal rigging.

the most significant development of SL's world is looming on the horizon. now that Qarl's got the funding necessary to bring us what is needed the revolution begins again. here's hoping my own attempts at wearable art can adapt to any avatar's size/shape. until then, they sure are nice to look at.

To the Nines

2011-09-16T15:30:00.003-04:00

more often than not when i'm building or out shopping my doll's dressed in every day street wear. nothing flashy or fancy. i really don't need any more distractions from the tasks at hand. let's just say i'm doing my very best to be unobtrusive. it's so hard to blend in with all the beautiful people, but i do try. and who really needs all the paparazzi pushing and shoving my adoring fans aside just so they can snap their less than flattering shots. please, you can approach me politely, but; i'll have to give you my agent's number.

of course, when i do jazz up Ms Mayne for those odd occasions that deserve dressing to the nines pixivor Allen's my goto girl. rewarding myself, and the countless onlookers, with miles of extra feminine flowing fabric brings a lightness to my stride. feeling the breezy silky flexiprims gently wisp upon my long lovely legs allows a pleasureful exhuberance far too absent from my ordinary life.

gown: LADY CHOCOLAT, 690L$, pixivor Allen, alaFolie
skin: Enchant, 350L$, Amesha Jewell, Heartsick
hair: WhiteLies Faith Midnyte, no longer available, Zyrra Falcone, Panache
jewelry: EnCore Mayne, BEHOLD* Designs

Fiddling

2011-09-07T16:29:00.000-04:00

well, that's interesting.

i've been fiddling with the basic SL avatar mesh inside Blender to see how much finesse i can put to the Lab's vertices. i've actually been able to bring in some weighted meshes with the configuration i've cobbled together. i wish i could thank someone for their help, unfortunately, the present tutorials out there are so advanced that it just caused more confusion. simple? i think Gaia Clary's site has helped me the most. i'm using Domino Maramba's weighted avatar as a starting point. getting his avatar to the point where anything you build onto it is HELL and i'm not going to dare tell you how i got it right...if it is. however you do it, you'll have NOTHING but love for what you've done. keep at it.

the rough avatar's foundation has never been very attractive to my eye, no matter how well the skinners can smudge over the issues, the concave chest and protruding back is really really something you'd want someone not to notice. maybe i shouldn't have told you?

nonetheless, i thought i could tweak the vertices on the back so the hump was somewhat diminished. it's looking pretty nice so far. i'll send up a pic soon as i can give you an A-B comparison. getting the lighting just right so it illustrates what's been done is quite a hassle. every single point inworld seems to be lit distinctly. you'll see. the backbone's pretty close to normal now. anything's better than what the Lab did. i'm happy with what i've done so far. oh, i also found that a 1024 texture works well on the basic avatar mesh. this could be fun!

anywho, i pulled a few of the vertices at the arm seams and was super suprised that there were duplicates overlaying one another. hmmm, is that why it's so damned predominant when you put a texture onto it? i wonder. since i remembered Gaia's video tutorial for removing doubles i thought i'd give that a try. yikes, 342 extra vertices. sure hope i can still bring it inworld now. stay tuned.

A	B

Double Vertices on Seam	Doubles Removed

yup, works as expected. sweet.

Serious Design

2011-09-06T12:16:00.003-04:00

two new examples from some well known SL designers have hit the grid.

Siddean Munro's crafted her second mesh item since her gift last week. she's applied her expert texturing and modeling skills to bring us the sexiest, most sensuously formed polygons, with the most exceptionally weighted rigging there is. i'll suspend gushing any more superlatives, you'll get a sugar high. but really! putting it all together, as Siddean has, is no small feat. and, what better a choice to show off the new mesh rigging technology than skin-tight thigh high boots?

anyone who's tried the triple piece sculptie attachments for their thigh high dreams have finally nothing to be embarrassed about. the embedded youtube clip shows just how sinuously these SLink boots move (was that another superlative? oh god, i can't stop!). try her DEMO, it's free. 700L$ to buy.

Cattiva Vita of CheerNo is the second designer bringing a knit textured mesh dress with half sleeves to the grid. remarkable to this design within the mesh field is its integrated sleeves. you can get Cattiva Vita's dress for 75L$ at My Second Wardrobe's little shop. i wasn't happy with the deformation of the bodice around the neckline, both front and back. upper body movement seemed to accentuate the horrible underlying structure of the Lab's avatar mesh. not to worry, someone's working on a finer avatar mesh we can form fit our clothing to. i'm sure. you can only do so much. i'm not sure Cattiva's defining weights could improve this condition.

another thing i noticed as a criticism on both designer's samples were their alpha layers. i'm wondering if there could be more flesh showing inside the designs. maybe it's just me but i like to super zoom onto all these delectable treats. having a transparent section of the body where the design meets the flesh is a bit of a frown. there's plenty of volume for movement with Cattiva's dress, not so much with Siddean's since they're designed to simulate skin tight leather. it's a bit of a trade off as to whether the avatar mesh will poke through when you allow for less transparency. picky picky picky. i know. :-)

First to Market

2011-09-03T03:55:00.003-04:00

they're not the prettiest boots inworld but they're the first i've come across that actually integrate mesh objects with avatar rigging. it's kinda complicated but you can generally categorize mesh into two types. 1.) static, 2.) rigged.

rigged is where it's at. if it's done right you can have your rigged clothing meshes morph along with the built-in skeleton. that means your cuffs for your shorts won't cut into your body when your pose changes, sleeves move along with your arms, and boots can move naturally when your ankles bend! the implications are mind boggling. unfortunately, the technical complexities can be murderous and/or completely frustrating .

static, as is evidenced by LeLutka's newest shoes, are NOT rigged. they're pretty much worn just like old school sculpties but utilizing mesh as the object's form. being that the new mesh format allows for far less restrictions on polygon stuctures and textures, they are superb fashion accessories. nonetheless, they don't move like rigged boots CAN.

GutterBlood Spoonhammer's boots, being sold at Orchid Zenovka's DECO store, are the first example of rigged mesh boots i've seen. i've been waiting/watching for someone (anyone) to bring some more rigged clothing examples to the world. i've been pouring over the feeds, Searching inworld, and filtering for them in the Marketplace, all for naut. hell, i've even dusted off my old Blender to try my unsteady hand. i can see just how difficult bringing rigged mesh to market is. whoever can balance the mesh design, texture, and weight painting (the method used to simulate how the mesh moves with the skeleton) is gonna make a pile of moola.

as it is with GutterBlood's design, and i'm no expert, his polygon structure's a bit too grossly configured for the polygons involved in the morphing to adequately stretch and strain naturally. i'm assuming with a little more refinement to these areas his samples can develop into a great line. the foot shape with such a high platform is also problematic. using the one GutterBlood designed puts the ankle joint too far away and more of the calf morphs than appears he intended. when you don't wear any foot shape it bends far more naturally. of course, without the foot shape you sink into the prim floors. :( oh well, it's Second Life after all and we're not ALL perfect.

rigged mesh movement video clip

Rigged Mesh Walks the Grid

2011-08-24T08:40:00.001-04:00

the first mesh clothing, done by none other than the most innovative designer Siddean Munro of SLink, has hit the grid. grab her boot cut jeans for free over at her SIM and fall in love all over again.

youtube video demo

Multiple Viewer Settings

2011-08-16T08:11:00.001-04:00

i use a few viewers other than v2. v2's gorgeous tonality and atmospheric shadings are something not to miss but all that eye candy's totally unnecessary when i'm building out prototypes so i flip between 1 and 2 versions. of course, i only trust official Linden Lab versions (v1.23, Snowglobe, Mesh, v2) since the banditos capable of tweaking the Lab's good work have never given me anything but fear and uncertainty. that doesn't mean the Lab's viewers don't have their own peculiarities.

one thing i've had to learn when switching between v2 and v1 is to save the "settings.xml" (found in the above XP directory location) that's created by the viewer of the moment. Snowglobe and mesh enabled viewers have their own settings file so they're not so tricked as the Lab wishes for anyone still using v1. should you launch v2 after tweaking and optimizing your v1.23 experience the Linden's server code will rewrite all those settings inside your settings.xml so you'll have to flip all those switches all over again.

the workaround is a simple matter of saving a copy of the settings.xml file. rename the copy to any ole name you can give it to remember which version it is. for example, launch your viewer 1.23, tweak the inworld preferences (and Debug settings if yer brave) and they'll be there for you in settings.xml. go to the installation's user directory for your particular system, copy/paste/rename the settings.xml then do the same with version 2. you'll have individual settings.xml files for each version. swap out that file to the saved one for that version (in other words, delete the settings.xml and copy/paste/rename the saved file to settings.xml). don't forget which viewer settings you are using. using v1's settings for v2 forces an update on you. doh!

You're Welcome

2011-08-11T22:50:00.004-04:00

i'm not all that much exited about putting outfits together anymore. it's not like i don't appreciate the tremendous amount of work others do to jazz themselves up. hence my video series on avi watching. there's really plenty of creativity inworld. the vast majority of avatars i encounter are dressed to the nines and awesomely animated. i guess i'm just too lazy or too cheap.

i really can't afford the newest of the new market wares strutted out on the feeds. inherent in getting anything new remains the all too frequent experience of being disappointed. whether it's the fitting, the textures, the permissions, the PRICE!, etc, etc, it's all too common that even the highest rated and hyped brand winds up being just like all the rest. toss it or hide it away in inventory.

having a simple, in this case ricoHELLOworld's sculptie dress, to throw on without any worry as to how easy it is to wear and how it works with my Oracul animations is a real find. while it's fully modifiable i didn't have to edit a thing. glitch pants, skirt, and a shirt layer texture; that's it. i'm ready for anything, anywhere, anytime. really, i'm wearing it on the beach as i write this.

i think ricoHELLOworld, a relatively new Japanese artist, deserves a second look. she's got a great photogenic build tucked away on a little parcel far away from the madding crowd oh, it's free too. win win.

dress: Pop Textile OP(Flower) mod/copy free
creator profile: https://my.secondlife.com/ricohelloworld
hair: Lemon Cherry mod/copy free
creator profile: https://my.secondlife.com/queue.marlowe

Managing Lag

2011-08-04T21:24:00.002-04:00

well, that pretty much handles all the freezing and crashes whilst i wander and interact inworld. if you're having some trouble managing the sl viewer 2's bit stream you might want to try what i've done for my installation. if you enlargen the pic above you'll notice i was testing on a SIM with 23 active agents. i was able to maintain a surprisingly fluid feel to my avatar's movement with relatively devoid of hiccups and freezes. prior to tweaking the cache and bandwidth settings i was lucky to stay inworld for very long without total viewer freezeup. dancing about at 20 frames per second with shadows, smoothing, projection lighting and ultra graphic features on really brings life back to the world.

i had initially set the Setup > Maximum bandwidth to an obscene 10,000kbps (with subsequent complete failure). reducing that firehose pressure to 1,000kbps provides me with a more usable and satisfying amount. trying to up the maximum incrementally seems to bring back the lag spikes. i'm happy with what works even if it's not ubermax.

my second tweak was to reduce the cache size. i had usually set it to consume 1Gb of my HD. that never seemed to be much of a problem with Snowglobe or any of the other regular viewer's before v2. since viewer 2 has completely different cache files i thought i'd do away with its constraints on the entire system load as much as possible. i'm not sure if reducing the cache to the viewer's minimum (64 Mb) adds to the happy functionality, aside from the bandwidth pleasure, but it sure doesn't appear to diminish any value it might have provided.

oh, i also turned off the HTTP Textures and HTTP Inventory from the Develop menu. but at this early stage of testing i've not done an A-B comparison.

if anyone's having trouble with their lagging/crashing, this might be cheaper than chasing the elusive tail of the "i've got to get a new computer" solution. making these simple changes has certainly saved my sl.

Virgin Viewing

2011-08-01T08:41:00.002-04:00

this pic might not look like much is going on but it represents a transformation in my second life's viewing/playing pleasure. i've finally committed myself to using the Lab's viewer 2 technology. i can't tell you how frustrated my sl had become with their deprecated Snowglobe. needing to upgrade from my fried 8800gts video card to a newer one gave me the idea i might wanna see just how well v2 ran. after much twiddling with the multitude of Advanced features i was semi-happy, almost to the point of thinking the Lab's code monkies had actually fixed things to the point where it was ready for prime time.

that was before the lag spikes strangled my frame rates from a lovely 30-50fps to a disfunctional 1-2fps for seemingly no reason whatsoever. oh well, for the 15 or 20 seconds the stream actually worked there were some fairly nice graphic elements i could grab. of course, i had expected to maintain a high rate, what with the new card's 1g ddr3 memory and all. sadly, those rates were only available if i were all alone on a relatively sparse private island SIM. the moment i ventured into any populated areas revealed what i had feared the most. SL has reverted to its pre-beta software.

oh well, since the Lab's starting from scratch (again) i might as well be on the same level. i'm gonna embrace the new/undeveloped software and begin the journey of making life beautiful all over again. btw, the simple depth of field shot above was accomplished by flipping the variables you see in yellow below. you might want to click on it to see the details. uhuh, we're still living/creating in a nuclear physics labratory. to achieve a sensible/useful frame rate you'll have to revert to a configuration that disables all the highlighted features used for the "simple" snapshot.

Hair Fair Machinima

2011-07-15T07:02:00.000-04:00

here's the third machinima video i did for my girl watchin' series ("filmed" at the Hair Fair event):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3GJBlKU16Y

i'm not embedding the code for the vid within this post since one of the feeds it went out through had an "As Seen On:" link attached to it by Google's feed spider. now that link's stuck in the YouTube channel for that video. following that link sends you off to Google's "social/blog" channel for that feed which has a list of videos having absolutely nothing to do with Second Life. anyone "mentioning" a vid on their feed post gets picked up there. oy veh. there's no opt out.

i hope this method works better to remove that peculiarly annoying "feature". of course, clicking the above video link to watch the YouTube video on my channel could still set off Google's damnable machinery to put the "As Seen On" link on it anyway. argh. if you'd like you could always go directly to my YouTube channel and find the latest there. subscribe if ya'd like. all of my vids are taken inside Second Life.

this one is seven minutes long! i culled it down from an obsessively long, flirtatious, and sexy strut fest. the loveliest avatars weren't hard to find and capture at the Hair Fair event where i shot it. forgive me if you would have liked to have more elements within the shops shown. i was camming from a few SIMs away sometimes and i was lucky my video card showed anything. i really have to thank Sasy Scarborough's people for the great build. it was relatively (keyword) lag free and allowed for some nice walking shots along the boardwalks.

anywho, take a look if you'd like. it's got an unedited "trance" tune in it (Big Sky, John O'Callaghan, featuring vocalist Audrey Gallagher) that you might like. i'm not sure how Google does it but they seem to be able to discern the artist and tune when the video's uploading and associate the appropriate links so's you can download official versions. sure hope i'm not reducing his revenue offering up this vid. gulp. i'm sure i'll be whacked if it's illegal. yikes, i might just have to compose my own tunes!!!

Independence from Tyrannical Empires

2011-07-04T06:00:00.001-04:00

the struggle of a people to free themselves from a form of government which has revealed itself to be tyrannical, onerous, diabolical, ... you name it, is epitomized by the United States of America's evolution to follow their founding father's newly penned Constitution. their Declaration of Independence from Great Britain wasn't made without consequence. the bloody insurrection extinguished many brave lights from both sides of the conflict. the birth of this nation, one proving to be so significant in the life of all of us on this small planet, is an achievement worthy of honourable and reverential celebration.

in a way of showing my respect to those who choose to uphold the Constitution of their forefathers i've cobbled together a few huge prims which simulate Washington's Monument located in the District of Columbia. happy Independence Day America, may your place amongst the nations remain strong and resolute to the foundations of your great architects.

*BEHOLD* Designs: Washington Monument on the Marketplace

With Love

2011-06-29T18:47:00.002-04:00

number two video of my avatar watching series is out.

some spaces allow for beauty to be captured.
some don't.

catwa hairstyles SIM has an all embracing aspect
giving me great moments
of motion and beauty

allowing your virtual self
to be seen
and captured in video
leads to a positive light
without conditions.

shine.

I'm a Girl Watcher

2011-06-22T19:19:00.002-04:00

thought i'd try a little something different. instead of a static image of what i'm wearing (i really can't afford all the newest, greatest, hippest stuff out there anyway) i thought i'd turn my camera onto the miriad numbers of lovelies who's personal style isn't being hyped anywhere on the feeds. just your regular girls captured going about their business shopping for more beautiful adornments for their grabass bods. of course, i swear i never laid a hand on any of them, nor did i ever entice any of them to share a more intimate arrangement within my studio. i swear. really. i'm cursing up a blue streak. lol. one day i'm not going to be so shy, wink wink.

so, should you catch my avi out there on the grid seemingly staring off into space my cam just might be on you. stay beautiful all you grid girls. you could be in the next "Girl Watcher" video. who knows, you could be discovered.

