Jewelry Fair Opens!

Jewelry Fair officially opens today! So everyone can see my hard work, on both the build and my jewelry. I'm going to be spammy and do two posts though.

I built the damn thing, so I'm rather proud of how I've managed to keep everything as simple as possible, yet as pretty as I could. No sculpts were used throughout, everything is the most primitive shapes, and the same 10 textures were used absolutely everywhere I could. The design is basically a labyrinth with one contiguous path that will lead you through all of the stalls, as well as event areas such as one of a kind auctions, the dunk tank, and the kissing booth. The auctions, dunk tank, select items, and everything that isn't going to a jeweler is all going to benefit Oxfam International.

To help people get around a bit easier, we divvied the maze into four seasons to help you find your favorite jewelers easier. There's a map and a list of who's where at the Jeweler's of SL blog.

My booth is Winter 15, which is pretty easy to find since I stuck it right by one of the Slurls. Hey, I'm not getting paid for this, so I deserve a perk :)~

So head on over, grab the freebie (which I should have described in the post above this one), and have fun!

So many busy things that can't be talked about lest I jinx them! If you're wondering when you're going to see the gorgeousness I teased at in my last post, you're going to have to wait until Jewelry Fair :)

As I always do, I'm working on completely new jewelry for the fair, and the roses are part of it. I'm also working on a few other things, all within the theme of the Secret Garden.

But since its been so darn long since I just worked on something and then put it out (curse you, monstrously huge projects!) I wanted to get something relatively simple done. And then of course, the simple things are never that simple. But, I've finished a festive bit of fun, (which I'm very happy with), called the Diamonte.

Omgosh it has proper eye holes! This is a rather evolved experiment (from many other scrapped ones) in creating a mask with two torii for eyes (yeah yeah technical talk blah blah). As a result, it fits many more faces and has crisper edges around the eyes, as well as more flexibility for eye shapes. For the next masks I do, you can sort of expect me playing around with how to make three or more prims all look like one solid mask.

The eyes, forehead and trim are all changeable on touch independantly, so that if you'd like to have a solid red mask you most certainly can, but you can also play with combinations. I've added a nice new metal to the trims as well, a warm bronze texture (from a Zbrush matcap... gawjuss!). That's another thing you might see more of soon :)~

I hope to get a few other, smaller projects out before Jewelry Fair (opening the 18th!) but if not, I'm not dead, I'm just pining for the fjords.

I've volunteered to do the build for the upcoming jewelry fair, which has me a bit preoccupied and sadly distracted from making a few things I had in the works. If anyone is wondering, I'm doing my best to keep things simple and minimalist while still as pretty as possible with as few textures as possible. It's a challenge but its sort of fun to be working with normal prims again!

I have a few things up in the air, I feel a bit bad about being so vague for so long but when I've been open about what I had in the works I've felt pressured. I still remember my teasing riddles for my antlers ending up being about six months early. That was embarrassing...


But I'd like to think it's pretty safe to offer a teaser when I've reached the point where a release is inevitable, even if it takes some time to get the pieces together. And I think I've just about reached that point with one of my projects that's been a while in the making:

Coming soon, my roses will be back :) Hopefully just barely in time to still be in summer! They're better than ever, and I am very proud of them so far. I just have to figure out creative ways for you to stick them all over your body now.


Another piece of news is that I'll be somewhat kidnapped for about three weeks. I've been called upon for federal jury duty starting later this month and that will definitely curtail my creating time and motivation. It's not like the releases have been pouring out of me lately or anything, but its just a heads up.

Hedera

Omfg.

Okay, it's finally done.


This project, which started out with something as innocent as a bracelet, has become a voracious vortex of vegetation, demanding I make piece after piece after piece until it has finally had its way with me. I've been working on this pretty much straight through the month, without really being able to focus on anything else until this was done. That's one of the reasons I've been so silent.



You may now adorn yourself with ivy. As my friend Selos joked, I've been out of world so much that my avatar has become overgrown.

This set is a big landmark for me, because it includes something I've never before done in an accessories set.... clothing.

The clothing textures took me more time than the rest of the sculpting and texturing combined. It's a huge jump for me to take, seeing as how textures have never been my strong suit, nor a very enjoyable task for me. My meager skills in that department needed some serious exercise and butt kickery to get them anywhere near the quality I demand from everything in my store. After more lindens spent in upload fees than I can count, as well as draft upon draft that never even were good enough to make it in world, I was finally able to rest and say "those seams are good enough, damnit".

