Seelie Ears @ Androgyny

A while ago I ran a little survey on my Discord Server to see which of my old ear designs I should remake next.  I figured that, moving forward, I'll be doing new designs but first I wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving out anyone's favorites.  The design that got picked was the Seelie ears!

 

The Seelie ears are meant to be a half way point between the short and curly tipped Sprite ears, and the long and straight Elfin ears.  With an elegant curve and an upturned tip, they are whimsical but still dignified.  Don't tell anyone wearing these your real name, and be careful not to make any bargains with them!

These are the culmination of a lot of time, frustration and effort working on refining the edge of the ear to meet better with the LeLutka heads.  My goal is to eventually achieve a fully seamless look, and if and when I do manage it, it will be a free update.  I'm still working on that, but these do have a better texture match to the head, and a new version made especially for the LeLutka Lite heads.  In case you weren't aware, LeLutka and some other creators donated items to help new users build a modern looking avatar, with free mesh heads and bodies, able to wear Evo X mapped items and any clothes fit for Legacy bodies.  You can find the Lite heads that LeLutka added to the library in the Avatar Welcome Pack, but they do not have HUD's.  So, if you want to wear non-human ears, they must have their human ears hidden by an alpha layer.  The edge needed some work to meet up just right to hide the big holes in the sides of the head, and this unfortunately means they can't use Evo X skin layers and need to be manually tinted. I'll be working on making Lite versions for the other ears as well, but it may take me some time.

You can find these at the June round of Androgyny, a new monthly shopping event focused on providing items for people of any gender identity.  Since I've always tried to make my items as inclusive as possible for avatars who are masculine and feminine and everything in between, I'm happy that I got the opportunity to release these as an exclusive there.  

Androgyny opens today and runs until the 28th.  See you there!

Barocco Necklace @ Vintage Fair 2025

 I took a bit of a break after Fantasy Faire, which gave me the opportunity to really explore and enjoy it for the first time in years.  I got an intriguing invitation though, and while I'm still very slow in making things, I decided to accept.  Vintage Fair is an event focused on items inspired by history, and anything before the 21st century goes.  Since so many of my items have historical roots, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.  I didn't have much time though, and to do the event I had to make a new item.  After dressing for (and finally attending) the Fantasy Faire masquerade ball and bedecking myself in my Civetta Barocco mask with my new Barocco ear accessories, I realized the dreadful lack of accompanying neck adornment. 

     

    After spending the time designing and making these mesh pieces to play with on my masks, it's not just economical good sense to reuse them, it makes everything match! There were certain areas I felt were lacking though, especially around the center stone, so I actually ended up grabbing pieces that I had made for my demo frame, playing around with their size and position and found that they paired very nicely with the pieces from the masks.  After a bit of retexturing, they look like they were always there. 

    I had planned to use my existing stone textures and I was actually still pretty happy with them until I tried putting them into a PBR material.  Oof.  It turns out my current stone textures were made in 2013, but being the data hoarder that I am I was able to access the original files to try to make them play nicer with PBR.  Then I just kept tweaking, and next thing I knew I had a set of 16 new stones to play with, inspired by the colors and shading of real minerals like flourite, ametrine, aquamarine and pink sapphires.  They are still very much based on and closely related to the originals, but the effect when they are viewed with high graphics settings is much more decadent.

    I have been making strides towards creating HUDs and converting my items to use them.  I have certainly come to appreciate that most customers expect them now, and that it's the dominant paradigm for color change.  I also quite like seeing the actual colors represented and find it to be much friendlier to the international community and non-English speaking folks out there to be able to just click on options you think look nice, rather than having to guess at words you might not understand.  With this necklace done I now have a much easier path towards updating other items, especially the Barocco masks, so hopefully you can see PBR and HUD updates for those coming soon.

Vintage Fair opens June 6th, and goes until the 16th

Elysian Veil

Project Mesh Revolution, and Paper Elves

    Through March, some designers were coyly teasing something on social media called "Project Mesh Revolution".  It promised a free mesh body and head, with skins, clothing, and even developer kits available for creators on launch day.  The promotional material said it was "lightweight, flexible, and ultra optimized", which had a lot of people buzzing.  With the average price of a modern looking avatar in the multiple thousands of Lindens, people were hopeful that they might have access to that for free, and a lot of excitement built up.

    On April 1st, PROJECT MESH REVOLUTION launched.  It turns out, those free mesh avatars were in fact... paper dolls. Rigged mesh, but flat and completely two dimensional.  A lot of people were disappointed, and there were some angry posts on the forums, complaints about misrepresentation, and dashed hopes.

    With 2k BOM, physical based rendering, animesh, new environmental shaders, and high definition and rigged mesh, Second Life has come extremely far from its launch in 2003 on its march towards realism.  It's been behind the curve of higher end games that have coordinated art teams, but over the years it's been steadily getting more polished in its presentation and capabilities.  Some sims are truly stunning, beautiful user generated immersive experiences.  However, creating in Second Life has only gotten harder and more complex, and every new advance makes it even more daunting to learn.  Paths to creation, like modifying or customizing attached items, have been blocked by rigged mesh or no modify permissions.  Some of us have managed to grow and adapt, but there was some charm in the openness of prims and sculpties.  I remember enjoying fully two dimensional clothing and skins that had been lovingly "hand drawn" by hobbyist artists, who did them the hard way, old school, starting with nothing but a blank white canvas.  The artists who still do things this way are few and far between, and I've heard multiple times from other creators that there's "no market" for hand drawn things, that stylized things "don't sell", and that "everyone wants realism".

