I have the privilege and honor to design and build clothing for Tibetan monks coming into Second Life to visit and hopefully teach.  I started by building the robes.  I was charmed and touched to learn that I needed to make them off the shoulder as that represents their compassion and their readiness to reach out and help the world.

I chose to sculpt the shoulder parts and noticed that, often, some of the cloth is draped over one arm, so I sculpted that, too.  I used flexi prims to create the other parts of the robes.  However, because the draped portion is on the arm, once the wearer sits, it will stick out, having no flexability.  I approached scripter, Tiny Hickman of TinySoft™ who graciously scripted what I asked for.  The script detects the avatar in a sit position, makes the prim completely invisible, and makes it visible again on standing.  I created a raised arm animation, in DAZ|Studio, which is activated upon wearing the prim (thanks to another script by DrenBoy Opus of Opus Labs).  As the clothing will be based on the actual clothing worn by the monks in real life and the colors and patterning are particular to their order, these robes will be a gift from The Shaolin Temple in Mystical Mastery and will never be sold in that form.    

In looking at the monks’ clothing more closely, there is still much to do to get it just right within the limitations of prims, regular and sculpted.  The final robes and garments beneath them will depict as closely as possible the monastic clothing. Trying to have enough difference between the monastic and ones that could be used in my own products, this variation in velvet will compliment another new dress called Acolyte.  Color variations will be available.  Look for final presentation of this ensemble, here in the blog, soon.

~elfa and namaste