Each prim piece is painstakingly made especially to the avatar mesh, so that they should be super easy to fit. Even the chest vines that curl around the breasts should be able to handle even the biggest girls with only minimal clipping. I also made sure to keep my prim sizes relatively large, so that every piece is able to be modded down to fit even my pixie shapes. The individual pieces vary in price based on complexity from 45L to 175L, with the complete set being a quite reasonable 950L.

The panties that go on under the loin cloth are only available in the complete set. There are other perks exclusive to buying it all in one, like multiple clothing layers for the bra and panties, a "bare foot" size for the foot vines, and multiple attachment points for the ear cuffs (yes there are ear cuffs) so that you can wear them with the earrings and get a multi layered effect :)


If you're more of a minimalist, or on a budget, the necklace and earrings will give you at least the impression of that dryad look without needing to be weeded. The necklace comes with delicately trailing vines which hang off your shoulder, and are completely optional (they have a separate attachment)

(By the way, the stunning black skin in that picture is from Blowpop's new skin series, called Maya. I love it to pieces and you'll probably be seeing a lot more of it from me)

You'll also just have to see the enormous wall of all of your options... happy shopping :)

My work ethic is like soap. The harder I grab on to it, to try to make things, the faster it goes *squip!* out of my hands. However! I have some good news. As I have relaxed (through copious procrastination) I have made great progress on two projects which have been my sole focus for the past month, one of which is very close to being completed.

I might be too close to it to see it neutrally by now, but as much as I'd like to say it is epic and huge, it is probably not that epic, nor huge. I have managed to accomplish something that a majority of content creators do easily, and quickly, and it took me more time than the rest of my project put together. Hopefully, in the long run it will prove to be a learning experience, and what it adds to the project will be worth the time.

Now, I don't normally post teasers, but I also don't normally go silent for almost a month at a time!
Coming soon to a purple mask store near you...

Today I received my first notice of copyright infringement from the DMCA department, which is something I was never expecting to see. After I swallowed that "wtf!?" moment, it actually wasn't so bad. Apparently even Frank Sinatra's name is licensed, and so my naming a fedora after him was in violation of Warner Music's copyright. So from now on the "Sinatra" fedora is going to be the "Corleone" fedora, something I'm updating even as I type this.

It's no biggie, so I won't bother making a fuss. What's in a name, after all? But I wanted to make a notice here so that there was no confusion, and also satisfy curiosities (maybe serve as a little warning to anyone else wanting to dedicate anything to the Chairman of the Board).


Also, update on current projects... I'm working on a few things that are ending up bigger than I initially thought, which makes me think I should release another smaller project while I'm working on these. Unfortunately, that's exactly how a few of these started, so I don't want to place myself in the way of temptation and end up with even more enormous projects O.o

Blinders

I have had some big projects in the works lately, the ears took me forever with so many delays... my sim build has been in the works for six months, and I have a secret project which is taking longer than I was hoping too. So I felt the need to just finish something simple and interesting which I could just release without any complications.

I've been wanting to really make a blindfold for a while now, the one I have for sale for 20L was just something I made very quickly. I think they have a beautiful mystique about them though, and I've always wanted to do it more justice.

With the coaxing of Selos I managed to get the silk texture just perfect. It doesn't go all the way around the head, only to the ears, in order to make sure that its compatible with all hairs. This way it fits a wide variety of heads and is unisex. I'd like to do one that works with hair someday soon, but that certainly doesn't qualify as a quick and simple project!

It's scripted to change texture to twelve different jewel tones, so that you can match whatever outfit you like. It really seems to lend an ethereal and mystical air to your avatar, or maybe just a kinky one.

Along with that one though, I wanted to try a different kind of blindfold.

It could be one of those little masks you wear over your eyes when you go to sleep, or it could be used in the bedroom for "other purposes". Whatever you like you're welcome to try, personally I like this one because I made the trim able to be changed to a different color than the rest of the mask. I know some people have asked that I make a lack of eyes an option with some of my masks, and if you wanted to you could wear this one underneath in order to get that effect.


