Sunday, September 30, 2012

Halloween Horror

Foreboding fright at Malaika

Barkerville was a quiet and prosperous town until the silver mine dried up and the ship landed with its mysterious people and their equally mysterious cargo. At first the townspeople thought the new arrivals would save the town but they were dead wrong. Explore this sim-wide recreation of Barkerville and see if you can unearth the mystery behind the new arrivals. What were they really doing here? Is there anyone still alive in this town? You'll be lucky to get out alive.
You can explore this amazing sim at your own risk from Oct. 1st to Oct 31st.








Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Phenomenal Mesh Avatars

Detailed skins and dimensional muscles make mesh avatars hot.

Animations Rising has been a Second Life presence for as long as I can remember (and I'm much older than I look) and designer, Miro Collas, has always been an innovator. From unique poses and animations to his Living Light line, he has been introducing creative items to the grid for years. His most recent venture along with Prodigal, L'Uomo mesh avatars, brings us a line of muscular, detailed avatars to enhance our Second Lives.

Mesh body hair layer from SJ Thursday

The benefits of mesh avatars often outweighs the costs for those who love a muscular look. A quality modeler can create a mesh avatar like "Bruce" (seen above) with muscles that have lifelike dimensions, rather than those painted onto skins to define our standard avatars. From head to toe, Bruce's details more closely resemble those of a real life muscle man. The fit of clothes designed for the L'Uomo mesh avatars is tighter, fitting to the avatar, rather than hanging off it as so many other mesh designs seem to do. Designers such as SJ Thursday, Georgette, RGDW, and Omega Man create high-quality, sexy clothing designed solely for these avatars.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Black and White and Fascinating All Over

The fascination of Second Life is usually its three-dimensional quality. The ability to pass through a 3-D environment and interact with objects that are textured and shaded to enhance that quality, to make it as life-like as possible, is perhaps the defining feature of the experience of being in SL. What, then, do we make of a sim constructed to the polar opposite of those factors?

This is *C i c a*, the latest Linden Endowment for the Arts installation. It is (apparently) a two-dimensional environment, void of color or significant texture, and peopled by stick figures.




The simple black-line environment is utterly charming. Trees and flowers sway in the breeze, the stick figures interact with each other and their surroundings, and surprising emotion is evoked through the simplicity of the design.


I joined a stick-fisherman on a bridge for a while, looking out over the landscape. It was an odd experience to feel so fully human in SL; the obviously hand-drawn nature of the surroundings made my virtual representative feel less like pixels, having more in common with the line drawings around him than with his operator, and more like flesh and blood.

* C i c a * is an enchanting installation and artist Cica Ghost has created a wonderful venue to either pass through or linger in contemplation.



Saturday, September 15, 2012

Kal Rau Casual M4 Blazers

Available in Dirty, Dark, Brown and Washed with 32 T-shirt Options
Kal Rau has released an incredible new mesh blazer with layered T-shirt, just in time for fall. With four colors to choose to from and an amazing 32 shirt options, plus a no t-shirt option to allow you to show off your sexy chest, this is a must have for your wardrobe as we move into cooler weather. The HUD interface makes changing styles simple. Stop by the store and try on the demo, then grab your favorite color-or all the colors. They're worth it.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Mysterious Wave

I saw a notice today that the "Spirit" installation by claudia222 Jewell will be leaving the art screamer sim in early September. If any of you haven't yet checked out this incredible art experience, I urge you to do so quickly before it's gone on September 9. There will be a closing event on Sunday, which you can learn more about on Chestnut Rau's blog.

So it was with art and the ephemeral nature of it in Second Life on my mind that I happened this morning on Mysterious Wave, another immersive art installation.



Part exhibit, part gallery, part art shop, Mysterious Wave offers a surreal setting filled with eerily enchanting figures and objects.


As I walked closer to the massive tree that forms the heart of the space, I found myself waist deep in what I had thought from a distance were fields of lavender flowers. Instead, the "flowers" were floating, swaying text, the word "poetry" making up a meadow of lavender. I particularly like art that includes text, so I was immediately won over


Some of the art is available for purchase, so considering supporting the creative folks that make SL beautiful and take some of their creativity home with you.




The Mysterious Wave sim has been open in SL for some time, but the exhibits seem to change regularly, so make sure that you visit soon and then return to see what else is on offer.