Welcome to a New Build :)

Some people have been wondering if the store is open again, and the answer is yes! I've been on a slightly "soft" opening while I work out issues with my vendors. The thing is, there have been some technical difficulties and I was hoping to have them resolved before I posted about the sim, but no such luck.

It's not the grand opening I was hoping for, with a big unveiling of a whole new look with a whole new card system. Of course since the actual building process went so well, fate wanted to make sure I knew I was her bitch and so decided to throw other things at me to show me that no, you can't plan for everything. The card system is still down, but being worked on, and some of my vendors are missing due to a very obscure SL security measure that's made me unable to rez them. I have a ticket open and I'm still waiting for a resolution, I'm really hoping that they'll be able to help but if not, I will have to redo them. Some of the vendors are still a bit screwy, so please bear with me while I iron out the kinks.

Anyway, I'm focusing on the bad things when the truth is I have a beautiful new store that I feel is well designed, will be easily expandable, and reflects what I'm capable of as a builder. It also makes a hell of a picture.


I'm planning on holding a Flickr contest soon, so you guys can enjoy some of the views and details I've pored over for the past months. I'm planning on making the price one of my new gift cards, so when the system is up and running I'll announce it officially. Until then, come visit and see the pretty :)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Carnivale/202/82/45

Sim to be Closed on 5/25

It's finally ready. I've tweaked my textures, revamped my vendors, primped my products and looked over my layout. The store is almost ready to be put in place, so I'll be closing the sim on Tuesday, the 25th in order to get things into place.

I can't say for sure how long the sim will be closed, but I'll be sure to announce the minute it opens again to Masqueraderie and on my Plurk. I'll try to get an entry out as well to detail what's new :)

One of the new things will be a card system that works with my current menu vendors. Problem is, there's currently a technical glitch which prevents the full amount to be refunded if you cancel the transaction when using your card, so I want to be sure it's fixed before I open. If it isn't, I'll have to leave the card system unavailable until it's fixed. I'm still very excited about it, when it's working I think it's something you guys will really enjoy.

Until then, I'm just incredibly excited about my store becoming this:

Booyah.

I'm back home and working hard. I'm taking inventory of everything I have out in the store right now, making revisions to the vendors and updating everything that needs it. This is the big clean-up I've been wanting to do for ages. It feels good to take stock of everything, go through older items and revise the prices, or do new pictures for items that aren't well represented. I'm sorting and grouping items in new ways, revising old scripts, and trying out new organizations for the store layout.

The store build itself is, for the most part, done. There are a couple little things that I have in the works for it, but the prims are in place, the layout is solid, and the exterior is set. I'm proud to show you a few more teaser pictures, taken with viewer 2's gorgeous shadows.

It doesn't even look like SL, does it?

I'm excited and proud to have this finally in the works, and progress with the vendors is coming along (despite it being even more tedious than doing ear skin tones, which I didn't think was possible). I think I'm comfortable with saying that I'll be able to finish and make this official sometime in the week of the 16th. I'll be shutting down the sim for a few hours to get everything into position, but I won't require any more than one day. The sim will be completely closed, so I'll try to pick a week day that's not too busy.

Unfortunately, there will be no new releases to unveil (unless I can whip something up), my efforts are completely spent on getting this in place. I am planning on doing something special for the grand opening though, not a party but a sale. I never do sales! So save up your money and start eyeballing items ;)

Fantasy Fair 2010

This is a day late because I'm currently away from home, so my apologies!

Fantasy Fair has just kicked off, and there are over nine themed sims of amazing awesome stuff. I've been granted a lovely stall on Elvencourt, and so in honor of the elven theme I have something appropriately elegant and regal.

Elessia is a flowing piece you can imagine being made by Elven craftsmen in Lothlorien. It's scripted as most of my jewelry is these days, to change to six different metals and the same selection of twelve stones as the Orinthia set. It includes a circlet and necklace, so your ears are free for certain elfy necessities. Since I'm away from home, there was a problem with the scripts to change metal in these, but I was able to get on for a moment on a borrowed laptop in order to fix it. However, if you bought this set yesterday please contact me for an updated version.

Fantasy Fair is dedicated to raising money for the American Cancer Society, so I've put together a limited edition color of the Dama and Primo di Carnivale masks.

Dama di Cielo Notte means "Lady of the Night Sky". It was painted by yours truly and will only be available for the duration of the the fair. 100% of the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society, and the same goes for her partner, the Primo di Cielo Notte.

These are not scripted, what you see is what you get. They can be yours for a donation of 375L. The skin in these are a couple of (possibly retired) beautiful skins by Munchflower Zaius of Nomine, and are from her Aether collection.

I apologize for any delays in my getting back to you for customer service this week, my only internet access is currently through kind relatives giving me a few moments on their systems.

For a little while now I've been so quiet because I've been working on a new store build. I finally solidified a plan, and after plenty of "inspiration time" playing Assassin's Creed 2 (the game was frickin' made for me! love love love it) I sat down and carved out what had been forming in my imagination.

I have a big thing for cathedrals, grand open spaces, decadent and detailed architecture and floating high arches. I've been paying a lot of attention to what exactly it is about these things that I admire, picking and choosing my favorite elements and assembling them into a carefully planned pile of loveliness.

I'm still working on some holes, filling in the edges, finalizing and problem solving with some tricky areas but the current store build's days are numbered. It's been around since 2007, and has served me well for almost three years. It actually isn't that badly made, I have to say I've stayed pretty happy with the construction, but it has its issues and it's gotten to the point where I've let the walls get rather crowded. Soo... it's either bring out the scythe again and cull the herd of my creations or make a new, easily expandable and decadent store build. If you've visited the new event hall, you might have an idea of what sort of thing to expect. But it's even prettier than that.