Moving On & Keeping Up

2011-05-23T01:15:00.003-04:00

well, it's not too much of a secret. i've not been doing much inworld of late. i sorta keep up with what's going on in the fashion biz browsing all the pretties on the feeds. i don't pay much attention to the socially inept and exitable types promoting their opinions as the gods they think they are. i really don't have the time to feed them. it's not like we're able, as a collective net presense or a community let's say, to debate issues without violence anyway. all the good fights are won. the empires have all been built. there's no one person that's going to undermine the big networks that have been built up over the years. if yer not inside where it counts yer just sniping for attention. give up. there's just too much good shit out there to quiet your insignificant failings. just mutter to yourself. the world's moved on.

now as for the new mover and shaker in the world (whoever she really is, wink wink), not only does Kiera Seerose organize some super great events for the glorious unwashed she also puts her name on some seriously nice clothing too. i snapped up this little military outfit at her Culture Shock event and after i emptied out all my bags her primwork stood out way above the rest. the grid was acting up at the time, and in editing the skirt i managed to turn her copy/mod skirt to full permission transfer too! don't ask me how that happened. some copy/mod stuff i got from Baby Doll wouldn't let me edit them so i guess it's a trade off. and no, i won't be reselling her work, which, btw, she could have retailed at twice the price she did.

no doubt, this flirty ruffled skirt is unique. it's a sculptie so its static structure won't flow like a flexi. nonetheless, unlike some other sculptie fashion attachments out there, it's shaped so well that your body doesn't cut through it even with the most dramatic animations. the chains on the shoulder prims were a delight to see even though the bolsters themselves could have been shaped better (they tend to stick out from under the arm). i would have spent more time modding them but i was just so smitten with the skirt i had to find some backdrop to shoot it. as life would have it i found Rachel Breaker's SIM "Off the Wall" by teleporting to the brightest green island on the map. i highly recommend visiting Rachel's one-of-a-kind builds there.

Mayden Couture - Tyana black - 230L$ - mod/copy
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lenimov/61/222/1003
Magoa - Brigadier Dress - 140L$ - mod/copy
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Bliss/179/179/22
*BEHOLD* Designs: Pearl Bracelets - 53L$ - mod/copy
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/BEHOLD-Designs-Pearl-Bracelets-package/2292568
*BEHOLD* Designs: Blood of Christ Necklace - 250L$ - mod/copy
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/BEHOLD-Designs-Blood-of-Christ-Necklace-package/2188869
*BEHOLD* Designs: Fingernails - 84L$ - mod/copy
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/BEHOLD-Designs-Fingernails-package/1202333

Location:
Rachel Breaker's SIM
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Off%20The%20Wall/224/219/7

Christ Cult

2011-04-22T19:51:00.005-04:00

well, i suppose, since there's no noticable Christian culture out there you'd think it'd be insane to bring out a design to fit that peculiarily devoid market. well, i told ya, i'm no marketeer. i'm not here to please a mass market. that's like calculating an average from a distinctly diverse pool of creative individuals. why do people even think like that? are they only bent on how the nameless faceless masses can be exploited for selfish gain? can't we embrace the individual?

differences are how we define character. if we all wanted to conform to someone's mathematical norm we'd all be the same goon easily maniuplated by the marketing masters to do as they please when they chose. whoopie. robotic adherence makes for absolute obedience. and mass adoption to someone else's direction, subconscious or not, empowers the manipulators. the lowest common denominator (marketing's average Jill and Joe) has been established as stupid, vaccuous, and brain dead. they are easily told what to buy, what to wear, what to think, and eventually how to react to manufactured stimuli. i have much more respect for the individual within the multi cultural communities within SL than that. maybe that's why i fail at defining my success by marketing terms.

i don't know. maybe i'm fooling myself in believing we are not just so much fodder to non disclosure bound uberlords tweaking our earthbound senses. is there a spiritual foundation within the world at all? you would think at this most reverential time within Christian dogma, a spiritual sense of self would wrest from its slumber. all i've seen to date are bunnies and easter eggs. oy vey.

oh well. maybe i should keep my thoughts to myself. nonetheless, as bold or as insane as my life is decreed here's my Easter design from a heart which entwines itself deep within the fabric of humanity. to my ultimate detriment i suppose.

i call it the Blood of Christ necklace. central and core to the cross of ancient hand wrought iron nails is a vial of Christ's pure and Holy blood. the unbreakable orb of glass which surrounds it holds the subtle and glowing essence of a man who's self realized nature outside of the fleshly delights was revealed as a lesson to us all. and there's no end of the story until we all meet him again in our Glory. whatever you do in this life. keep His Story alive.

blessings. be.

MarketPlace

Level Up

2011-04-21T01:49:00.002-04:00

House of Curios Noir Pumps, colour change HUD, skin HUD, modifiable, copyable, 175L$

i can't count all the times i've been forced to take remedial action to save some poor newbs from continuing their throwaway freebie styling. the assault to the grid and all self respecting fashionistas wasn't something i took lightly. my basic nature, not straying far from the initial warm and fuzzy glow of birth, is to help. full stop. putting someone on the path to beauty, if i can tear myself away from my selfish shopping goals, is a gift i've learned to give from my very first day inworld. there was never any cost, harm, or fail. buy, wear, be happy. win win.

that was the era before primfeet. as things are now i'm not all that inclined to spending a week getting anyone to the point where they, or i, are suitably educated to sharing a positive experience in the fitting, sizing, shading, and editing of some pretties for their feet.

fortunately Guu Nishi has the formula to serve both newbs and oldbies alike. 1. simple, 2. affordable. word of mouth from her growing fanbase has brought a lot of attention to her wares since wading into the competitive field of women's high design shoes. her decidely relaxed character spoken loudly by her funky creations isn't protection enough from the seriously hard core businesses earning and maintaining a real life living from their virtual designs. i shoulda warned her. oh, i did, i did.

it's a shame that her significance to her customers and competitors has been made so damned large since her Noir series (boots, stilettos, and now pumps) hit the grid. going up against big money can kill you dead. and, the grid being the way it is, you never know who done it. this covert spy vs spy aspect can ruin your freedom of expression, your openness, your very being.

your fanbase aren't aware of all the dirty dealings undermining your soul's light. you can take no solace in your sales numbers. serving your own artistic needs, improving and innovating might give you some respite but you should already know you're great and can create anything the big girls are selling at three times the amount you are. of course, their entire lives are invested in protecting that livelihood. hobbyists be damned!

what Guu needs now is a marketing agent with a plan. of course, upping your game to embrace the devil Mammon is a life changer. affording the services of this particularily distasteful sort of individual is something that has removed some fairly admirable artists. unfortunately, the realities of the game can't be avoided forever. if the urges to move up gnaw at just the right frequency, your adventure to get out of your own way (developing a trusting relationship with said publicity jurist) can profit you in the end. maybe. you know yourself. now it's time to reach out in that muddy murky world of marketing mayhem. let them fight amongst themselves.

if i was as good as yourself i'd solicit some well known publicity firms for quotes on their plans. i said Well Known. you know the ones who own the world. can you save your self after they own you? good luck girl, you got the skills. do we need another hero?

Getting Too Real

2011-04-06T21:55:00.000-04:00

i was thinking i'd never be able to get my look quite as nice as the graphic professionals showing their skills on the feeds of late. i've been so steeped into making scripts and space ships (wait for it) that when i turned the camera on my self i thought i'd be so disgusted that i'd have to make some dramatic changes to keep up.

well, with another beautiful skin and some work in PhotoShop anyone can look as good. problem is, i don't know who does as extensive PS work as i have here when i see their posts. no one's saying! has the mesh improved so that our nose to face edges have smoothed out so much? how can you get that upper bridge to look like that? is there magic in the Environmental lighting i don't know about? should i spend my time flitting from vendor to vendor trying on what they're selling or should i do the work i know is impossible inworld in my PS?

the world's no farther along than normal. just the same professional artists using the medium to fulfill their highest ideals of feminine beauty. i've always found it odd that no one purports to being a graphic artist. fashionista sure, but never tell anyone your 2D pixels are not what's really there without working extremely hard achieving admirable results.

Busy

2011-03-29T09:25:00.002-04:00

i've added a new item to my MarketPlace store. i made a video to show how the doors work. it's over on my YouTube channel in all its high def beauty. it's exactly what i want for my own apartment's bedroom which i'm still trying to simulate with prims when i can tear myself away from all the real life activities. i've just moved into a much larger space in rl so i've not been having lots of fun getting myself settled in. i did grab the newest Bodylines skin. i'll try putting out some more details when i get more organized.

Give to Get

2011-03-17T22:26:00.003-04:00

i'm not much into charities. i figure the organizers benefit more than the charity in most cases. when i TPd over to snap up a skirt located exclusively at the Pacific Crisis Fundraiser venue i was surprised to see that all funds (50% for some other purchases) are being sent to the charity Americare.org.

Taking in the site, located in the sky on aida Ewing's SIM, there seems to be plenty of great fashion finds. do your own due dilegence. if you want to help the horrendous conditions happening in Japan, i'd say this is a great way to donate. you'll be happy knowing your cash is going to a good cause, and you get to wear some fabulous clothes too. winning! thanks to everyone for your contributions.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/World%20of%20Beauty/193/149/1003

Lover's Treats

2011-02-13T18:12:00.000-05:00

what speaks to us more of Valentine's Day than slinking into some inticingly delicious and sexy lingerie? the newest Lady of Lingerie to embrace the grid, LadyVanir Dragovar (owner and designer of the Voluptia brand) has put out some new dainties ready for your viewing pleasure. if any of her models are buzzing about the store (or chasing butterflies, riding their pegasus, tricycles, etc., etc.) just ask if you could see something on their adorable shapes. they all seem more than pleased to indulge your every wish. well, not every one, please try to keep your play to some proper limits. :-) think of the children!

this little number i'm modelling is Voluptia's Ravish Teddy. you might not be able to see it all that well (i got all artsy with the Windlight settings -Snowglobe's Sheer Surreality) but when the Lady goes high-cut, she's not kidding. i had to accentuate her vision by bumping out my hips a tad for that added fleshly delight. the cut on the back and the fabric pull denotes an extra ordinary attention to detail and a wicked eye for stimulating fashion.

everyone have a sexy and loving Valentines Day. i'm off to languish in a bubble bath.

Those Were the Days

2011-02-03T21:05:00.002-05:00

Field of Dreams Desktops

2011-01-31T17:06:00.003-05:00

1680x1050

thought i'd release another set of desktop pieces d'art. clicking any of the images will take you to the uncompressed bitmap i have stored on the free FileAve image hosting site. download as you will. aside from fuzzing up some of the moon texture the shot is all inworld effects. location: MiaSnow Myriam's Twomoons Island SIM. it's hard to find a spot that's Not Beautiful. oh, there's shopping sites there too. EnJoy!

1280x1024

1024x768

Noir Stilettos

2011-01-27T08:14:00.003-05:00

Guu Nishi, designer/owner of HOC Industries has followed up her Noir boots with these scrumptiously textured Noir stilettos. how she manages to simulate such brilliantly lit fabric for the sculpties around the toes and the tight fitting heel is just phenomenal. she hints at how her set up allows for her to perform such feats of graphic accomplishment on her recently launched website hocindustries.net. she's got a great fun-loving personality that really shines through. check out her photo contest for her pickle obsession (fetish?).

whatever combination of software she uses, there's not one in a thousand who could bring it all together like she has. and, with her fancy colour change HUD you can have your choice of nine different hot colours (not including the three animal print textures available to group tag members). incentive enough to join her group. you just won't believe how superb her alligator texture is! i can't get over how expertly she paints her polys.

i would have enjoyed a more mirrored surface to the steel stiletto and more work on the foot texture but i'm so smitten with the fabric lighting i'll forgive her anything on this occasion. the skin matching HUD, separate from the colour HUD, is a snap to use. like her other fun designs in her little mainland shop they're fully modifiable too. she's certainly an up and coming star and will most likely be bringing us more sexy footwear and women's fashion as she continues developing her brand.

i wanted to show all the variations in colour, textures, and toenail polishes but i didn't want to steal all the bandwidth so i put a video together with some shots. click the image below to grab it from YouTube.

Noir Stilettos, HOC Industries, Guu Nishi, 175L$

Interior Design

2011-01-21T12:40:00.003-05:00

i'm not so sure i'm ready to welcome anyone into my home as of this point. i've really not got all that much creature comforts installed to speak of so you might have to just mill about. i do have a very nice door constructed now but it's a bit prim heavy. it has to be since i've made it as detailed as the corresponding real world example complete with peep hole (with spyglass) and working hinges. i think all in all it's up to just under a thousand prims and that's pretty empty save my desk. i'm bringing in the textures with my digital camera. (tiling is hard!)

all the rooms are being designed to my avatar's proportions so it's a lifelike simulation of the real world. as an example, the "office" window (designed for a dining space actually) comes up to my real world body's sternum (look it up) so the inworld example is placed to coincide exactly to real life positioning. boring as hell i know but once it's done you can see where i live and it should feel like you are visiting me in my actual home! you might have to wait a while for your invite, i'm a bit finicky when it comes to building. i might put some of the parts out for sale so keep an eye on my Marketspace channel.

Lords & Ladies Dancing

2011-01-19T12:58:00.002-05:00

i don't know about you but i had a hellishly fun time at the opening events for Voluptia's Grand Opening party held on the weekend. the Lady (LadyVanir Dragovar) has put together a fun and friendly crew. can't say putting my video together with brand new software was anywhere near as much fun as the conga line at the Sublime Ball Room. some people have a real knack for entertaining. i never thought gathering for a virtual dance could be so fun.

i'm real happy LadyVanir Dragovar and her partner LordVanir have made it over to SL from their longtime devotion to designing for IMVU. i'm looking forward to much more from them whether it's through the Voluptia brand, Sublime Ball Room, or any number of their other creative and entertaining venues. they are certainly a pair to watch.

welcome to Second Life Lord and Lady.

if you are so inclined to peek in on the earlier goings on, click the image to see my YouTube video i managed to cut together from some clips. let's just say there's a little wiggle room for improvement. meh, i'm sure the feel will come through. enjoy. if i ever tame this software, there might be some more.

Sensual Delights

2011-01-11T14:02:00.002-05:00

if your slex life is anything like ms Mayne's you'll be needing all the help you can get to entice your partners to open up in sharing their most intimate and private sexual musings with you. adorning your avatar's svelt form with Voluptia's Parfait lingerie set will stand you in good stead should your environs allow for a commitment to dance.

LadyVanir Dragovar's attention to detail and expert implementation for the Parfait set i'm wearing should heighten your tantalizing allure. your partner's fixation, at least in my mind's eye, is handily won with the seamless melding of the cinch upper and full panties style. there's a trailing lace skirt included with the set but i didn't want to obscure my curvaceous derriere her high cut panties accentuate so deliciously. there's a thong included too but the cinch band with the full panties was what attracted me as unique to the grid. i was relieved she chose it as a review selection without my resorting to an uncharacteristicly lamentable pleading. :-)

each piece comes in a multitude of layer choices so you can feel confident it will fit with whatever clothing or tattoo layers you have. i'm not sure about you, but hiding this or any of LadyVanir's other delicate and sensuous handiwork would be a sin. they are definitely designed for a girl with indecent motives. you should be so lucky to have Voluptia do your bidding, and; at 349L$ for everything in the package your pleasure won't be ruined if they get tossed about.

as it is, there's an opportunity to get to know more about the Lady and her partner's businesses in the form of a Grand Opening Event Saturday the 15th of January. if you haven't gotten your invite pop on by the Voluptia sim and explore what more there is to see and imagine. i feel there's a lot more exiting sensuous delights in store.

Fur

2011-01-04T14:13:00.006-05:00

there's nothing as stimulating to a woman's body as the fine fur hide ripped from a dead animal's carcass. aside from getting over the psychologically debilitating imagery of the trapping used to dispense with the life force of the numerous fur baring animals in question, the bloody gore of the degutting, the entire tanning process, really; you'd pay a fortune to have someone craft such a sensuously luscious pelt as that simulated here from Himeko Ninetails.

of course, confronting the finished pelt hanging from the LaRosa display rack, one's selfish indulgence might turn to nuzzling the fine furry follicles deep in your cheeks as if the inhumane horror to bring it to market was somehow less real. i sure did. but i'm kinda funny that way.

i must confess, even in the real world, i have this unrepentant and unforgiving attraction to fur. my last visit to me ma's brought us to a local furrier whose designs were so decadent i wouldn't leave till they took my deposit on a plum $4000 Cdn sheared beaver jacket. it's only money, right?

political correctness is like the wind. why be a sheep when you can slaughter them and wear their coats? muahahaha.