In spite of this, for the past few weeks since April 1st, the paper doll avatars (called Cardy and Cardo) have found a foothold.  People have been embracing the charm and fun of both creating for and wearing something so raw and quirky.  Cardy and Cardo have found a community who loves them, who recognize them as meaningful and more unique than just another realistic high definition mesh body or head.  Plus, they really are light weight and well optimized (who knew losing a dimension would be so efficient). 

 

 

    Second Life used to be a place where you could join as a total noob to 3D, and grow to start a successful and well known store with content beloved by thousands of people.  I know this, because I joined in 2006 and fell in love with creating by goofing off with primitives in a sandbox.  When sculpts were introduced, I taught myself Zbrush so I could keep up, and then when mesh was introduced I taught myself that too.  I had stepping stones to follow, a gradual increase in difficulty and complexity, but would I have ever started creating if I had had to start right at rigged mesh and PBR materials? I'm sure it's still possible to start from zero these days, but I'm also sure many more have been discouraged or would never imagine it now.  We may not be able to, or want to, go back to the ancient days of sculpts and prims but Project Mesh Revolution has given new users an easier path to be a part of content creation again.  It has reset the barrier of entry, back to the days where if you had some time, an image editing software, and an idea, you could make fun and satisfying content for yourself, your friends, and maybe even some customers.  You can make your own content for Cardy and Cardo regardless of your skill, and there will be a bunch of flat funky folks eager to embrace you.  With this style of content, the imperfection is the point.  The flaws are its charm.  

 Salt and Pepper's April Fools "prank" has ended up proving itself true to its name.  There really has been a mesh revolution.  People who might never have dreamt of attempting to make things in SL in 2025 are now looking at an open door with a welcome mat.  Even us oldbies who've been around since the ancient magic of the prim was written are remembering the fun and playfulness of making low stakes goofy stuff.  All of this is to say that I have happily become a part of it.

 I've joined in the fun, with special sets of my elf ears rigged especially for Cardy and Cardo as my gifts for RFL this year at Fantasy Faire.

They are available at my store on Gwath through May 4th, for just 30L each, all of which is donated to Relay for Life.  They include compatibility for a bunch of the available skins for Cardy and Cardo, and in the spirit of the open creativity surrounding these avatars they come with UV guides and BOM layers to allow you to not only match your own skins, but to make your own tattoos, earrings, or whatever else your heart desires.  I am planning on creating more, and anything else I release for PMR will also include UV's and customization options so no matter who you are, you can start playing with making it yours.

The door is open, won't you come in?

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gwath/187/205/62

Illusions @ Fantasy Faire 2025

The weather's getting warmer, the snow is gone, and birdsong is in the air, which means Fantasy Faire is finally here.  One of the biggest user run events on Second Life, it's full of exquisitely crafted sims and gorgeous works of user created art, and I'm excited to once again be a part of it. 

    This year it was very satisfying to put a year's worth of releases up on the walls of my little shop.  I have more recent work now to show than I have for almost a decade, but I set an additional goal for myself.  I wanted earrings or something to wear with the elf ears that was PBR enabled, rigged, and HUD scripted.  Real life has been very demanding this past month, so I ended up running out of time to be ambitious.  Instead, I was able to whip together something out of some old favorite pieces.

 

    The Barocco ear accessories are rigged to my new generation of EvoX ears, and are made out of the same pieces that adorn my Barocco masks.  It's so they match!  Yeah!  Not because using pre-existing pieces was easier or faster or anything...  So far they are only fit for the Elfin style of ears, but I will be working on them to support more of my current ear styles.  They are indeed HUD scripted, and I was able to convert the existing textures I had to something I was happy with.  You can still use the existing textures if you're one of the 20% or so of users still on a pre-PBR viewer, but I think they do look very nice with the new metal effects.

This year Illusions can be found on the Gwath sim, though I have decided I'm moving into the Galerie Gaillard and declaring squatter's rights if anyone tries to tell me it's time to go.  I'm not surprised I wasn't able to get a spot there, as Walton's sims are incredible and it wouldn't have surprised me if everyone put it as their first choice.  It would have been painfully perfect for my store's aesthetic but I am trying not to be too sore about it.  I did make myself cozy where I ended up though, and am quite pleased with how my stall turned out. There are many incredibly sims to see, so do visit it and the other Fantasy Faire sims from now until May 4th.  

 

Elfin Ears 3.0 @ We ♥ Roleplay

     Last night there was a last minute call for merchants to fill an empty spot at We ♥ Roleplay, and you know what?  I had something that was like 90% done.  So, amazingly, I'm in another round of a shopping event this year. Wow, I feel like I should call my mom or something (I should do that anyway though).

I've been chugging away converting more of my old shapes, and I have been wearing my latest project around for a week or so just to make absolutely sure I liked it from all angles because these next ones are Kind of a Big Deal.  

It's the elfin ears, back in glorious rigged, bakes on mesh beauty.  The original ones were one of my most popular sets, going all the way back to the 2007 versions, so I knew I had to do these right.  I think I found a really happy balance of honoring the old shapes while refining and adapting them to what I'm capable of now.  The ear size slider gives them a lot of range but however you wear them, they're classic.

I was honestly going to chill for a little bit in order to get ready for Fantasy Faire, as merchant applications finally opened (woo!) and I'm excited to finally be properly prepared for once.  However, sometimes life slaps you in the face with an opportunity and you'd just be silly not to take it, you know?  Don't get used to this though, haha.

The Elfin ears are on sale for a special promotional price of 20% off through the month of March, only at We ♥ Roleplay! 

Also wait, what's this an about an anime?  I don't know what you're talking about, and even if I did, you can't prove anything.  Any resemblance in my vendor image to any particular fictional people alive or dead is purely because I was binge watching Frieren while working on these.