Taken with the new 2.0 viewer with shadows enabled for maximum awesomeness

Several months and over a year of mental planning well spent, right? :D

I'm not sure when I'll be making the switch, I won't be able to get on for a week after this Saturday. I also intend to change to the new branding on all of my vendors for a unified look, as well as finally switch over some of the older scripts and update the pricing on some older items to reflect their age. It's the all around sprucing up and house cleaning I've been putting off for over a year!

I'll keep you guys posted on an actual day and of course a grand unveiling, but for now, just know it's coming... eventually.

Some budget issues

So it turns out I owe quite a lot on my taxes unfortunately. I wasn't able to pay estimated tax over the year so I even have a withholding fee. It's steep, and so I'll be having to make some changes on the sim.

I have to cut back, so the stone and luxurious tile has to go. I sold it to a nice Pakistani man who told me it would be used to build a library in Tucson. In the meantime, I've replaced the walls and floor of the store with an all natural, bio-degradable material which should be temporary.

I'm also opening up a few stalls right outside my store which will be available for rent. These are luxurious, deluxe stalls, painstakingly made by me and I can customize them for your store. Rent starts at about 10,000L a month, I need the money so I'm hoping you guys will be willing to help out by taking one of these beautiful, detailed and elegant stalls.

I can add crayon and sharpie drawings, or crenelations upon request. If you need more space, I'd be happy to duck tape two or more together to create a MegaStall. I really appreciate you guys being so supportive at this difficult time in my store's history, hopefully this new look won't change my store's image of decadence and luxury.


Let's just hope it doesn't rain.

WILD.Released Stamp Hunt

Have you heard about WILD.Released yet? If not, allow me to illuminate you. I've just gone through my store and included stamp cards in some of my vendors. If you buy one of the marked items, you'll be able to redeem the card you get for an item only available as a prize for this event. All you need to do is go around to the stores that are participating and collect their store stamps. You can even do a bunch of cards at once! There are twelve of us participating, including my fabulous friends from TRAP, silent sparrow, Evie's Closet, Schadenfreude... the list goes on. Every prize is worth it, and you won't want to miss them. Here's a peek at mine :D


This item won't be available in the store, you can only get it through redeeming a fully stamped WILD.Released card at Moonsong. And if you think your mind is already made up, you haven't seen the other prizes.

The cards are available now, but stamping begins on March 20th. Hold on to them until then! And if you're still a little unclear about how the whole thing works, there's more information on the WILD.Released blog :)

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Even if you don't really care or wish to celebrate it, if you're favorite color is green St. Paddy's day rocks for freebies. I don't wish to be an exception, and so I passed out a St. Paddy's Day bowler to the folks who wish to be hatted!

While you're wearing it, you can be the one doing the pinching. *peench peench*

Don't get too wasted, otherwise you'll go to hell and burn for a thousand years, and then they'll take you out and flip you over for another thousand. You'll make the holy mother cry if you sleep with a protestant while you're intoxicated. There, that's some authentic Catholic guilt for you.

Ovis Horns

My collection of horns has a glaring omission. I've been missing a truly spectacular pair of ram's horns that makes you want to reach out and touch them. I'm lucky enough to have touched a wild mountain goat's horns (they were very comfortable around tourists, no I didn't feed it) and I wasn't willing to release something that didn't remind me of that warm dry roughness under my fingertips. I was finally able to evoke that memory :)


I had a very specific vision in mind for how I wanted the texture to be, the amount of shine, the delicate ripples, the bumps and crags and cracks and roughness while still having a polished health to them. It took me forever, carefully modeling the high definition horn to follow the ripples and growth rings of a real horn, adding bumps and wear and tear on them and then finding the right amount of shine, but I finally did it. And now that I've made the perfect pair of ram's horns, I might as well make a few more!

Ovis Nivicola is the "snow sheep" of Siberia, and theyhave beautifully curved horns that frame their faces. I took some liberties with the shape to evoke the same frame, and these are one of my favorites. Perfect for demons!

Ovis Aries is one of those classic ram's horns that are probably what you first think of, they're lighter and not as thick as the Canadensis and so less likely to result in a headache.
The Dallis sheep has a more open horn, which also looks sharper than other mountain sheep. I love these as faun horns, I shrunk them down and put on my faun hooves and I felt like skipping around through the woods with a pan pipe.

They all have the same collection of horn colors and metals you should be plenty familiar with now, and I would definitely suggest you grab some demos to see how you like them. Currently, they're only available at my booth at the Accessories Fair, and you should swing by anyway and grab the freebie I put out :) It's a simple choker for women with a texture change stone.

Illusions @ Accessory Fair 2010

I'm in the Accessory Fair which is kicking off this weekend, hosted by Glance. It features other designers like myself who fit into the "other" category of what you can wear on your avatar, and will be going until the 27th of March.

I wanted to have something new released especially for it, but most of my projects weren't anywhere near ready. I found there was something simple I'd been wanting to do and just lacked the timing, so I took the opportunity :)

Sometimes I'm in the mood for the primmy splendor and display of the original Orinthia, but sometimes I want to have a simple pendant that's still romantic and feminine. Orinthia Puro is the reconciliation of those two moods, and if I'd known it looked this good on its own I might not have bothered with the frustration of dealing with all of those chains! In fact, I think it even brings out the lines and delicacy of the pendant better. But after all that work on the original, I'd rather offer this as an option instead of a replacement. Plus, it's significantly cheaper ;) (250L, compared to the original's price of 450L)

The set is only available at my Accessory Fair stall for now, but after a week I'll be adding it to my new releases wall in the main store. My next few releases are going to be the same story, released at the fair first and then added to my main store after a few days :)