LaRosa Fur Coat
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Oceanside%20dAlliez/99/29/25
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Maven%20Isle/131/99/24
199L$
Himeko Ninetails/design for LaRosa

Long Fur Cuff Boots
http://slurl.com/secondlife/YABU/178/103/24
180L$
Cerberus Noel/*G Field*

Exotica

2010-12-30T11:17:00.004-05:00

i don't know how i got here but i don't ever wanna leave.

i've worn Amesha Jewell's skins before. i'm not sure why but i keep returning to FreeSpeerit or BODYLINE for the definitive /me. sure, i'm curious (and envious ... LAQ) about other skins but most are so far away from my teeny budget i can only try their Demos. of course, if any Affordable and beautiful faces appear on the feeds, like Pitty Checchinato's post of Amesha's HeartSick freebie, i'll drop all my primwork and go and see.

when i arrived in Amesha's little shop i was stunned to find an entire wall populated with 50-75L$ skins. and they're all gorgeous! why she's making them available to the vast majority of gridgirls is anyone's guess. am i still dreaming?

skin
HS : Enchant : Obsidian : Very Berry (copy)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Viana%20Square/25/42/1487
50L$
Amesha Jewell/Heartsick Skins

hair
Claudia (copy/mod)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/LollipopZ/47/136/27
99L$
Zeev Dinzeo/LollipopZ

All of Us

2010-12-24T02:53:00.006-05:00

Happy Christ's Mass everyone
each
and
every
one

EnJoy the Gifts of YOU

Pink Floyd - Breathe

Me and My Shadows

2010-12-21T10:27:00.004-05:00

i've been reading how some of you are having trouble getting the Windlight environmental lighting features working to a point where you aren't pulling out what remains of your increasingly thinning flexi hair follicles. to aid in the endeavour to help when i can, i've installed the latest Official release (Second Life v2.4.0 (216989) Dec 15 2010 06:48:45) on my main system.

i have to tell you. i abandoned v2 shortly after the M-run Lab threw it onto the grid. learning the dark Lord's occulted program features revulsed my highly intuitive sense of right and wrong. it was horrifying to me what the outsourced code monkeys did then and it's still an out and out nightmare now. seriously, it's really completely useless for anything more than this one shot i was able to grab.

BOTTOM LINE:
this viewer is absolutely ill prepared for prime time. any help i was planning to give turned into a frustrating and confused stumble into more pain and suffering than i can reasonably endure. snagging the above shot and subsequent PS alterations completely destroyed my faith in being able to help anyone but myself. :-( yer on your own. suffer for your art!

Skin: FreeSpeerit, Fiona Gold
Hair: LollipopZ, Secrets, modded
Earrings: *BEHOLD* Designs: Burmese Hoop Earrings

Pricing Pressure

2010-12-13T10:47:00.001-05:00

found these little rei2 Aya beauties (from R2 Fashion) the other day. it's so refreshing to be able to buy such quality goods at such reasonable prices without consulting my financial planner. while the top designers inch the bar ever higher into the once outrageous prices set by the real life millionare Stiletto Moody there are still some quality manufacturers out there whose considerable talents can be enjoyed by the struggling masses. the fact that everything i'm wearing is modifiable should add to their attraction. Lord love em.

Wearing:
boots: Pumehana L Black, rei2 Aya, R2 Fashion, 249L$
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Love%20Soul/209/166/27
hair: *2MB SOPHIE, Midas Blazer
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Liberty%20Central%20N/145/138/51
dress: Tinsle and Joy, Ravenlynn Templar, Lvs&co, 10L$
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Beauties%20Nature/149/192/24

photoshoot location
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Daytime%20Dreams/111/111/21

Snowman Avatar

2010-11-26T00:39:00.003-05:00

just put together this cute little snowman avatar for your fun and enjoyment. it's at *BEHOLD* and on the Marketplace for a scant 80L$.

grab a copy (it's copy/mod), drop the folder on yer self, and bring joy to all the children everywhere you go. (sheesh, i should do this for a living. hallmark cards here i come.)

Love Lost

2010-11-22T16:19:00.004-05:00

this might get sappy so scroll away now if you are in any way emo squeamish. i don't know where this might go, so hold on if it hits you where you live. there's no turning back once you've committed to stay.

there's something i've not been able to articulate for some while now. i've been staring at the screen waiting for the voices in my head to go away. yeah, it's a big one. the sisters at the sanitarium have tried their best to quell the most persistent and pernicious hallucinations. my power to reject all their unctions may soon fail. i hope this letter reaches you.

i've lost the greatest love i've ever had in my life. it's eating away the foundation of my being, upheaving my firmament like a volcano. there's nothing to hold on to anymore. it's like i'm falling into a deep chasm of negative emotions, ugliness, and ruin. my life, what little i imagined i was living, is being extinquished thought by thought as i am pulled deeper into a hopeless abyss. every beautiful thought, tied as they are to a continuous thread of experiences, are gradually being torn from my mind. leaving me with nothing.

are my words and pictures enough to depict my suffering? are the nuances of the language sufficient to denote a revolution in my mental state? can the vibrations within the music connect you to my soul? does anyone get it?

as dour and critical some would make of it, the refuge i make of Second Life has eased what sad and sorrowful pain reality has foisted upon my undying soul. the overwhelming power of other's violent and suppressive reality hasn't totally removed my ability to make and give of my love. thank you Philip. your Love Machine has continuously filled the hole reality tears at my heart.

death is not the end. i am reborn into the Spirit of Only Love. Give it. --Love-- no matter the cost. it doesn't matter the reflection. harsh or soft. their love is still. don't be afraid, guarded, or withdrawn. take your hits. get up and shine.

Love Lost Playlist

Follow Your Heart

2010-11-17T10:04:00.002-05:00

i started putting this outfit together by begging Jareth McMahon for a review copy of her Afrika boots. she didn't have a Demo for them and i didn't want to be disappointed finding out the lickable vendor's graphic was not depicting what the prims would look like inworld. she was very nice about my annoying her and after gradually wearing her down she graciously threw a package on me.

what struck me about these boots was the distressed suede texturing. on first rezzing them they exceeded the package's come-hither pix. their luscious matte and broken-in creases smacked of real world comfort an oft worn standard would give you. just the kind of casual everyday attire i'm drawn to.

i had some trouble fitting them to my calfs (she uses the Scripts-r-Us resizer scripts) but the textured socks and full perm Amesha Jewell invisprims made hiding any poking out bits relatively easy to ignore unless you were super zooming/perving. there were some issues with the foot to calf joint and the calf's invisiprim but ordinarily, with such stunningly applied textures, who but myself is gonna be that picky?

skin: Amesha Jewell: HeartSick: Enchant, Mirage, Onyx: 10L$ Anniversary Hunt Find: copy
hair: Zuul Destiny: Destiny Dreadlocks: Shy Dreads: 175L$: copy/mod
top: Kaliha Noel: Xplosion: *X*plosion WollPulliBreak brown: 50L$: copy
skirt: nyanchi Eel: MNK*SHOP: Chiffon_flower midi skirt: 90L$: copy/mod
boots: Jareth McMahon: FJ Design: Afrika: 599L$: transfer
photoshoot location: Amesha Jewell's Viana Square

Art Show

2010-11-13T17:09:00.000-05:00

of the fifty to sixty thousand people logged on to the grid the other day only thirty of the truely fashion forward gave themselves the treat of enjoying the JM Models sashaying designer pixivor Allen's dynamic new couture bonbons.

Jewell Munro's production team pulled off a lag-free fully rezzed presentation with an emotionally evocative stream (tunes spun by Felizitas Barbosa), and a well appointed build (Villy Enyo). the new pixivor gowns, with her rich tropical colours and trademark shimmering textures fairly popped off my screen. it's so refreshing to have such bold colours adorning our pixel representations. and, each dress is beautifully complimented with pixivor's choice of shoes and accessories for an easy no stress dressing experience.

pixivor, a real life painter, has the lightest, most feminine fabric textures of any designer i've seen on the grid. her technical abilities to turn blocks of plywood into the most sensuous and flowing material is just awe inspiring. i should wear a landmark to her store when i wear her designs since i get complimented so many times. thank you for making me the sexy and attractive lady that turns heads every where she goes pixivor.

enough gushing. here's some pix of the elegant and luscious new pixivor Allen designs:

What We're Missing

2010-11-04T20:45:00.004-04:00

i've been working on my own set of prim hands. no, they're not for mass consumption as of yet. looks like Siddean from SLink's beat me to market. oh well. as soon as i get the nails, textures, HUD, scripts, animations, tone matching, etc, etc, etc perfected the grid will finally have the hand gesture it's so missing. not that i would ever use it. teehee.

Honesty Pays

2010-11-01T18:59:00.002-04:00

okay. thank the Christ the pagans revelling in their holy days have crawled back into their dark caves. not that i don't admire all their Plutonian influences they bring to the world (haha). but, really, an entire month solely devoted to wretched and decadent displays of ugliness! why delve in such depraved imagery with such loquatious glee? a complete misunderstanding of the tradition can't be made to be so wide spread without an over arching impetus forcing everyone to sing the same tune. who's to blame?

now, as for what is left for the rest of us to revel in, i've been hunting for some prim foot/shoes to point my newbie friends to without their needing to go through the ritual of breaking their piggy banks. as luck would have it, Talena Carissa of Delights by Talena has a few examples at her store that do just fine.

you may have seen these heels offered to the grid before. they are full perm sculpties sold to retailers/assemblers to sell as their own. no, they're not Ten Dexler's. i'm not sure if they are sold fully textured so cudos to those who have stretched their skills in applying their brand's features onto them. unfortunately, the full gamut of prices and marketing deceptions designed to fool the consumer have also been applied. i won't name any names. we wouldn't want them to cackle too loudly over their cauldrons at your expense.

setting herself apart from the exploitive few, and including an exceptionaly honest explanatory note in her Picks tab for us, Talena's got these shoes out at her shop for nothing. she's not asking anything more than for you to stab her Subscribo sign to receive them for your pleasure and the pleasure of everyone's senses that are assaulted, as mine are, by our system feet's pixelated horror.

she's got some other 10L$ samples at her discount shop too. the scripts are all simple drop down menus which changes the size, skin tones, and sound. i would highly recommend you turn the included sounds OFF. click the Right shoe to bring up the menu options. no matter which sound option there is, none of them work adequately for any reasonably simulated step synchronicity. whether there needs to be more refinement in the script's timing or a complete remake of the awful sounds, it's best for now to just turn them off.

when i tried these freebies on for the first time the heel textures were different for both shoes. so, i was forced to read the information notecard supplied. i know. terrifying, but true. in that, just in case you are faced with the same problem, you can access the heels texture-change function by typing "/26 metal 1" in local chat to have both heels turn to gold. i think there are 5 separate metal types. the studs and buckle textures change along with that command.

so, if everyone's telling you to get new prim foot shoes and you've never been able to afford them, Talena's is the place to go. she gets my consumer's Mark of Affection. thank you Talena.

The Price is Right

2010-10-29T19:16:00.004-04:00

i normally see something i'd like to try when another blogger puts it up on their blog and it wends its way onto my feed reader. sometimes i'm pleasantly surprised, as is the case with Coco Nikita's .:Glamorize:., but sometimes spending the time to TP over for an inworld looksee leaves me mentally noting never to trust that blogger again. the problem in doing that is that there are just so many damned bloggers out there. pushing their friend's stuff, their designer's gifts, their group's latest, etc, etc.

making the clothes or accessories jump out from the page amounts to two things, at least in my case. style and affordability. too often, the flavour of the moment (brought to us by the big money campaign artists) overwhelms the real choices the grid has to offer. we (most of us) follow trends and seasonal necessities based on real world marketing impositions. going against the stream makes for a brilliant, exiting, and dynamic milieu. confoming to one's familiar "image" can get tired pretty fast. having everyone adopt the style of the newest craze is just that, crazy. i'm not going to wear what everyone else is wearing. i don't have a single LeLutka or Truth item in my inventory!

finding those designers who've not been hyped up the kazoo by the marketing machinery (failing to see that as a detriment to our self expression or individuality) is what the game's all about to me. unfortunately, with the amount of time i have available to me now, i have to rely on the younger, more energetic and passionate bloggers who've not yet sold out. let's just say there are still a few jewels mingled amongst the coal.

i wish i could name them all for you. some of them stay true to their unique ability to dress as we all might like without "being told". subtle social pressures abound in this world, alike the real one. please, if someone asks you to blog their stuff, someone you are unfamiliar with, or a starting designer; take a closer look. tell us what you think. we're not all pushers for the machine. or are we? your input in describing and showing off these lesser known designers can be just the encouragement they need for them to reach another level.

now that i've alienated the small but agressive minority who want an exclusive right over what you should wear and what you should spend it's going to be hard to describe this quick outfit i made from Coco Nikita's store. i can't tell you much about her outside of her birth date puts her in the newb category and her stuff is all really really affordable. it consists, suprisingly enough, of items all from the same designer (save the shoes). the way sexy dreads (modifiable) drew me in and if i wasn't running out of cash i would have filled my wardrobe with everything she had. simple, casual, and sexy. all priced to sell to the majority of women who wear what they buy to look and feel beautiful.

let's not forget who our readers are. (hint: no, they're not your blogger sistahs.)

dreads: Glamorize 20L$
bra/blouse: Glamorize 3L$
Jeans: Glamorize 2L$
earrings/necklace: Glamorize 20L$
heels: SKIFIJA 149L$
skin: BODYLINE (priceless)

The Test of Time

2010-10-27T19:24:00.002-04:00

i've loved Queue Marlowe, designer for Analog Dog hair, well, like forever. if the name of her store is any indication as to just what type of love-struck puppy one becomes from first encountering her it's a fair description of the feelings i had then. and now. throughout the ravages the grid simulates as its own style of online social networking she's always been a rock in the tempestuous seas of those clamouring for success.

the debate as to just who it was that brought the world its first flexi hair (Queue or Stumbelina) hasn't brought out any confirmed winner. the originator for the entire world's first stab at such a creative innovation isn't given enough emphatic praise by the newbs crowding the sims and blogosphere. knock offs, wannabees, and copiers eventually crowd into the market and we mostly forget what genius was climbing out to the small end of the branch for the sweetest fruit. Queue Marlowe's one of those extraordinarily brave designers on the grid who has given us all a full cornucopia of love.

now, if that's too much hyperbole, just go gather up her latest do's. i won't tell you there are some subtle bubble vendors where you can have them for free. i'd really love for you to explore her little island and discover some nuances outside of the retail push and shove. while yer there, check out her Sale vendors which carry some styles that endure the test of time.

