…and a firefly to read ‘er by: a place to read for tinies and faeries

Getting ready to put the finishing touches on my class in Mystical Mastery this weekend teaching how to make prim mushrooms and a firefly to read by that you can click on and off. The build, if you are not inclined to building your own, will also be available, with sculpted mushrooms, at my stores soon, including my new store for tinies at Raglan Shire that I have alongside my good friends, DrFran Babcock, Shadow Marlin and Vanilla Jessop.

~elfa and namaste

posted by Eleanora Newell on Mystical Mastery using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

no stone unturned: cypress rosewood plays at stonehenge

The start of another aural masterpiece from Cypress Rosewood. The setting is fittingly mystical in a sim, itself, called Mystica, where the audience sways to the entrancing flow of notes from Cypress’ native american flute. Cypress was excited because he had added a new synthesizer which he MIDIed to his main keyboard.  It simultaneously plays the same notes, but can be made to sound different.

Live music is thriving in Second Life!  I find it amazing that people from their home studios or parlors or wherever they happen to stream in from, can provide these wonderful concert venues and reach the four corners of the Earth.  It is also great to see artists introduced to new and more global audiences that, from the standpoint of attendance, fully enjoy them.

~elfa and namaste

posted by Eleanora Newell on Mystica using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

Mastering Motown: Bob Olhsson interviewed on When Worlds Collide

Olh Oh (seen above), whose real life name is Bob Olhsson, was interviewed by our intrepid Cypress Rosewood at his live radio interview show, When Worlds Collide, which is streamed into Second Life.

Olh’s real life avatar, Bob Olhsson, has a wonderful history with Motown, of which he was a part in the 1960s. Motown was an impactful part of my young life and accompanied me through life-changing events such as puberty, my first sock-hop, and my first slow-dance (when the nun’s weren’t watching).  Memories flooded in as I listened to Bob regale Cypress with stories of the early days of this historical music sound.  This man was responsible for mastering some of my favorite songs that I literally wore out on my record player.   Legendary songs by Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder.  There was so much joy in his retellings and just not enough time to but scratch the surface.  I believe Cypress will bring him back for more and to speak more about his involvement in Second Life and the availability of live music on the grid as opposed to the diminishing venues in real life.

Bob has a website and you can find his music industry forum there as well.  I look forward, with great anticipation, to seeing him come back to the show.  Anyone who missed this, missed a great interview and opportunity to meet a significant participant in musical history.

~elfa and namaste

posted by Eleanora Newell on Jarang using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

huntress: coming back to something put aside

I had started this outfit last year and then had other things pull me away, but have decided this back into the work queue because I really loved the way it was coming out.  I have two skirts for it (so far a bell and a western bustle style) and a blouse with a hand-painted cameo.

The basic little jacket is quite alluring without the blouse as it offers a delightfully plunging neckline.  Cuffed sleeves sport fringe trim.  There will also be pants and boots.  The leather has a hand-drawn design which will be available in gold and in silver.  The leather will have a variety of colors as well.

~elfa and namaste

think it to pieces: creating rl things with sl prims

Even the simplest things need to be brought down to prim components.  So let’s take a look at the baby pacifier I made the other night. There are seven regular prims in Second Life.  The box, cylinder, prism, sphere, torus, tube, and ring.  

Each of these prims can be cut, pressed and twisted to create a variety of shapes which when used with other “tortured” prims,  can yield a wide range of objects with a little vision and practice.  

 

The exploded version at the left shows the pieces that were utilized for the pacifier.  The handle needed a half-round ring type…that could be a torus.  The mouth guard, upon which the nipple sits, could be done with a flattened cylinder.  The nipple, itself, requires a shape not entirely available: round at the top, conish and tapered at the bottom.  I used a combination of a cylinder and a sphere.  

Then it’s a matter of playing with the sizes and shapes, flattening, elongating, tapering,  and path cutting (kind of like making a wedge cut).  Fit the shapes and enlarge, rotate and assemble until it resembles what you are trying to make.  This is rather simple and necessitated only four pieces.  Other things may require many more.  

In the end, when I was texturing the prims, I wanted some translucency on the nipple and realized in order to do that I would need to rotate and do another special function on the sphere called dimpling which I will explain in future segments.