I won't be retiring my old satin blindfold, I think it still has its place as a bargain piece, but I'm lowering the price now to 10L :) These two new ones are now for sale in the main store for 95L each ^.^

Fantasy Faire! And Long Awaited Ear Updates!

The first annual Fantasy Faire is starting today, and despite my intense procrastination, some groveling and last minute scrabbling netted me a stall on the Elvencourt sim! I would offer a slurl, but no matter where it's made it always ends up at the landing point. I'm in stall 15 next to Evangeline Miles of Evie's Closet, and I couldn't have asked for a nicer neighbor (her latest dresses have only been getting more beautiful, wonderful job).

As a part of participating in the faire, we were asked to donate the full proceeds of two items to Relay for Life. My contributions are a limited edition recolor of Titania and Oberon.



They're only available at my stall at the expo, for 500L each. They'll be available until the 22nd, when the fair closes. Obviously I did a new color theme for them that's different from the soft blues, but I also changed the greenery around the crowns to new leaves that are a luscious natural green.


Aside from the masks, I also am proud to say I finally have completed my elfin ear update. After more mistakes, remakes, script edits, permission errors, hold ups, hang ups, pitfalls and near misses than I can count, they're out. The actual structure of the ears and earrings hasn't changed at all, but the scripts have. I've consolidated the TRAP, Drow, and Aether skins all into one mega pack of skin tones titled Fantasy, as well as added new tones from some of the more popular skin makers that I received tone requests for. The Naturals received a major, major tune up, and instead of a paltry twelve tones, they now have over seventy skin tones by designers such as Abyss, Nomine, Fleur and Curio.

With the new collections of skin tones, I've excused myself a slight price hike in the cost of a custom tone. I'm going to make it 100L, because when I first set my price I never anticipated it to be as much of a time sink and a chore as it has become. To those that currently have ear tone requests open with me, I will be giving you a new pair of the upgraded ears in hopes that one of the tones will suit your skin. If not, then you will still only be charged the original 50L price, but that's only for ear tone requests received before today.

Please let me know if you do find errors in the ears, or the vendors, despite my testing them as much as I can I still seem to miss things. The sooner I'm made aware of errors in permissions or scripts the faster I can fix them!

The upgraded ears are now out at both the fair and the store, I'll be sending a notice out to the group as well as updating the signage nearby but right now I'm just going to go collapse somewhere :)

Gemini

For being one of the most ubiquitous masks in Venice, the Volto certainly doesn't make many appearances in my store. This is something I long to change, because I love the mystique and appeal of completely changing your visage just by holding up an object. That must be one of the plethora of reasons I love masks.

The problem with the Volto is that they are very tricky and very technically difficult to craft well, and so I let them slide while I work on other challenges. But with my recent experimentation with torus masks (having a real hole be in them), basically this mask simply had to be made.

As a Gemini myself, I'm quite familiar with being multi-faceted, as is anyone who presents different sides of themselves to different people. But honestly, beyond the symbolic representations of the complexities of personality, a split down the center mask just looks cool. And so you can wear it with one half or the other, and change each side to any combination of the 11 colors included. You can do the same with the lips, and have them the same color on each side, or opposite, or maybe have a black and white mask with red lips or even no lips at all. The options are completely there for you to show whatever side of you your whimsy decides on.

The unfortunate part about my doing masks out of torii is that to do eye holes, there will always have to be two. I can't have the same silky unified look of any of the other masks, there will always be a seam or a seperation or an asymmetry. So though this is a big step forward for me, I don't think I can completely throw my other methods aside. It's good to have choices though :)

The sale is over now, and now I have to be all explanatory for my absence for the past few weeks. The longer I go without posting the harder it gets to just sit down and write an entry.

I've been feeling very stressed recently, and unfortunately that means that I lost my will to work for a while. I wanted to escape and watch movies and play games and basically goof off and try to get my head back around to a place where I could achieve something. It happens maybe twice a year, it seems.

Now that I'm starting to get my act together again, I do have a few half-finished projects that should be able to be completed without my taxing my creativity much. I've gotten abhorrently behind on my ear skin tone requests (if you have requested one, I'm so sorry!), and I'm planning on updating and clarifying the way my elven ears work. Right now the vendors are so confusing, I get more questions about how those work than anything else store related.

Anyway, sorry to have gone all clammed up on you. Nothing is really wrong, I'm just going through some RL tension which getting back to work and releasing things will fix.