Four Years of EnCore

2010-10-20T12:07:00.007-04:00

it might not mean anything to you but i've been expressing my self inworld for 4 years now. this very day, way back in 2006, i signed up for what has been the wildest ride of my life. it's been heaven and it's been hell. each spontaneous episode, in their own measure against my character, has tested and trained me for accepting and adapting for more.

i've met a lot of people and made a lot of them my friends. there have been a few people i've loved so unabashedly that my giddiness at their connnection was demonstrably palpable. i've learned so much about my self through their love, generosity, candour, respect, and attentiveness that i could die right now and be happy with the gifts they so freely gave. i hope my own attempts at being one tenth of their reflection is looked upon with fondness and wistful longing for those special moments we shared. i love(d) them all with a passion and creative exhuberance that stressed my ability for more.

each of these women, most now gone from the game, have a special soft and warming place in my heart. there's not a day that goes by i don't think of them. i'm not so sure i'd be able to play like we did. it's rare rl would allow me to spend the countless hours inworld as i used to. (as i'd like to.) their memories are sweet and invested in my art. sharing those once guarded passages of love (hey, i live in the real world too, i've got my scars) has illuminated a far wider and etherial plane to more.

looking back over all the pix i've saved from the four year long journey has filled me with an incredible awe for the trip i've been on. i had no idea an online "game" would be so emotionally satisfying and creatively stimulating. sure, there were times i wanted to give it all up. everything i did could be, from a different perspective (rl friends and family) a very valid rationale for a mental health intervention. and still i crave for more.

the attraction (addiction?) is really a simple one. its fulfillment, at least for me, was and always will be a desire for the joining of hearts, minds, and souls. no matter how it's clothed, no matter how it's masked, no matter how it's manipulated or distorted; it's merely another form of human interaction. and, should you know the truth, an enhanced and highly specialized form of that playful dynamic indeed. tapping into those imaginative baubles of our minds, to those who can, has always been an elusive honey for me in real life. taking "make believe" to the heights only SL has the capacity for is sheer genius (thank you Philip) and deserves nothing less than more.

i will continue to live and laugh and love in SL as i always have. it is so much a part of me that it would be impossible not to acknowledge its impact on my rl awareness. SL has provided me the spark to that dying ember of joy rl events have caused. no, this is not a suicide note. allow me my enthusiasm and passions. reaquainting my rl self with my sl self has been one of the most enlightening experiences of my life. yeah, go figure. was there a special class you missed? have you been wanting more from your own second life?

it's not that my real life hasn't been less fruitful or open to my online pleasures/indulgences. i could be writing about my real life with the same openness but this is my SL time. i've had my time in rl pursuing avenues for living, albeit with less candour for my true life needs for freedom, playfulness, and tolerance. i've learned to make compromises to the fulfillment of my dreams. but still i crave for more fantastical visions of who i want to be.

the people who question my rl sexuality, my lifestyle choices, my associations, my communications, assertions, etc., etc. are just more hidden in their influence. in SL, where we all live in a far smaller fishbowl, your neighbour's judgements/opinions have far more lasting affects. getting over "peer" (i laugh) pressure in SL has been a far more injurious matter than i could have imagined. i suppose that speaks to a time when competitive members poisoned the game to serve their own pecuniary or degraded concerns. meh, how ya gonna tell everyone reading the nonsense spewers that they're all proud liars and sad clowns? rumours and secrets are a measure of the teller, not the told upon. don't feed your "spectator" status. i'm an open book. crack the cover, it's what leads to more, should you stress your ability to socialize in a civil manner.

i do hope you can all relate to the world in front of you. it's what got me hooked on SL. maybe it's my curiosity for the joie de vivre. i guess you'd have to be open to learn about others far different from your self or closeknit community. i'm absolutely sure your life wouldn't be so boring if you said hello to that Gorean slave, that BDSM mistress, or that attractive stranger dancing at the same club as you. and, of course, as was recounted constantly from everyone who knew: be careful. learn well and don't be greedy for more. just look for a soupçon of EnCore.

oh, for the literately challenged, i put up some of my more memorable pix spanning my SL time into a Flickr Set. i've still got more to put up but it's an arduous task culling them from the massive amount. i should be adding more to the set as time allows. as it is i think i'm up to 2008. they're in no particular order (damned software) so the stories they invoke (each one a lifetime of learning) will have to be sorted another day.

IT HAS BEEN,
AND IS,
AND WILL BE
...
A GREAT LIFE!!!

LIVE IT.

Fashionable Pistol Whippin'

2010-10-06T10:22:00.000-04:00

there's a time and place for abrupt and aggressive action. and there's absolutely no reason why you have to be unlady like when you whip out your *BEHOLD* Designs: Pistola. it's designed with the fashionable hitgirl in mind. comes complete with wearable fingernails!

the replica M106Z automatic Krugerfenderoffen comes fully loaded with my modable sculptie primnails. when you wrap your pretty fist around this baby's platinum handle you don't have to sweat your manicure is up to the task. take care of business without a thought.

100L$
now at:
*BEHOLD* Designs Inworld & Marketplace

Light My Fire

2010-10-04T09:26:00.003-04:00

i've been working on a facelight HUD of late (among some other projects). i thought i'd release what i've come up with on the HUD so far, take a bit of a breather, and revisit it when my pain threshold for learning the Linden Scripting Language is somewhat assuaged.

i've been avoiding crafting my own scripts (making my designs twitch the way i conceive of them to act) far too long now. cutting and pasting what's already out there works to a certain degree but i'm finding myself increasingly hindered in fully expressing my mind's ideas. with this HUD i've stressed my knowledge to the point of breaking, she says, tamping a slight trickle of viscous fluid emanating from her ear....

as i had thought, each button Should illustrate for the user just which level of illumination they are using. that particular scripting exercise proved just too daunting for me given the exiting timeframe of keeping up with the exhuberance of the feeds. so, this version will have you relying on your feel for what the lights do on your face. i must say the Levels of each light serves the purpose i had in mind. explaining it, there's a Help notecard included, is always a treat especially putting myself back into newbie teaching mode. best case scenario: everyone who buys one will figure it out with usage. i keep mine on all the time. really comes in handy taking snaps.

works for me!

55L$
Inworld
Marketplace

Spike Collar

2010-09-30T08:08:00.003-04:00

no, it's not your traditional collar, although i suppose you could fill it with your favourite slave scripts (it's modifiable) should that be your kink. it's my latest sculptie design which has been formed to precisely fit the avatar's neck, or at least my own slider mix. there are no god awful gaps between the neck and the necklace. seems easy enough don't it? well, when you know where all the mesh vertices for the neck are (22 of them) you can design the Blender object around those points, it's easy.

the other innovative part of this design is that it's designed to be attached to the mouth. unlike the chest or spine attachment point for necklaces, hanging the collar off the mouth shows a lot of real movement. as the head moves so does the neck (along with the dynamic feature the collar accentuates). i have a lot of head movement in my Oracul AO. i don't want my necklace to remain static through all those motions so ... it seems to work just fine. don't know why i never thought of this before.

now that i know how to design for a slice of the avatar's mesh i'll try to put out some other "tight fitting" bands. mayhaps the thigh, forearm, ankle, etc. sheesh, you'd think the Lab coulda made our contours round. no matter, back to wireframe.

oh yeah, this collar is now at both my inworld location at Choerom and in Marketplace. uncompromisingly affordable at 35L$ a pop. slurls below:

*Behold* Designs InWorld
Marketplace

Creative Ideas

2010-09-22T09:54:00.003-04:00

i just became aware that my Bloglines reader is going away. i know. don't try to console me, it just won't work. staring into space seems appropriate at this time. i'm not sure i can go on. let me get over this in my own way.

all better. newsblur.com seems to bring in all the feeds i had on Bloglines with full preview mode. only problem is i can't save any posts that i like for later. oh well. gotta mix the good with the bad. i like the feature of one click to get to the next unread post. i don't have to page through the posts that seem to post an endless stream of photos. you know who you are.

i can't tell you much how fun it is discovering new designers. like, yer not me, so what point would there be to articulate the joy of unpacking the myriad amount of freebie parcels i gathered up from the Modavia Fashion Week boutiques and Hair Fair vendors?

discovering a new hair designer (at the Hair Fair no less! go figure) who has the audacity to provide the venue and its patrons with gorgeous and fully modifiable hairs led me to check out her inworld shop. Zeev Dinzeo's LollipopZ Hair Styles is located on her own SIM. they have plenty of styles and shades to choose from. for any one style you get a scripted resize version as well as a modifiable one.

i of course relished twiddling with every flexi follicle, sculpted strand, and accessory. she's got the cutest little sculptie bobby pins. so i thought i'd try my hand at making some of my own.

i fired up Blender and came up with an extruded cylinder that i bent and pummeled into my own simulated version of the real thing. applying the texture (as good as i am with wrapping complex shapes, hahahahahahaha) amounted to accomplishing adding the black ends, woohoo.

now all i have to do is have everyone beat a path to my door to have them in their hair. if you have modifiable hair that is. you could always be creative with them.... i'll put them in my "BEHOLD updates" group. look it up. it's a ghost town (i really should put out more there) but you don't have to stay for the quippy reparte. grab the latest notice attachment and skidaddle.

one other designer of the two that stood out from all the giveaways was Barbarella Cioc of B! Fashion. i had a few issues with her little black dress so i wrote Barbarella for her take. she was nice enough to write back a notecard explaining what i was seeing. the great thing about her flirty little number is it's modifiable. i toned down the length of the sleeves a bit and fiddled with the edge textures just to make it my own. one thing you should be careful of is the panties (on the pants layer) are very slight. one of my skins revealed just a little too much of my naughty bits so i had to put some other panties on underneath. most of the skins i tried didn't have a problem but fair warning.

i couldn't find this dress in her main shop so if you want a copy get over to her Modavia boutique (not too sure when they'll poof) and get one.

all in all, while i came away with some creative ideas and some nice apparel, you'd think of all the designers being highlighted at the two venues there'd be more great finds. two out of what had to be a hundred (best guess) is not a great average. i'm not sure your results would be the same. who knows.

i'm certainly not going to stop going to these events. thank you very much to the organizers for giving us this yearly opportunity. they are something to look forward to. i hope more designers will be starting some new designs they'll reveal just for these events. of course, they'd all be FREE!

Assemblers

2010-09-17T19:41:00.004-04:00

it's not all that often i slip out of my N-core heels. i've really never found anyone who can come close to Claire Messenger's slim and sexy sculptie foot/shoe combination. i'm always on the lookout for some heels that are of a similar quality and insanely attractive (Extreme) heels at a price i can afford. i'm trying very hard not to spend all my earnings on shoes. really i am. of course, i've run into some situations as i pursue more "reasonably priced" designs.

more often than not what i assume is being advertised as a designer's shoe winds up to be full permission sculpties resold under the advertisers' brand name. now, i'm not saying that's bad. the quality of the products from people who choose this business model for themselves is exceptional. why they don't brand them as their own is a decision derived from their own experiences. from what i've seen from the retailers of Ten Dexler's shoes (as just one example i've found for full perm wholesalers) there is quite the fluctuation of quality applied by the retail "assemblers" of his wares.

technical things which complete the whole package; shoe bases, skin HUDs, resizing scripts, invisiprims, branding elements, etc. (all features left to the retailer to enhance and personalize their copies) might be better left to the creator. i'm thinking in order to ensure the excellent standards set by the sculptor the integrity of the whole should be overseen or directed by the original creator.

i'm not trying to pick on any of the retailers whose best attempts have given me a frustrating number of issues (i'm pretty laid back when i encounter trouble from a relatively unknown brand's offering). i've got the skills/experience/patience to put things right. i'm not so sure about what fair considerations would be given to the reseller by less knowledgeable residents. of course, knowing what i know i can stress the retailers to the highest standard of competency. i'm not so sure we have that many consumer advocates on the grid. would you just throw out a pair of shoes that's resizer doesn't work properly? working with the ~~designer~~ retailer to excel in all their consumer products has provided me with shoes that are equal to the best designs out there at a fraction of the price our top brands ask.

my route to foot nirvana isn't for everyone i suppose. there's just no comparing how pampered one feels when buying the complete and consistently maintained user experience a professional designer like Claire Messenger provides to her customers through her shoes. i hope, knowing the excrutiating pain the platform can deliver at the best of times, some of these new accounts will wend their way to a similar success. not just from reselling or packaging but from creating their own gorgeous and quality products.

Ten Dexler's full perm heels 1999L$
*BEHOLD* Designs: Burmese Jewelry Set (necklace,earrings) Marketplace, InWorld
*BEHOLD* Designs: Fingernails Marketplace, InWorld
B! Fashion InWorld
LollipopZ InWorld, Hair Fair

Modavia alaFolie

2010-09-11T21:35:00.000-04:00

all images for the alaFolie show from the Modavia Fashion Week are screen caps from my dual monitor system. click any of them to show a full sized high rez shot that spans my Snowglobe viewer over both screens. depending on your browser you might have to click the new image again to get the full 2950x950 sized image.

all models were wearing LeLutka skins and shoes. the neutral toned organically sensuous build for the runway venue was expertly accomplished by Charlotte Bartlett. pixivor's floral patterns looked fantastic against Charlotte's muted interior textures.

each of pixivor Allen's gowns you see in the above shots were elegantly presented by the models. a descriptive narrative as to pixivor's creative process was given by Dahlia Joubert against the background tunes spun by Tatianna Faulkes. all designs shown are for sale outside at the alafolie boutique. there are plenty of 0L$ gifts scattered amongst some of the designers' open air boutiques. so many i'll have some great time discovering some new finds.

Midnight Moon

2010-08-05T09:13:00.001-04:00

i thought i'd try shooting my dollie in a dark setting. unfortunately without any in-scene lit objects, to illuminate moi et le background, punching up the atmospheric settings to midnight made things a wee bit too dark. as the SIM owners blessed its visitors with build permissions i put a few prims down with some lighting features that i tweaked to provide some fill lighting. putting one light with bumped up fall-off under the ground and another default light feature at eye level (both out of the shot's frame) seemed to illuminate the subject adequately.

next, as with all Windlight tweaks, i surprised myself with just how well the background was lit by sliding the Sun/Moon Position ever so gently to give some subtle definition to the lighthouse build. one thing you might not know, and something i just recently learned, is that you can select the slider's indicator and then increment it with the left/right arrow keys instead of the gross adjustments afforded by using your mouse.

since the generic Midnight settings put the sun on the other side of the shooting plane we are essentially simulating the effect of moon light on the scene. fiddling with the East Angle i brought the moon (180 degrees opposed the Sun) into the shot. as all you Windlight obsessed photogs out there must know by now, i simply applied a little more Sun/Moon Position to raise the moon to the top of the frame for the maximum dramatic effect. (wish we could tweak the size of the moon, since it appears slightly larger than life.)

now comes the tricky part.

the lighthouse in the above image was around a hundred meters away and on the other side of a bay of water. you can see in the accompanying thumbnail how the background would appear in a normal view mode. i've put the mini-map in the shot to show the system's approximation of the camera's field of view. the shaded area shows the angle from the camera's point (here Alt-clicked on moi). it seems to be around 120 degrees and were it a real world camera it'd be simulating a wide-angle lens.

pulling the lighthouse towards the subject requires a telephoto angle without significantly changing the field of view, ie keeping all the significant elements within the frame. stepping through a number of Ctrl-0 increments collapses the plane of vision resulting in far away objects appearing closer. watch the camera angle in the mini-map as you do this. it can get ridiculously narrow and at that point far away objects can overwhelm the foreground subject. for this particular shot the camera angle was around 75 degrees. it gets pretty hairy controlling the camera with a high level of zoom. using the camera tools can help in certain situations or moving the mouse around wildly usually puts things into perspective (haha).

hope you enjoy experimenting.

===
not supplying any slurls in this post as the designer's shops aren't around anymore (cept for Shylah's and nuria's who you all know anyway)
skin: Kaori Lerner Mood Kaori Dark Coral freebie -fullperm
top: nuria Augapfel N-Core Satin shirt -copy
pants: Lizzi Klaar JOEL Pants -transfer
hair: Shylah Honey Damselfly Axelle -copy

Leather, Lace, and Lore

2010-07-18T08:59:00.004-04:00

we were once many. legion in fact. now we live our lives in darkness shunning the light of the Sun. we are still many, but scattered throughout the Earth along the four cardinal points. we subsist within small enclaves of loyal companions sharing what little we have freely and without limit. our bond is our sorrowful plight against a common enemy. Man.

hunt or be hunted. our strength is governed by our resolve in honouring the hidden truth.

all things considered, beyond our own sight, our lives are still free, secure in the knowledge of Man's ignorance. we will live among them without fear. our rightful place as their masters is written in the stones of their Churches. the veil that keeps them blind to our rightful place will fall. our way cannot be denied.

the ritual blood sacrifices burgeoning our numbers will continue to embrace the children. go ye and enfold the unguided and faithless minds into your circle. free them from their slavery of death. awaken their souls to eternity.

Outfit: Skifija: Absinthe (includes ankle boots): 499L$ -mod/copy
Hair: JUNWAVE: Luca: 30L$ -copy/resize script
Skin: Bodyline: SARA (hunt gift)
Teeth: *BEHOLD* Designs: Vampire Fangs w/HUD: 50L$ -copy
Earrings: *BEHOLD* Designs (Xstreet) (inworld): Nail Cross Earrings: 50L$ -copy

Location: Dragon Rose Bay 39/212/43

Vampire Fans

2010-07-13T09:38:00.001-04:00

i've had a penchant for biting people for some time now. setting my incisors into a fresh carotid is just so righteous. i'm not ashamed of it. it's natural. well, it is for me anyway. some people squirm and wrestle with their fate. i don't know what they're thinking. usually anyone that struggles completely ruins the experience for themselves and others. you have to let go at some point. why fight? go with the flow. it's not all about your needs.

over the intractable course of endless time, i've had to give due respect to the changing times and culture of the day. the decision i've had to make to only show my fangs when feeding has not come easily. the pride in being an immortal and undying soul has no purpose in today's pc world. now, when i'm out and about, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me and the commoners. the consumers and the consumed. if they only knew.

i've made it easy on all my Vampire family followers. your fangs with HUD are out now at *BEHOLD* Designs @ Choerom and Xstreet.

wannabees, fakers, and followers of fashion ... Beware.

Pleasure From Pain

2010-07-02T08:47:00.005-04:00

Behold!