Ultimately, it’s important to have fun and just play with the prims to see what can be done with them and keep at it because there are always mores ways to do the same things and techniques you learn from one piece can be applied to more and more as you grow your building skills.

~elfa and namaste 

relay for life in second life: save up your lindens

My mom died of complications from breast cancer in 1999.  Thanksgiving Day, to be exact.  My grandmother, some nine months from her 100th birthday, died two days before Christmas the following month.  My grandmother had had a long wonderful life.  My mom, born in 1928, was still very young in comparison and, so, it was more sad to me.  The real tragedy, however, is that this dreadful disease had claimed one more to add to its far too numerous victims. 

When I first joined Second Life,  I started hearing about RFL.  What’s that I asked?  Relay for Life, came the response.  Then I found out it benefited the American Cancer Society which had been so good to my mom.  Of course, I had to get involved. 

Relay for Life is Second Life’s major charity fundraiser.  There are ongoing events throughout the year.  Stores have storewide sales for a day with profits going to RFL.  Some people, me included, create products, whose proceeds go to RFL in perpetuity.  There are concerts and fairs.  I participated in one fair where I built a Honeybee ride to raise money.  Huge prim roses towered over the event field while the honeybees looped around them.  It was enough to make anyone go, “Wheeeeeeeeeeee!” 

At the big fairs, there are people who run, as in real life, along paths that wind through areas where artists and builders have joined to create wonderful prim environments as the runners, wearing pedometers which track the leg movements of the avatar, raise money with each step.  

The last big fair had wondrous recreations of Lord of the Rings and The Wizard of Oz (replete with tornado and dropped house on the unfortunate witch with the ruby slippers). This year will be no different and you will have the opportunity to enjoy these amazing visualizations, partake of special products, and all you need do is share some lindens for life.  That life may be gone before us or someone in the struggle or, all goodness willing, preventing someone from losing another loved one.  So when you see the RFL sign in Second Life, join us in the fight against cancer.

Oh, and yes, that is me with my mom on the day I came home from the hospital. I found the picture after she died and remains one of my favorite pictures. For all the misunderstandings, shortcomings and disappointments there were between us, I can look at that picture and know that there was also perfect love between a mother and her newborn child. Thanks, Mom.

~elfa and namaste

Cat’s in the Cradle

My friend, Alex Mensing (oh, maybe make that former friend?) sat in a shinto cradle Fox Obviate made, so I quickly whipped up a pacifier, put it in her mouth and took a pic before she could take a bite outta me. (Runs away! Runs away!) Goo-goo gah-gah, dear friend! *grins*
posted by Eleanora Newell on Mystical Mastery using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

The Oh! Factor Showcased at

My outfiits were displayed at the POSE ACADEMY January Showcase today.posted by Eleanora Newell on The Centurion using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]

the oh! factor showcased in designer showcase today

The Oh! Factor cordially invites you to 

The January Designer Showcase 

at the Posé Modeling Academy in Second Life.

 

My Adagio, Impressionista, Joyeux, Wings of Love and Precious Egyptian outfits will be modeled by

the Academy’s beauties for your viewing pleasure.

 

Outfits may be purchased at the show.

 

21st of January 2008

4 p.m. SLT/Pacific time

 

Located at The Posé Modeling Academy main runway.

Live DJ

Sexy models

Sexier Outfits

 

The Centurion (182, 60, 21)

 

Contact Eleanora Newell,

inword or in the blog comment field,

if you have any questions.  I may also be reached at

eleanora.newell@gmail.com.

Cypress Rosewood plays for Africa

I find the power of a person, standing on a stage with a simple instrument, to be quite compelling. The three artists who have played today each have their own inimatable approaches to the music and are able to pull such different sounds from these simple pieces of wood. Each chose to speak words about Africa, the most moving of which came from Thom Dowd, who blended his seamlessly with his music, but all words paled to the transcendant beauty of their music which can penetrate so deeply to the soul and engage the psyche in a way that I find words can fail to do.  Music is a universal language that passes through barriers and connects us in ways that other forms of communication can sometimes not bridge.  ~elfa and namaste

posted by Eleanora Newell on Africa using a blogHUD : [blogHUD permalink]