Prim Fingernails (more exclamations warranted to emphasize the revolutionizing fashion coup of the century. please fetch yourself a cuppa while i consult the thesaurus for more superlatives...).

i couldn't write about how guu Nishi could improve her latest shoes without torturing my severely limited expertise in all things sculptie so i came up with my own nails. as i suggested to her in my blogpost, i thought the "poles" for the 3D mesh could be rotated off the front facing view axis. (the first thing in learning any new technology is the funky terminology. makes me feel all above the common plebians it does. not that i don't adore their "huh? wha? say what?" i'm not elevating myself away from you, i'm just hurting myself learning is all. not like you can't do it too. you have to abide the endless pain tho.

i really love my Candy Nails but i got to thinking their business model is failing poor ole me. when i have to buy a new set for every colour change i need i'm sure to go broke. so, after wrestling with Blender to form the damned things (oops, vestigial frustrations abound) i thought "what would i want as a consumer?" one set of nails i can tint for every outfit and occasion is what. so, there you go. EnJoy.

oh, btw, the snapshot's affects in this post are wholly inworld Windlight settings with a dash of dynamic shadows thrown in. you get what you see. 80L$ for a lifetime of pleasure. find them at these locations:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Choerom/247/142/103
Xstreet Marketplace

Gimme Face

2010-06-29T06:47:00.003-04:00

i don't normally do hunts BUT..., when Nedeko Kohime of bodyline is giving away a one of a kind face for her Sara skin (yeah, the one the entire grid is wearing!) i just get a bit exited. so much so i think i started the hunt a day early. go figure. yeah, i'd line up for this one. thanks Nedeko.

i'm wearing some multi-coloured facelights in this photo so you might not be able to achieve the same affect as i have on yours.

Hair: [!SyDS! Hair] Je t'aime... moi non plus - Raven >(80L$) -mod/copy
Skin: bodyline Sara >(hunt gift) -copy
Shorts: r.icielli - Eleanor highwaist shorts/sea >(free group gift) -mod/copy
Heels: N-core - N-core OBSESSION XtremeHeel II "Galaxy" >795L$ -copy
Nail Polish: Ibizarre -glitter orange >free inworld gift
Pose: *BEHOLD* Designs Grab Ankle >20L$ -copy/mod

The Body Talks

2010-06-26T22:48:00.005-04:00

in keeping with the softporn nature on the feeds of late (keep it up girls!), i thought i'd show you what Pompeja Rossini of Damiani (rebranded as LaVie) has been up to lately.

when i saw the ad on the LaVie blog come up on the feeds i immediately bookmarked it for later perusal inworld. well, as luck would have it, she provides a few samples of this skin (Demi V2) as a group gift on the LaVie SIM where i tried it on.

i was immediately struck by the cleavage which showed nicely in the lowcut cami i was wearing. no need for a bust enhancer on this skin as it is built right in. however, with my Shape > Breast Size at 60, at a distance and without any top, they seemed unnaturally pinched. i played around with Appearance and found that setting the Shape > Breast Cleavage to 0 resulted in an astounding improvement.

i have this thing about prominent tanlines. that's what attracted me to Demi so much. the bikini shaded area's tonality on Pompeja's skin was muted suggesting the model's tan had included some nude sunbathing exposure. a subtle level of thoughtful detail much appreciated in immersive roleplaying situations. (don't ask.) since the tanlines weren't all that apparent fully dressed i had to find a place for some further inspection.

for some odd reason, there appears to be stretch marks on the tummy! take a close look (click for larger image). i have no idea what's behind that idea. i thought my monitor was smudged but from every vantage point, they were there. i thought maybe it was part of the tanlines for a complex suit but the teeny bottoms are clearly visable.

and, it might not be so glaring in this shot of my legs on the right but if i could show you the 360 degree pan around you'd see the heavy use of highlight painting with no appreciable blending to speak of. they stand out so much they looked like stripes! no amount of lighting tricks would make them go away (unless maybe midnight settings).

now, as to the face: the philitrum (that indented area between your nose and mouth is called the philitrum) is suffering from the same highlight saturation. in this example its highlights are way too pronounced and it doesn't narrow at the nose. i couldn't adjust my shape to manage it whatsoever.

i don't know whether the full retail skin (1400L$) has the same flaws as the group skin. if it does, it's wholly unuseable. sometimes you can get away with hiding a defect with clothing. i could live with hiding the legs and the belly but how do you go about hiding the face? if you can live with that philitrum yer all good. in my case, i'm out 1L$. you? maybe you learned a new word.

Romeo Void

Seriously Mad Skills

2010-06-21T19:02:00.009-04:00

now that's a HUD! oh, the shoes are pretty keen too, but the HUD, isn't it everything you had ever wanted?

guu Nishi of House of Curios (HoC) has laboured long and hard on adjusting her UI scripts to not only providing 9 skin tone presets for her sculptie toes, she's actually managed to integrate a target on her "Fine tune" palette so you can now know exactly where that skin tone pixel is among the ~17 million available! let's be discernable shall we? Yay guu!

in the grand scheme of things it's a brilliant little feature that is missing from the majority of skin HUDs out there. i think SLink has something similar but i'm not doing an A-B comparison here. and, Siddean Munro's been in the shoe game longer. the only remaining feature from my earlier requirements (to meet my extra ordinary needs for perfection) is a selector in the brightness gradient bar. if you don't know just where you are in that, it's hard to get it right. getting the skin tone is better. now, we tweak the brightness. we have to know where we have selected on the scale/range bar.

i'm sure she's got it in her mad scripting skills to give it to us. should i ask her directly? she outrageously suggested not having demos was okay. omg! i'm not sure i'll ever talk to her again. not everyone buys everything you release hon. give em a chance to see them in 3D. i'm not even averse to tossing a 1L$ for the privilege.

as it is, for the development of her user interface i'd give her 4.6 out of a possible 5. i'm sure she's reading this or we are sympatico in a seriously serendiptitous way. does she know i speak for the entire community when i point out these needs? i'm sure she does. she's really really SMART!

and what a beautiful example to apply it to. just the right time for summer sandals. and there's not a better pair of open sculptie toed wedge sandals out there. i could have used a cork texture, but i'm certain she's got that on the way. there are plenty of options to choose from now, maybe the next version's iteration, if she reworks any of her items (she's moved her Noir boots to viewer 2 alphas so i don't see why she couldn't rework these). seems like it'd be a snap to add another cork texture. huh? huh? huh? love you long time....

of course, if i have her attention, i'm sure adding an entire sculptie foot would be far too much to ask. (where's your todo list?) if that's in the works i would recommend, from what i've seen so far on the toes for these "Yay wedges", that the ending vertices grouping be moved off to another axis so that they are not front facing. it's a minor point (who really looks on feet as some sort of erotic fetish anyhow? oops, did i just give myself away there? hey, it's not a fetish if it's not an obsession!) but one that may need revisiting along with the ending vertices for the nails.

am i asking too much? i don't think so. in this 3D mesh crafting world you are always challenged by the next big thing. breaking your back with so little reward (okay, in my case, not sure about guu's) is just par for the course. to rise above the rest, as i think she has with her pricing for such exceptional results puts her in a different class altogether. and, she exists there exclusively (otherwise i would be writing about them!). no one can meet her overall skills in sculpting, texturing, and scripting at such affordable prices. she's eventually seeing an improvement in her demand, hence the adjustment in price for these sandals (just 199L$) but she deserves your support/love/Lindens. these shoes could be "marketed" by the conglomerated whores for exhorbitant fees they are known to push.

i'm sure we'll be seeing lots of these all over the feeds. it's not like any two will be the same with so many options. thanks for making beautiful shoes affordable guu.

BEHOLD Designs: Rubic Cube Bracelet

2010-06-15T07:25:00.003-04:00

whoever said sculptie making was easy? haha, well, they were wrong. i've poured over a gallon of blood, sweat, and tears to bring this to market. i have the bucket right here. i'm not sure i'll ever recover. you'd be right to feel awful for me. not so much as you'd ruin your day, but hey, keep me in your thoughts when you get really depressed.

converting this design from a primbased one, which just didn't give me the challenge i was looking for, got me developing my Blender skillz. making the mesh was pretty easy, not sure how to get the edges sharper. the hard part involved painting the 128w x 64h targa so the lines acting as borders for the cubes fell in just the right places. thank god for the Aditi preview grid. i have no idea where any of those pixels put on the 2D image would go onto the 3D sculptie without eyeballing them on the test grid and with uploads being free, well, what more do i need to say?

you'd think a perfectly square cube would have a square texture to map to it. i'll have to try that sometime after i get myself some pleasureable company. as it was, the Blender bake gave me that size so who am i to argue? as you can see by the cut, it looks ridiculously easy. that's after 30 or 40 tries of adding a line here, a block there, then filling everything in black. (the tests were in colour so i could distinquish just where things went.)

the mesh i made from Blender was supposed to simulate a beveled surface coming off the base square on all 6 sides. whoa, is that even possible? who the hell even thinks like that let alone articulate it?

after i've fought long and hard with the program to do what i've imagined (staunching the rivulets of cerebral fluid trickling from my ears) i'm stunned. i like that Blender allows you to start up any sculptie mesh with any number of vertices. Wings3D doesn't allow you to add vertices once you start. i'll have to give that a try in Blender once i find that tutorial.

i had thought i might script in some rotations too but hey, i'm no genius. anywho, here it is, the newest frustratingly intense design from the caffeinated mind and arthritic fingers of one tired Second Life resident designer.

you can find this premium quality design at any of these fine locations for your shopping pleasure:

*BEHOLD* Designs, Choerom
*BEHOLD* Designs, Tahiti Magic (full 3Dimensional display object)
Xstreet Marketplace

Fortuitous

2010-06-11T21:43:00.004-04:00

well, that was fortuitous. i just logged on and got a popdown from pixivor Allen's aLaFolie group about a fashion show taking place some time, some where, by some one. i didn't know much more than that, as the notice supplied a single landmark to SIMODE International fashion fair on the Made in Jura SIM. i had no idea what was on but being the brave little avi, still in my casual wear outfit, i TP'd over and landed at their central landing point. i flew over to the mass of dots surrounding the catwalk and caught what remained of the show.

apparently, from what i was told by Annah Cham, the host of the show, it was put on by Lalabel Demina's Evenementia organization for SIMODE. if you haven't heard about the SIMODE International fashion fair check out their website. looks like there's going to be daily events for the entire month of June! here's their calendar of events. they've got plenty of shops on the sim if you want to browse.

anywho, about the show: there were four designers showcased. Smaller Rossini (SMALLER LOVE FASHION), Pixivor Allen (AlaFolie), LaRosa Kohime (LaRosa), and LadyCatherine Fairey (ButterFly EffectZ). the models didn't seem to be having too much trouble firing their poses, most of their clothes rezzed in time. i would have liked them to stay on the target a little while longer for me to get some better shots. i shouldn't say, but pixivor was in another class altogether from the other designers. there was a real stand out among the models: Anne Auer. i resisted the urge to ask her what she was doing after the show. am i getting old or just jaded?

the organizers supplied a live audio stream with Summer Deadlight lending her fabulous voice to describing all the outfits while Lalabel's avi supplied a scripted text in both French and English. i didn't recognize any of the audience, outside of Summer, but Patty Cortes of Glance International Agency was the one fashion luminary in attendance. all in all, a nice presentation. i'll be looking out for what else SIMODE has to offer. surprises like this are just fine.

Busy

2010-06-10T11:40:00.002-04:00

when i'm working on some precision placements for a fantasy object such as these body spikes i usually have to go into Wireframe mode. zooming in on any particular prim doesn't remove any of the grid lines such as the sky and water (here shown as a blue and white grid. there are only so many lines i can register in me wee little brain without data overload. after a while, i don't know what line belongs to what.

so, should this ever happen to you, you can always turn them off if you drop down your Advanced menu > Rendering fly out. uncheck the Sky and Water rendering types. you can see the peaceful shot without all the busyness below. click either of the images to study the details. (the large images are hosted on my freeforums site. if you can't access them let me know. i'll soon be opening the forum to guest browsing/registering soon but you should be able to at least see the pix.

Marketing vs Realization

2010-06-09T11:46:00.009-04:00

i really used to love Milla Michinaga back in the day when she had her styling blog. her every look (and her frequency was prolific) was picture perfect. if only by following the blog some of her fine sense of colour, tonality, and coordinate selections would rub off on me. she never entered into any drama (well there was that one Sofia incident) but essentially her content pretty much stuck to short descriptions of the look. her formulaic post style (split image, 2 full length shots) was a consistent format that i'd come to appreciate among the other eclectic (wild?) bloggers. her active commenters (before Sofia) seemed genuinely interested and engaged with the fashion she showed so well.

then she professed to hitting a brick wall on blogging anything. she had reduced her frequency of posting before that time so i was itching for anything she might bring to us. along with her ending-the-blog post she announced she had been making clothes. well, i was completely surprised but exited too. if she could somehow bring her styling sensibility to her clothing....

she opened a shop and put a small amount of samples out that i immediately asked to blog. well, that's where the love affair ended. i can understand, being a newbie designer without a history of having any particularily noticeable PhotoShop skills that her first designs might need some adjusting. i assigned my co-blogger at the time, Minx Arashi, to put out a nice post on the small gifts Milla was nice enough to give us. i really don't write up things i don't absolutely adore for their technical or artistic accomplishments. Minx was all waggy tailed and big eyed so she was happy blogging anything. but, they were really far from the main stream.

i kept an eye on her new releases every now and then, but eventually lost interest. i wasn't really interested in any of her styles, they all seemed pretty plain. she just didn't seem to be developing into a top line artist who brings one of a kind art to the world. not so with her marketing though. her adboards, store, blogs, and promos all felt Big Time and her latest design idea really hit me. hmmm, i'll give her another try. click on the small images below for more detailed illustrations of what i found.

i really wanted to make this design work, really i did. i didn't know how Milla would react. she had only mentioned my name in a public forum once as far as i know. she'd always been nice to me in comments i'd made on her styling blog.

she wasn't on when i wanted to tell her about the defects. i'm not sure there would be anything she could do about the seams not meeting but the unmatched front panels and sides are not technical limitations. i have no idea how much work it took to get this idea so far but it's just not ready for the high end market she seems to be addressing. it's out now and i have no idea how many people bought them. how many could live with the flaws (maybe cover the seams with a belt, sash, jacket, etc...). i just didn't have the time to style it. i wanted to show off the entirely sexy "idea".

i hardly have any highwaisted leggings in my inventory. wah, you don't know how bad i felt. i tried every combination in the folder. all of the tops mismatched the bottoms. i threw them all out. i hope when she reads this she'll be able to respond to her customers. by bringing out these flaws i'm hoping she'll be able to rectify what i think is a fantastic design idea into a quality realization she might or might not know how to do technically. i await her response to this challenge. i expect, and i assume her customers expect, greatness from you.

love,
EnCore

UPDATE:
Milla suggested the seam issue doesn't occur with the jacket layer. it did show on every combination i tried (and believe me, i tried: underwear/shirt, underwear/undershirt, pant/shirt, pant/underwear, jacket/pant, jacket/underwear. i even tried multiple layers. of course, since i've deleted the folder, i can't revisit her excuse. that's all i can do for now since i've tossed the entire folder. they won't work as separates.

unless she passes me another copy (no thanks) there's no way she can prove her argument. every quality item i own meets at the seams. [i'll put together a top/bottom set to prove the seams are not a technical issue and will post here as a further update.] even still...what is she saying about the front panel mismatch and side seams? you don't want to know and i won't be printing out personal communications no matter how awful they are. plllttttt. oh, how i've matured.
15:42

UPDATE2

the image above shows a shirt and top without any texture applied. and, yes, there is an issue where the top doesn't have a distinct clean line which should meet the top exactly. the image below shows art applied to the top and bottom. i used a pattern i had in my inventory as opposed to making a new one. i don't have my PhotoShop on this computer and i have no idea how Gimp works, argh. suffice it to say, and i'm no expert in clothing design, the top adequately meets the bottom without any glaring gaps.

does the simple act of adding a texture fix the issue? does painting outside the line do it? what's this alpha thing everyone's talking about? i don't know. all i know is that all of my tops join all of my bottoms in all the clothing i buy. otherwise, i throw them out. :(

16:57

I Never Asked You Your Name

2010-06-08T11:58:00.005-04:00

Gordon Lightfoot

Pointy Face

2010-06-07T12:01:00.005-04:00

i don't know how many people use the zoom option for their fashion shots. if you haven't you should give it a try. the photo on the left uses the zoom feature and the one on the right is using the normal every day viewing mode.

all's you do is hold the Control key and then stab the 0 (zero) key as many times as you want (maximum 14 times) to zoom in as close as you want. you can move the camera with Alt-click drag to frame the shot. hit Control and 9 together to snap back into normal viewing again. voila, no more pointy face.

oh, btw, that's my Wire Necklace with Iron Cross (the cross is a sculptie made with Wings3D). it's out for sale now at my new *BEHOLD* Designs shop for 100L$. my original location's still there but i'm gradually gonna be fleeing all the sluggish lag introduced by the SIM's majority land owner. i can't even walk my parcel without elastic banding. i'm gradually introducing products to the new space and updating my Xstreet pages. if i ever find enough time i'll put the necklace there. as of right now it's exclusively inworld.

New BEHOLD Shiny

2010-06-04T04:22:00.003-04:00

i've done it again. now you have 3 choices available to fill all your fashion needs. one barbed and bailing wire wrapped necklace with plain, iron cross, or star options. they're out at my second *BEHOLD* Designs location now. they are copyable with sizing controlled by script. i should have them up on Xstreet soon. maybe after they've completely overturned the applecart (again). as for right now, they're being displayed in glorious 3D so you know what you're getting before committing.

i should have some more options on this design later. i'm working on making the sculpties in Blender now. the iron cross was made in Wings3D. i initially shied away from Blender's UI but since watching a number of video tutorials it's gonna be my sculptie program of choice.

Ugly to the Bone

2010-06-02T16:14:00.009-04:00

just wanted to show you what a perfect hair i found for my Bodyline/AlaFolie outfit after completing my latest post. i have no idea how i found this shop, !SyDS!, but it sure smacks of serendipity. i suppose random TP forays into the ~30,000 islands on the map comes up aces every now and then. and, like most Japanese designers, their designs are way reasonably priced! nothing splashy, big marketing pushes; just quietly going about making SL beautiful. and they're fully modable!!!

why some of you blogging tards choose to form your avatars into ugly moronic looking visions of spindly malnourished twisted sisters is really beyond repulsive. i'm glad you've found an avenue for your vision and thankfully you seem to stay amongst your own kind ... out of public view. i have yet to see one example of the stretched and pointy bag-a-bones (save Kensie Craven) in all my wandering inworld. 99% of every other avatar sighted is an incredible depiction that blends in to the rich and beautiful visions we all make. what you see all around you, if you ever play, is still "Our world. Our vision." no matter what you see on the internet feeds. go out and explore. interact. play. expand your mind.

as a blogger and SL player i'll never align myself to any group trying to make a political statement. there are far too many ways in the real world we can distinquish ourselves from being together. yeah, we're all different. not ONE of us is alike the other and no one should fall into someone else's way.

far too many of us are shy (or should i say afraid?) to interact. it's really not very difficult and won't cost you any points on your aggregate score. :-) come on sisters, let's get out there and show us you're beautiful.

Deserving

2010-06-01T10:17:00.005-04:00

whenever i feel like rewarding myself i always stop by pixivor Allen's AlaFolie store. if i were richer or more worthy i'd be there all the time. as it was, i was pleasantly surprised this outfit was on sale for 50% off her normal price. had i known the package contained EVERYTHING i'm wearing, including accessories and shoes, i'd have parked there to await her putting them out. and, while i was there taking these shots on her beautiful tropical island paradise, pixivor and her marketing agent Anette Bernard showed up. i wasn't close enough to overhear their conversation but i'm sure they were talking about me!

black skins can be very difficult to light so i altered the blush light i have up on Xstreet. the one i've made for this shot is out for free at a new shop i'm creating on the Tahiti Magic SIM. it's modifiable so you can change the light features to your own needs should you choose.

ensemble : AlaFolie : LOLA courte
skin: BODYLINE : SARA_m1 (group gift)
facelight : *BEHOLD* Designs : Blush Light

I'm Not Living in the Real World

2010-05-28T16:49:00.006-04:00

i've been enjoying the real world of late. i know! who'da thunk it. it's astoundingly fun once you forgive everyone for their judgmental bigotry and live with the knowledge that not everyone has benefited from undying love. hmmm, go figure. yer not me.

anywho, just wanted to put this out onto the feeds so no one still playing inworld will ever forget me. i'd like to say a few things about N-core's new shoes but since this is being composed on my mom's computer i don't have access to all my image files. i did manage to include one detail shot into blogger before i left the confines of my palatial home. once i get back to the Mayne world i'll try to tell you more.

as it is, i really like the idea of having the stocking's textures match the sculptie footprim textures. not only that, the textures are super detailed with seams around the toes and heels. not sure if anyone else is able to do what Claire Messenger has done. each design she comes out with just keeps getting better. she's really earned her place in the pantheon of innovative shoe designers.

my only criticism, you'll see what i mean if you enlarge the small pic below, is the HUDs (not just for N-core) should include a cursor in the palette that indicates where in hell our colour choice is. i'd do it if you asked. :-(

hat/hair : *ARGRACE* : Beanie "Long Straight" ~ (Platinum)
skin : BODYLINE : SARA (group gift)
necklace : Caroline's Jewelry : Tough Diamond Cross (modded) -no longer available
bangles : Ibizarre : Ibizarre Bracelets (gold/brown)
top : Acey Moe : *A&S* jacket (Black/Red)
skirt : Lo*momo : L*m_skirt
stockings/heels : N-core : OBSESSION XtreemHeel II *Galaxy*
body glitter : Masks & Feathers : MF Eyes, Leg, mouth glitter
eyes: *HAYSURIZA* : HSU*Natural_Eye(HUD)

Blondie: I'm Not Living in the Real World -youtube

Life is an Illuminating Art

2010-05-05T11:56:00.003-04:00

no. this photo is not something i shot inworld. well, half of it was. i overlayed my avi and the Advanced Sky Editor window on a rl snap i took from my rl mother's garden.

as you can see in the real life shot i used for the background, and in any naturally lit real life shot, the sun plays an extremely mportant role in photography. it defines the shapes and colours of what appears on the 2D image plane of your monitor. not so much so in SL.

in SL the sun's light is mathematically simulated. before the Lab purchased Windward Mark Interactive (the creators of Windlight) we didn't have very much control over just how we could fiddle with the sun. of course, if you didn't want a lumpy and cavernous void showing between your breasts you had to orient your avi against the sun just so. facelights helped alleviate some ugly light-to-mesh issues as an innovative artificial workaround but with the implementation of Windlight the entire "natural" world changed.

not only could the Sun be manipulated but the sky, the clouds, even the water fell within the new rendering capabilities. Windlight gave us incredible power to realize our artistic visions inworld. if our machines could handle the hardware requirements, and many fell by the wayside with less graphically invested computers, a more vibrant and immersive experience awaited. should our cards be cutting edge, system software up to date, and the latest drivers installed; awe inspiring fantasmagorical scenes were ready to grace our eyes. if not. well, it was time to upgrade.

and, as it is with such extraordinarily complex changes, the Lab, designers, and users took a fair bit of time to understand and manage the new features. some never have, haha. too funny. as it is with everything in SL, it really depends on you. how much do you have to invest in yourself in time and learning? yes, it's simple to invest Linden dollars. how many of us can spend the time on our knowledge?

hopefully, i might be able to facilitate that need. hang in there, i'm sure i can find something you can use.

glasses: Frameworks: heart shaped glasses
skin: Free Speerit: Fiona Gold -Shaved, No Hair
hair: Innovations: Anita - Bronzed
bathing suit: *CANDY HOUSE*: Western khaki
coverup: ::eLDee: defunct
flats: In Her Shoes: Bows Brown Suede
poses : Oracul

Natural Birth

2010-04-26T11:53:00.003-04:00

hey!

i'm seeing more people trying out their atmospheric lighting. good on you. of the 13 most recent artists to do so, each of you is exceptional. as for the jokers and degraders, i'm expecting that some of you will fall behind and attempt to drag us all down with your mind reeling with the perception that you are being left behind. well, puulllease! you know i won't let that happen. no one will deliberately be left behind. this is so easy for everyone. all it takes is a gentle hand, a boatload of patience, and the time for experimentation.

i'm here for ya. here, wipe your tears. i don't want you to just try it once, say you've done it and abandon ever integrating these intensive lighting features into your art again. we're changing the way people perceive our world now, aren't we? no more flat otherworldly 2D snaps. you are showing the world in which we live. as it is. complete, fully realized, and multi dimensional.

now, because i've run out of time (i told you not to trust my scheduling) i'm not going to be able to give you a totally fleshed out lesson. one thing i will get over to you though is to discover just how the two most important sliders function on moving the sun. with or without shadows enabled, if you can orient all the various components into the scene AND place the sun to act upon them as you wish you're farther ahead than 99% of the rest of the field.

so ... fiddle with the Sun/Moon Position and East Angle sliders and WATCH THE SUN when you do. if you have to stand on your head, watch how the sun tracks in the sky when you move your sliders along the entire range of slider movement. you'll become expert in no time. you'll know intuitively and instinctively just how those sliders affect the sun's inworld phenomena. your life depends on it. too much pressure? oh, stop.

pose: Miseria: Pose - 042
hair: AMG BOUDOIR: KYLIE dark (customized)
top: Suicidal Unborn: Gift Shirt! 3
skirt: Blow-Up: MiniSkirt Punky - Black
tights: Sheer: Zebra Black
boots: HoC Industries : Noir Boots
guu nishi's Noir boots are fully Viewer 2 compatible. she's recently sent out an updated version with her resize recolour script that can be deleted [once you've got your backup copies stowed away!].

Teacher

2010-04-23T09:31:00.001-04:00

quick post just to keep my name in the game. i wanted to say something about inworld light settings but it looks like Gogo beat me to it. i don't know why more fashion bloggers don't use fancy settings. whenever i'm shooting any shots for the blog i'm always fiddling with the Windlight. takes me forever finding just the right colours and effects but i love the way i can paint the light/shadows over the landscape and avatar. it can be a real pain though and i keep wanting someone to buzz in to stop me from spending so much time.

most of the fashion bloggers i skim through the feeds don't seem to be living in the same 3D dynamically lit world. some of them add shadows in PS against a flat background, some shoot from inside a textured sphere, others crop out the world altogether. only maybe 2 or 3 out of the multitude add any inworld lighting. :(

i guess i could post a series of some of my discoveries. don't set your watch on me, i'm terrible with schedules. but, you can believe me, the extra ordinary complexity can actually be narrowed down to two of the most important sliders. here's something you can all try, no matter your video card's functionality (ie. the lowest graphics settings). open your Environment Editor in whatever viewer you are using. go the the Advanced Sky Editor > Lighting tab and start playing with the Sun/Moon Position and East Angle sliders. if you can watch the sun/moon traversing the sky and the subsequent effect upon your avi then you've arrived. there'll be a quiz later so learn well.

skin: Cupcakes: CUPCAKES - Allure - Mocha - Dark Brow - Patty!
hair: EMO-tions: VIVIEN ponytail [Hair Only SIM opening freebie]
3D goggles: *BEHOLD* Designs: prototype [notforsale]
choker: *BEHOLD* Designs: prototype [notforsale]
top: Neko Gear: no longer available
short shorts: N-core : Denim mini short light blue
boots: HoC Industries : Noir Boots
animation: *BEHOLD* Designs: "waiting"

Never Before Seen

2010-04-20T23:49:00.000-04:00

if the new M run Lab could get the bugs out of Viewer 2 i'd be able to use this keen new feature of projection lighting with relative ease. as it is, i almost killed myself getting this setup photographed. i'm sure if i calm down (i could NOT find ANY WAY to upload an animation [it's in the Sidebar's inventory: File > Upload]) there might be some rather intriquing artistic renderings to come. who knows?

i've had to set my graphics to pre-Windlight days and i find it terribly hampering to have my draw distance off of 512m full ultra pegged. under this new Viewer 2, i'm lucky not crashing at 64m dumb down simple.

if anyone has the nuclear arsenal to enable this feature on their graphic cards good luck. if you need any help with the required settings check out Opensource Obscure's excellent video for the poop.

Victim Statement

2010-04-14T09:34:00.007-04:00

i've been putting SL into perspective over the last little while and it's really jelled of late. the firm and stable data coordinating all the various confusion and hubbub of the world is money. simple as that. it all surrounds and revolves around money. as it does in real life too i suppose. yeah, i know, it's me again. we're going deep.

of course, being who i am, i've never had very much respect for people killing one another over maintaining a livelihood that can't be supported through other far more transparent means than to undermine another's innocent pursuit of happiness. and that's where the twain never seems to meet. if you get in someone's way between their goal of fame and fortune you had best be prepared to die or suffer untold torture for your puny impertenances. through whatever means are at their disposal, and there are many, you will feel their wrath.

i came to this game to escape. i suppose i'm still here because the drugs that traditionally took me there are getting fewer and far between. one can only expand their mind so much until you "get it". and that's the realm of thought that i approach in my daily life. it's gotten me to where i am today, and i'm very content with who i am. different, yeah. but still happy in my own delusional way. and, as Stuart Smalley would say, and that's okay.

nonetheless, my own slant on life is to love every body and every thing. funny, i know. but meeting, greeting, role-playing, and just generally hanging out with who knows who is really quite a treat for me. from one day talking politics with someone from South Africa to making love to a Czechoslovakian school marm (and that's RL people not their personas inworld. at least, that's what i was made to believe! you don't think...? ) it's really been quite extraordinary.

the whole world and its entire social strata can potentially be at your fingertips. or not. it can all be make believe too. however you see it and experience it, elaborate stories and fantastical adventures are merely an avi away. but i digress. i keep losing the stable data that i ensure you drives the world.

no matter how immersed and bathed in the world of fantasy and imagination, no matter just how fleeting or enduring the images and emotions painted onto the pallet of the mind are; i have to get real. and that reality, is, as it is in real life, just another illusion. a trap at best, but it's how the present culture has chosen to be lead to their imminent and infinite demise.

yes i know, you're feeling light headed and terribly confused. bear with me, it won't last long. have another toke[n] of my appreciation.

now where was i? oh yes, the way of the world: in reality, as opposed to an innocent (some would say ignorant) point of view, we base the world on money. people who "play" this game and who stay in the game (under whatever guises befit their needs) are here for one purpose and one purpose alone. always keep that in mind and your awakening into a new level of consciousness will be that much more easier for you to live. i'm here to help you.

so, did that make sense?

here, i'll give you a practical example of just what it is i mean. don't rely on statistics that are supplied to you from the Lab. they're not going to be telling anyone how they make their money. just like everyone else. even if they were forced to under pressure of law, they won't ever tell you what's what. that's a given. stop looking there. you have to use your own imagination. here's what i've come up with.

let's say for example you are a skin designer. you're a starving artist who can whip up a UV map that far exceeds anyone's vision of loveliness and beauty. it's a natural wonder and it's technically possible within the game to sell thousands of them any time you choose. say for example you're Trickster Boucher (that's Bouch-ay' emphasis on the ay). now, you're not famous just yet, we have to get you to that place where your every release into the world is met with extreme awe and giddy schoolgirl enthusiasm. Mr Boucher, whoever that may truly be, has done that for himself. and good on him, i'm certainly not diminishing him his due.

so, let's say you've gotten your brand and product to the point where it is met by the community of ignorant and anointed as the next best thing. the hype and launch brings your island to a standstill. and still they keep coming. now, this is where it gets real. and, sorry to say, that means mathematics, spreadsheets, data, and formulas. don't worry, i've got it all figured out and distilled to an executive summary. you're spared all the heavy lifting.

let's say that the arrival of this most beautious virtual adornment is being sold for 1000L$. the economy is tending to creep up the prices so it might be a tad more dear but for simplicity sake, let's round it to 1000 Linden dollars. so, each and every transaction from however many sources inworld and on Xstreet gives you, as the designer/artist/business one thousand Linden dolars.

now, what type of frequency of sales would that top-of-the-line, grid-wide hysteria command? well, i'd say that the island, as an example of one stream of revenue, would hold 50-80 avatars maximum. if the community is whipped up to a sufficient frenzy one would estimate that in an event horizon of such monumental magnitude the island would be filled to capacity. that means each 24 hour period would provide 50-80 avatars access to the product inworld. and that's a sustainable level. all the avis are constantly replenished by new avis coming and going. it's not a static number. you have to account for what is called "churn". i love that word.

what that means is turn over. when one avatar leaves another can TP in, ad infinitum. if everything is presented correctly the sea of grey will reveal a clickable product and a transaction in one minute. so in one minute's time you have 50-80 avatars churning through at a transaction rate of one per minute. continuously! throughout the entire marketing campaign. if yer that good.

so, you have a given access to your product for 50-80 viewers at any given time throughout your event. any one of those people, staying for however long can mean a sale. if one person standing there is not going to buy, you can be damned sure one of the other 50-80 will. and that's continuous. ding ding ding. churn!

now take that rate and put it into a 24 hour day. there are 60 minutes to each hour. 24 hours x 60 minutes = 1,440 minutes. each minute = 1000L$ sale. in one 24 hour day you, as the business/designer/creator, can make 1,440,000L$. multiply that over a 10 day period (for the sake of easy math) and that's 14,400,000L$. exchange that into real cash at the going rate of 265L$ to 1 US$ and that grosses you $54,340. that's real hard cold yankee dollars. and however long it took you to create/hype/launch/sell; let's say you toiled over this one product line for a whole year, that's not a bad return. and there's plenty of other lines to bring out during the year equalling even more donero. the sky's the limit. use your imagination.

this game is not a trivial matter. you see how important it is to those designers who have it in their minds to become successful. it can be the only thing on their minds. and; controversy, contention, and drama just means more sales. fact. we're dealing with mass marketing here people. nameless faceless churn.

people make this game their livelihood and you'd best regard who's who with due deference. oh, and btw, the socializing and manipulating the press is cake. there's enough freebies and samples for everyone. so the next time anyone asks you to work for candy, or for free, maybe this perspective might help.

if you aren't part of the massive juggernaut you're simply fodder. god help you if you get in the way. they'll make an example of you that might not picture you like you want people to see you. however wrong that image might be, you have to live with their depiction. bullying? i don't know. i'd say it's an aggressive business practice all too common in my time.

i'm not surprised seeing some vile (violent) image makers out there selling themselves as supporting the anti-bullying cause. if you had your entire life turned upside down and thrown into the net for the sharks to ravage (by some of the top designers/businesses/bloggers inworld i might add) you might have a different point of view. i've been there. i know what it's like to be victimized. they want you dead or silent. just stay down they say. under their control. along for the ride. owned.

i'm just one voice among thousands. telling it like i see it can't possibly shake the world to its foundations. or does it take a thousand voices? my goal for everyone: speak your mind...without fear, intimidation, bullying, banning, belittling, or censoring. what do they have to fear? your freedom? let me answer that for you. yes.

peace out.

The End of an Era

2010-04-12T09:57:00.001-04:00

i had a number of methods conceived for expressing my admiration of these lovely sculptie boots by Guu Nishi of House of Curios. i think this soft and sexy approach works well enough to serve my initial intent. i found the lightbeams in a role playing SIM called New Wonderland and had some fun bathing my avi in their etherial glow. i think it turned out kinda like one of Connie Arida's shots. hope she hasn't patented her look.

i had originally thought of showing you the difference between ms Nishi's new Viewer 2 version boots (with the alpha mask clothing layer) and the ancient method (using invisiprims) but it seems as if the stability of the platform is exceedingly rare of late. i have been repulsed from adopting the new viewer since it seems that EVERYTHING in it was changed, moved, hidden, or deleted. the Lab seems to have forgotten that the viewer is/was the portal to an immersive experience in which we conceived, played, and interacted in an almost palpably intuitive way. then again one can always spend their time dressing up a look, shooting some pix, then logging off. [oh god, they are turning us into Facebook....]

now that i blinked and see that the viewer's out of beta i've forced myself to try to learn it. EVERYTHING has changed, and i mean EVERYTHING! it's going to take another century to relearn the entire world. i'm really quite literally stunned with all the changes. it's like starting from zero all over again. i'm too old to start all over. there's just so many jarring bugs, confusing and unintuitive navigational paths to once familiar functions and completely bizarre technical glitches where once there was a facile process leading to productive output. i'm really stunned. the future is not bright.

it's sad there's so many great things stuffed into the new viewer too. everything but the kitchen sink. if i knew the wizard's shortcut for that i'm sure it'd pop out too. it's all so overwhelming. i don't know when the tears are going to ever stop. i am trying, tho. i'm really not taking the punishment well. please excuse my utterly blank and silent stare.

short shorts: N-core : Denim mini short light blue
tatts: Andrasta : Flowers
boots: HoC Industries : Noir Boots
animation: Oracul

Freaky

2010-03-31T08:40:00.003-04:00

oh, hi.

just wanted to show you the new choker i made to go with the freaky Nikita Fride hair i just got. i'm not going to sing too many praises for this hair. i've never shopped at ms Fride's and i didn't give her stuff much of a look over. outside of its barbed wire banding, goth skull, crosses, oversized hair pins (spikes!) and messy style it took forever to fit.

i saw a version of the hair at VNP Ninetails' blog and absolutely had to have it. (sorry VNP, i was a woman possessed. just playing...haha.) i think i would have been happier with the style she was wearing in that ad. buyer beware, there are 4 different styles for this design. two with bangs/strands, two pulled back. you should get the pulled back style. fitting the stray strands to my odd head shape with this non-Mod style is near to impossible.

it has Wietsche Cassini's resize script, so, yeah, it's semi modifiable. you're "supposed" to be able to size, rotate, and move any and all prims. unfortunately, if your need is to move a prim buried in the mass of prims (add transparency to complicate matters) your day can be a disaster. and, after stabbing the damned menu button for rotating said strands i was never quite sure just which axis it was turning around. the increments were so subtle i lost my focus. what's an axis? oh, how about this "Show Prim" button. is that any reason to overwrite the main menu? which menu should i use now? it was horrible. i thought i was gonna die.

now, i might sound bitchy. am i projecting the real world or are these frustrations ordinarily not encountered in an every day purchase? well, after becoming accustomed to Japanese hair which is fully modifiable and CHEAP (did i mention cheap?) it was a tad upsetting to my little world view (insulated?). and, after spending 200L$ for 2 hairs (one with the bright feature turned on, which i would never use anyway) i had "expectations".

nonetheless, after grumble mutter teeth clenching much editing i was happy wearing it without any need for a head reshape. it looks good at most angles. straight on has a few fugly "does it show?" moments but all in all, i absolutely love it! no, that's not sarcasm. after sweating blood to make this hair fit, it's deserving some admiration.

oh, the choker/necklace is out for sale at my new satelite shop *BEHOLD* Designs Too (link below). check it out, it's a 1024sqm space with relatively little lag. i think it's deserving its 40L$ pricetag. and yes, you can just make out the blood stains in the barbed wire. this is going to be one of a few versions. can't tell you what other features it will have. they're a secret.

hair: Nikita Fride : Gothic Hair III
skin: YS&YS : Zara Groupgift Hot Punk
top: Ala Folie : BOLERO rose clair
accessories: *BEHOLD* Designs : Wire Necklace

*full disclosure: i have never met or communicated with ms Fride. i'm sure she's a great designer with a multitude of personable and attractive features. this "episode" is recounted in an effort to expose my own complete dedication/obsession with my possessions and in no way should it detract from your own enjoyment of ms Fride's excellent work.

i think Wietsche is a genius! i use his resize scripts in all my resizables and freely distribute them with every design i use them in. just because his scripts have changed how the world works (please delete them once you are done!) doesn't mean he's perfect. i've worked with him before to develop a concentrated understanding of his scripts but did not have the time in this instance to resolve my findings. i suppose i should tell him about what i found but i don't have the time. i am not being, nor have i ever been paid to aid in the development of his product. it's a "community" thing and i do it for free.

Frilly Friday

2010-03-19T09:59:00.003-04:00

i had thought i'd go along with the crowd and put a green St Patrick's Day outfit together. dangle a sprig of clover from me mug et voila, natural acceptance of the community at large. however, as soon as i ran into Clear Canning's blogpost featuring my ever loving rl peasant girl blouse, the gig was up. yes, i will turn away from the artificial cultural norms in a nonce. Sinead IS Ireland!

now, what i can get behind is Cyberus Noel's generous sprinkling of mini floral patterns dancing over a sheer silk chiffon background. the ribbon edging bounces with effervescence in all its pretty and pink silkiness. the gathered ruffles of the bodice and puffy sleaves, tied at the front with another pretty pink silk bow, is remarkable in its technical and artistic achievement.

this top is drop dead full stop gorgeous. no, i couldn't get over it. and, it's fully modifiable too. it's how most designs should be given out. Japanese artists seem bent on providing us with the best of everything. i didn't have to fiddle with the ruffles too much to follow my bustline but damn, playing with this design full zoom was half the fun. and, at 120L$, you can see the difference between this high quality item and the usual greedy less talented names pushing the price limits to ever higher realms. bargain hunting is so much fun. it's my way of thumbing my nose at the big labels. a girl's gotta eat too ya know. how can i afford Moody on my budget?

as you can see from the top photo, i was happy with just the top. i could lounge around like that all day long. unfortunately, the rest of the world has their own proper moralistic insignificances we must pay attention to. what to wear with it?

i thought about going all boudoir sexy but chose instead to go innocent girl next door casual. i found some capris with cuffs at G Field, again; perfect texturing, perfect sculpting, way affordable. went over to Candy Nails to get some pink nails. had the messy updo from JUNWAVE (hell, just realized i'm going all Japanese with this look!). the only exceptions are my Brazilian flats and Yankee eyes. thank god for reality sized human eyes. the default sized eyes are for deer! i must say, hunting down Ryker Beck's Exodi store in the Gorgeous Yongho complex of shopping islands was a treat. i remember many moons ago when all GoGo had was her Juicy SIM. i am very much impressed with the shopping experience/immersion she offers us there.

et voila. this is how i should appear in the future flitting about looking for this and that. till the next cultural event or that next shiny. happy shopping.

blouse : G FIELD : *GF* Off-shoulder Chiffon Tops shirt -flower/pink-
capris : G FIELD : *GF* Capri Jeans -light blue-
hair : JUNWAVE : ((JUNWAVE))NATSUMI*D-BROWN*
necklace : BEHOLD Designs : *BEHOLD* Designs: Craps Necklace
nails : Candy Nails : Candy Nail #P000 Basic Nails Pink03 L10
flats : MaBaby Burner : Unique[closed]
skin : paper.doll : {paper.doll} Sophie-DeepTan-Cleavage-WinterSpecial
eyes : Exodi : :: Exodi :: Look Into My (Green)(Sm/NV)
poses : Oracul

full disclosure: i have no relationship with any of the above named designers (aside from my self, whom i love most dearly and will have children with one day). name dropping GoGo and Ryker does not presuppose any foreknowledge or prior arrangements to focus attention on their ongoing commercial enterprises. neither are on my friends list on this or any other social network. any private communication i have had with either was wholly unsolicited and yet fully unwarranted to be crudely exposed in a public forum for her gang's lulz.

Black & White

2010-03-12T10:19:00.001-05:00

seen this little number on slupergirls while browsing/obsessing on the feeds [note to self: apply to have more feeds carry the MayneLineFashion world]. it is being marketed under the brand Rihanna Couture (owner Rihanna Goldflake). full disclosure: i've not met, nor do i know Rihanna in SL or RL and i am not currently associated with her or her creative or business partners.

since the slupergirls' link sent me Close (argh) to the shop, (here's the link to the vendor) i was forced to cam around looking for the dress in a field of boxy odds and ends. i didn't browse the designer's other items, the mall build and ad displays surrounding the jewel of my eye seemed contrary to the extreme quality i found in her chiffon dress (a free group gift btw). if you're interested in a more immersive experience i'd tp to the shop Rihanna has on Seagull Islands SIM. not only will you find the shop easier, the full sensuround experience there (if yer into European fishing villages) should send you over the top.

as to the dress...wow! just wow. the skirt is no mod without any sizing script. my digidoll is quite slim and 2m tall on her tiptoes. anyone with a larger frame might have some trouble fitting their shape into the skirt. there's some room, its shape is very narrow front to back, so you might have a chance. worst case scenario, wear a skirt shape. in my case i didn't have to change from my every day full butt version.

the bodice and sleeves are fully modifiable even to the point of editing linked parts (for those fussy types who have to fiddle with everything). i would have liked to have hidden the collar more so the sheer material would have revealed more of my nude back but i couldn't position it any better than how it came right out of the box. i won't tell you how long i played with it before i reverted to my saved box copy. no matter how you position all the various pieces, they work well on their attachment points through all of the poses/animations i put them through.

the outfit comes with stockings on the underwear layer (which i declined to wear) with glitch pants that i thought were a little high so i swapped them out for longer ones. another reason for the longer pants is that the sculptie parts built up near the center leave that area a little too revealing for my liking. looked kinda like when yer shorts ride up. i'm sorry for that mental image. putting on some opaque clothing (ala longer pants) seems to solve that. see for yourself what i mean in the before and after photo below (or is that after/before...left shot=longer glitch pants):

the jacket and sleeves primwork is a collaboration amongst many artists. Kitty Smithson, jessi freck, Sebbi Neox, and Cryogen Crimson all had their hands on them at one point. i'm glad the individual creator attributes remained upon inspection. i'm struggling with some ethical practises that have come up recently with some designers whose primwork "appears" to be their own but are really nothing but an assemblage of parts from a BIAB designer. it's a hot button political issue that i'll try to address in another post with as much perspective/impact statements from well known designers as i can provide. i've put out some feelers for feedback so we'll have to give it some time for their responses. until then, happy shopping.

The Rest of the Story:
Hair: ((JUNWAVE))Luca*Black*
Skin: Nuuna's Skin Black stripe
Accessories: *BEHOLD* Designs
Heels: Skifija Super Sexy High Heels (Antelope of the King)
Poses: Oracul

Manifesto

2010-03-05T12:51:00.003-05:00

i really don't know what's good for me. sure, sex, sand, sun, and sandals are givens, but outside of that, really; i'd rather not even begin to bother. putting my energies into mundane rl realities isn't a heck of a lot of fun. nursing is not my career of choice. let's face it, there's only so much you can deny yourself in real life before some ugly reality wants something you're not prepared to give up. first to go is one's self respect. compromise is not something i like to argue. i've killed people with my best guesses. responsibility sucks.

time spent on indulging my fantasies in SL seems so much more appropriate a place for my energies. i know it's wrong, disassociative, escapist fantasy. it's unhealthy and utterly fruitless. and i love it.

i don't know how often i'll be posting now but should you see me in passing, i'd love for you to stop and take a look. it's really nothing all that fancy compared to the pros. i've learned everything i know about graphics from being here in SL. the blog's a little limiting sometimes so you might see me post to my ISSUU channel every now and then. i hope you find the pix pretty and the words provocative.

if my reviews look/feel like a paid advert at any time, please kill me. promptly. i'm serious. i make absolutely no money whatsoever from this blog. i do not have any non-disclosure agreements preventing me from telling you the truth. i am not part of any corporate network preventing you from believing your own good senses. i don't have any Linden friends or Lab employees who can power trip on you. i blog what i like and what i think needs appreciation. i don't ever get what i want, but i still try to give what i can. if anyone gets hurt, it is not my intent. long live Second Life and selfish indulgence.

There is a God

2009-12-18T22:38:00.003-05:00

well, if i hadna said it it might not have happened. who's to say? soon as i mentioned pixivor Allen might want to alter her pricing or pay off the fashionista mafia for some press she announces a 50% sale at her main store. who'da thunk she'd go that route? good on you pixi.

apparently it's her store's second anniversary. what a blast to finally be able to afford some of her dazzling fabric interpretations, daring cuts and flexi features. i can't afford her top of the line couture designs with my jeans and T-shirt budget. and no, i'm not being showered with faux kisses and lavished with extravant gifts. however much i would adore this manner of treatment (again!) ... gulp, should i say it? it's wrong. your ethics might tell you different. go figure. i'm not opening a debate, just thought "being paid" to blog someone's stuff without disclosing the relationship or monetary rewards of said relationship might be a tad shady. welcome to the world of fashion blogging. doh.

anywho, enough about my personal revelations and moralistic mumbo jumbo. don't forget to check out pixi's accessories and shoe sections. you just might find some stuff virtually free. her build's a little bit deceptive, as in, there are a lot more items there than you would initially perceive. you just have to find your way around to where they are to take them all in. think 3D chess and you'll do fine.

don't forget, the sale's only for the Main Store. along with the sale of pixivor's earlier items there's a new babydoll release with the most fantastic shimmery fabric treatment you could ever imagine. all without threading a needle. ya gotta love Second Life fashion.

Elegance

2009-12-09T01:33:00.004-05:00

i'm not sure why more corporate hype/blogger brand adoption hasn't come pixivor Allen's way. she certainly has some exceptionally sexy and feminine designs. maybe it's her prices. maybe she's not paying due deference (graft?) to the powers that be. i'm not sure. i've never spoken with her as of yet. remind me to mention the panties when i do.

don't tell anyone, but i scooped up this hot little number from her at her main store's location on AlaFolie SIM for nuthin! it is simply in-cred-a'bleh! (this is of course spoken with a heavy French Parisienne accent. who else knows more about women's fashion than the French? the Italians? don't make me laugh. the French know a woman's body and its sensual curves intimately. it's no different with pixivor, who, i'm assuming, comes from a long line of Parisienne couturiers. it's obvious to me. don't you know?

since this dress is a freebie, i can't fault it. i will say i was disappointed in not being able to show off my decolletage (see? it was the French who invented a whole new word for our cleavage even!). i would have liked to have the top on a shirt layer for this purpose, mais, .... nonetheless, the detailed embroidered edge work to the bodice is sufficient to draw a lover's attention without revealing (flaunting?) too much of one's flesh. did the French not invent the word demure? i'm sure they did.

and the panties? who would have dreamed to have found such a deliberately alluring and decorative flourish on one's underthings? the mutliple layers of netting for the skirt flexis, with such an aggressively snappy wind-swept action built into them, begs for a can-can animation. revealing, as i suppose pixivor intended, her deliciously worked delicates' embroidered edges.

i am absolutely positive pixivor will be bringing more attention to herself in the near future. of course, accolades from the blogging sorority may only spring from copious amounts of gifts placed in just the right inventories. any self respecting fashionistas have already found and fallen in love with her. she is there for your discovery.

we await your visit with anticipation: AlaFolie/103/136/39

do you play?

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

2009-11-29T04:35:00.009-05:00

i've been flipping between YS&YS and FS skins of late. Monicuzza Babenco's group gift skins (when she gave them out for free) fit my shape perfectly without any need for any horrific and/or disfiguring alterations. i am exceedingly averse to making ANY changes to my shape. being an old hand at the game i'm more inclined towards a comfortable and familiar look than having to alter and adjust every damned attachment, animation, and pose i've ever had to suit the newest trend.

i've got copies of my finessed and maximized shape spread all over my inventory marked with the creation date to prove it. 080829 was the last time i made any major changes to it! shortly after having Doofus Mayo make me a custom skin, i pulled and pushed the sliders to form the mesh to his best work and rested on my laurels. i've been happy with her ever since in any of the skins i've had the inclination to wear.

she was as perfect as i could get to depicting my perfect self and i was very happy indeed. i could imagine having her being someone i'd not be surprised looking at when i'm dead and gone to heaven kinda sorta. now if we could just get her to sing and play the piana.

anywho, i got back into looking at new skins around Halloween when i saw aida Ewing giving away a vampire skin. aside from the blood dripping from the lips and its pale tone i would have been happy to wear it as a daily skin. well, that got me to thinking. maybe i could use an update on my tried and true DLicious skin. of course, i wasn't going to spend a 1000L$ for one so whenever any skin designer's group was giving away samples i dropped by to do an assessment.

damned if Desidelia Vella from Free Speerit didn't start dropping some new skins with gorgeous faces on the grid. i wasn't happy with the rest of her bodies but the faces (lips, cheeks, eyes) were lovingly executed. with Desidia's newest release (join her group) i just had to go deep and form a shape to enhance her perfect vision with mine. as it turns out from going through this most arduous task of altering my little baby girl, i discovered that i may have been wearing a wee small pencil head all this time.

stepping back and taking her in seriously i'm sure my head shouldn't have been smaller than my boobs. hmmm. well, all that should be fixed now. gulp. fingers crossed. and no, i made my head bigger! haha. i'd like to offer the shape to [FS] Fiona lovers all over the world but i'm sure if i undercut the market leaders too much i'd be targetted for deletion or exclusion from the sisterhood of the new world order. for all those poor economically deprived or delusionally secure shapeless dollies out there, find some time to try on a demo i'll put out at *BEHOLD* Designs/238/137/100. if you figure the head is too big, or the price too high, please don't hesitate to complain to the management. :) [really, the platform's for interaction. bring it.]

i'll give you all the technical details as to how to align your doll and get your windlight settings perfect for your perfect dollface snap in my next ISSUU mag later on. believe me, if you don't have just the right lighting or just the right camera angle you might just as well have stayed in bed. stay tuned. i should be able to give you some photo tips. of course, walking around, looking as close to Diahann Carroll as can be, you'll have to refine a personable nature expressive of an uptown girl. be the whole package. the woman you know you can be.

Pageants

2009-11-10T21:20:00.007-05:00

it's not changed much from the old days when big name agencies hinged their reps on their presentation. of course, back then the organizers seemed to want to listen to the spectators, fans, and participants. a corrective strategy against the overwhelming lag amounted to some clever concepts but really nothing's been done to date that can overcome the sea of grey manifested when many avis get onto the same SIM at the same time.

what gives you, anyone who is going to have a pageant (modeling agencies, designers, event organizers and the like) the notion that you are serving an audience if all they can see is grey? not to mention the hard working victims of the scheme who have to be there and present, what's being done to enhance and better the technical and artistic aspect of large group activities?

as far as i can see, nothing. everything's more complex. the builds, the attachments, the scripts, the textures, everything's better and edging towards real life. except you can't have more than a few avis enjoy it at the same time. so what's to be done?

think about it.

first things first. let's live with reality. argh, i know. but really, it's gotten pretty sad when one of the best known promoters of all things beautiful inworld gives a presentation to an unlimited amount of avis to introduce the contestants for Miss Virtual World and all i get to see is, say it with me, a sea of grey.

is anyone listening?

we've had absolute marvels in design make their appearance over the years. shoes and skins, to name a few bright lights. extraordinarily gifted designers are utilizing the most powerful software to give us the most delicious feel to endow our world with beauty. how the hell is it that event organizers hit the same nail with the same hammer year after year with the same result? that's just crazy. something's gotta change.

what's the problem?

TOO MANY AVATARS IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME.

break it down. 1. too many avatars in the same place. 2. too many avatars in the same place at the same time.

you can have a massive amount of avatars in one place but not at the same time. does that help? any ideas on how to proceed with that knowledge?

remember, we have a WORLDWIDE audience. so, the presentation should be made available for all timezones to gain the same experience. not everyone's schedule permits them to be at an appointed period of time that doesn't suit anyone but the organizer's schedule. so, throw out an event with a small timeframe window. build the event around a dynamic and immersive event suitable for the worldwide audience to attend anytime day or night. that's all i'll say about that for now, some of my own ideas of how to proceed must remain secret. you can't "borrow" them just yet so unless the advocates of industrial espionage can get their feelers into my head, i win.

secondly the experience of having a massive amount of avis at the event at the same time has to be overcome. you can run the event for an allotted time, 24/7, or for as long as the numbers prevail BUT how do you stop an overwhelming number of avis from attending at the same time? impossible?

think about it.

let's say (simply for example, we'll use the US eastern time just because) a glut of avis, more than the SIM limits will handle all want to be at the show at the same time. each of them have a limited amount of time to attend. let's say 1 hour. should they TP into the SIM and it's horridly laggy, they should be able to come back within that one hour time frame and have an enjoyable experience. does anyone have any ideas?

is there anyway to EDUCATE the audience before hand just what number of avatars attending make for a stimulating and exiting visit? is there any way to inform the idle public avatar of just what that number might be at any given moment? hmmm? is there anyway one might inform interested parties as to just how many avis are there? can anyone script out there? what's a HUD?

think about it.

and, could an alternative be provided for the avatar waiting to TP into an optimally loaded SIM? something which would enhance and focus the avis on your presentation? what might that be? well? huh? huh? huh?

think about it.

Jesus. where are all the CREATIVE organizers? did they slip away with Rezzable or is our world populated with artists just waiting for the marketing team to find them and utilize their extraordinary and innovative talents. you only have to IMAGINE how it can be and you CAN make it HAPPEN! but really, who has the time, money, and network for that sort of thing? we could just throw them all into a black box and watch them wallow in ... say it with me, ... a sea of grey.

i did manage, after only one crash, and half the audience disappearing mysteriously (heehee) to have a decently rezzed shot of one of the most impressive models for the pageant. now if i was only able to take her home.... damn, that just slipped out. aw, go ahead, steal it, it's only an idea.

Butterfli Sorbet
Miss Sweden
Miss Virtual World 2010 contestant

Cleavage

2009-10-12T07:25:00.005-04:00

well i suppose you've seen everyone else's review on Your Skin & Your Shape by now. of course, not knowing the criteria for "reviews" that the fashionistas hold so dear they're all lucky they're still alive. having any designer promoted who is outside their complete and utter control for exposure in the world of fashion (call it a marketing campaign) would be antagonistic to their corporately driven agenda. so, it's with complete disregard to their elitist occult parameters that i write my own review of what i found at the new YS&YS. plllttttt.

catch a look in that mirror. now that's cleavage! this decolletage is made for every skin tone sold at YS&YS (you may be able to find one for yours, demos are free). it's on all layers and there's a tintable variation for those skeery oddly coloured skins. 50L$ for the bunch! take that LAQ. i was so impressed i made up my own version of the "pencil test" to show how tight they are. you can get it at Xstreet.

enjoy your tittering. heehee.

AO Heaven

2009-10-05T00:48:00.009-04:00

"Oracul.

remember that name. it's daiz Papp's brand of extra ordinary animations and poses with a premium quality fluidity of motion. now, you would think these animations should enter the market at an exhorbitant price level commonly attributable to the motion capture crew. not so. daiz has chosen to provide us all, including the poor hapless newbs who come to the world to play and have fun (not to make it a professional or commercial venue). and what extraordinarily fun animations they will find too.

if you don't want your avi to stand there looking like an LL system dork you have to have some animation overrider. daiz provides her own, fantastically priced too, but i prefer carving my own. it's easy. i've customized Francis Chung's freebie AO (you can score mine over at my place). i've added Antoinette Lioncourt's sexywalk animation to start you off.

here's all the system animations you can override with Francis' script. go to Oracul and fill your AO up. warning, give yourself lots of time cause there's plenty there and all are so scintillating and varied you'll be there for a while. (mind you don't get duplicates as some of the poses are in more than one stand.)

Walking
Running
CrouchWalking
Flying
Turning Left
Turning Right
Jumping
Hovering Up
Crouching
Fly Down
Standing
Standing 2
Standing 3
Standing 4
Standing 5
Hovering
Sitting
PreJumping
Falling
Soft Landing/Landing
Standing Up
FlyingSlow
Sitting on Ground
Floating
Swimming Forward
Swimming Up
Swimming Down

to get your AO to work, just open your "*Default Anims" notecard from within the object delivered to you (either at Francis' place or my own vendor box at Choerom. i've named mine *BEHOLD* Designs: AO. Francis' is called Wet Icon) and type in the animations name into the slot you want to override. of course, you have to drag the animation from your inventory into the Content tab for the object too. they are copyable and modifiable (you can rename them) so no worries, it won't disappear from your inventory when you do.

now since i've made my AO object transparent (so you can wear it on any attachment point, including as a HUD) you'll have to turn on your transparency viewability so you can get inside for the notecard. holding down all three keys simultaneously: Ctrl-Alt-T allows you to see transparent objects, hold Ctrl-Alt-T again to turn that mode off. you'll have to zoom in pretty close to see mine, it's a 0.01m transparent cube. learn to cam girl!

you don't have to fill in all the system animation slots, of course you can! try it out with all the variations available to you at Oracul if you want. she's conveniently named hers to match the system animation they override. oh, and did i say they were cheap, cheap, cheap? okay, inexpensive then. for 4L$ you can't get a better stand pose. in other words, making your own customized avi show is not going to break your Linden bank.

my only complaint/bitch (see photo above for the professional B girls) is that the animation priority for most of the stuff i've tried is set below 4. :( this means that when you click on anything or edit anything your avi gets distorted by the system level animation and it sorta breaks the immensely entertaining joy your daiz enabled avi gives to the world.

Xstreet New Products

2009-09-09T17:47:00.006-04:00

well thankfully i have this blog to post my Xstreet wares. seems the New Products forum has poofed over at the new forum. if it's there, it's useless the way the forum is configured. meh. who needs thousands and thousands of hits?

anywho, the animation is a simple idle stand having your avi move her weight from side to side. i did a video of it's movement so you'll get a better feel for it. i think it works well. it's built with Qavimator using 30 frames to construct the whole scene. it runs at 7 frames per second. (only took me three uploads to get that right).

i configured the "ease in" to be 0.2 sec and the "ease out" at 0.6 so it transitions from one animation to the other nicely. you know how some animations "snap" from one to the other? it's the ease in or ease out settings to blame for that. IM me if you would like it customized to your own needs. i won't trash the other .bvh's on my desktop just in case. have fun.

it's a freebie on Xstreet with the copyable version at the *BEHOLD* Designs shop on Choerom.

oh, that's the Loch Ness monster in the vid. seen on the Scotland SIMs. lookitup.

Highlight not Floodlight

2009-09-09T00:03:00.001-04:00

in my wandering of the grid i'm encountering an increasing number of avatars that attach some ungodly floodlights to themselves that not only light their beautiful faces but the environment too. maybe the beta Snowglobe viewer's shadow settings over emphasize the lighting features. turning OFF the shadows (renderdeferred=false) seems to improve this situation but hey, who wants to live in a world without shadows? come on people, turn down your facelights. it's really a simple task.

there are 3 settings to any light. intensity, radius, & fall-off. fiddledy sticks. keep your radius within reason. the default feature is 10m radius. how's about you take a look at changing that to fit the intended design. you are not trying to light the whole room. or are you?

here's my subtle attempt. both pictures (on/off) taken under midnight settings.

you can find the freebie (xCopy/xMod/xTrans) on my Xstreet account and the copyable version at Choerom.

Magic Shadows

2009-08-22T04:44:00.001-04:00

The Shoe Wars

2009-08-16T21:16:00.002-04:00

nuff said. everyone can go home now. class dismissed.

New Find

2009-08-15T06:42:00.011-04:00

hair:Mirai Shan
* dress:pixivor Allen
boots:Babette Ultsch
tights:Sh Oluja

i thought i'd let you know how to do the outline affect as i've illustrated in the above photo. if not for you, then for me if i ever forget.;-)

first thing, you'll have to take your shots against a light background so you can select it easily when you bring the snap into PhotoShop. if you have a dense multipixelated background you'll have a hell of a time getting the finer details distinguished from your model to the background.

use your magic wand selector, normally a setting on tolerances of 50 and anti-aliased checked should knock out all the background and get the marching ants to hug your model tight. oooh, what an image. anywho, just add all the background to your selection till the whole frame is filled. then inverse your selection so that only the model is selected. make sure you add the voids her limbs make to the outline.

copy your selection to a transparent layer. now, with your model completely selected save it to a New Channel: Select > Save Selection... and name it "Model" or whatever.

for the next action we have to Expand the Model selection by a couple of pixels or however wide you want your outline to be. you do that by dropping down the Select again: Select > Modify > Expand >2px. now invert that selection you just expanded so that effectively the background minus a 2 px border around the model is selected.

next we Add the model selection from the saved Channel to the expanded and inverted background selection. Select > Load Selection... > drop down Channel to Model and select the radio button Add to Selection.

what we'll end up with is the model selection and the background with a 2 px unselected border between the two. now invert that selection so that our selection is the border section, not the background and model selection. getting all that?

now we paint or airspray white inside the border selection. woila. add some drop shadow to the layer and you have a close cropped model with a 2px white border and a shadow. fiddle around with the blur, distance, and opacity to get the affect you want. what you do with your results is up to you. here's hoping we see more of it out there on the blogosphere. i'm going to make sure i automate all those "actions" in PS so that i don't have to think about creating anything new and exiting. hell, i just might post nothing but this style. i'm a machine, i know. Satanic Mechanic?

Mayne Line Fashion

2012

Merry Me

All In

Liz

When in Rome

WIP

Splendour

Just For You

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Big Brother

Smith

Pornography

All of God

Friends to Murderers & Thieves

Giving My Life to Christ

Growing Up

To the Nines

Fiddling

Serious Design

First to Market

Rigged Mesh Walks the Grid

Multiple Viewer Settings

You're Welcome

Managing Lag

Virgin Viewing

Hair Fair Machinima

Independence from Tyrannical Empires

With Love

I'm a Girl Watcher

Moving On & Keeping Up

Christ Cult

Level Up

Getting Too Real

Busy

Give to Get

Lover's Treats

Those Were the Days

Field of Dreams Desktops

Noir Stilettos

Interior Design

Lords & Ladies Dancing

Sensual Delights

Fur

Exotica

All of Us

Me and My Shadows

Pricing Pressure

Snowman Avatar

Love Lost

Follow Your Heart

Art Show

What We're Missing

Honesty Pays

The Price is Right

The Test of Time

Four Years of EnCore

Fashionable Pistol Whippin'

Light My Fire

Spike Collar

Creative Ideas

Assemblers

Modavia alaFolie

Midnight Moon

Leather, Lace, and Lore

Vampire Fans

Pleasure From Pain

Gimme Face

The Body Talks

Seriously Mad Skills

*BEHOLD* Designs: Rubic Cube Bracelet

Fortuitous

Busy

Marketing vs Realization

I Never Asked You Your Name

Pointy Face

New *BEHOLD* Shiny

Ugly to the Bone

Deserving

I'm Not Living in the Real World

BEHOLD Designs: Rubic Cube Bracelet

New BEHOLD Shiny