Digression - Having Fun.

 
 You know those moments when you just want to do something for the sheer fun of it? Well I had one of those recently and had a ball so excuse me for digressing from the SL story for now while I take you to my crazy creations. And some are, well... crazy.

Occasionally I stare at my computer without an idea to bless myself with, that's when I play. Out comes the wacom and a blank canvas and on goes some paint any-old-how. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but that's what creating is all about. Sometimes it's something I can't use but starts an idea that moves me along.

The QTest Kritter (customise)[TBA] by MisTikkal
This strange Kritter began as a bit of scribble and took on a life of its own. It was one of those days when I was playing with pen and ink and going nowhere fast. I took a partial drawing, placed it on a blank canvas and out came QTest Kritter. Staggers me that this little thing ended up with a TBA (Today's Best Award). That did teach me a lesson however. Go with the Muse when the Muse says "I'm having a day (week, month) off unless you 'play'." So the next time that happened I twiddled my thumbs for a while before confronting the blank square of white but about the same time Zazzle introduced some new products and suddenly I was wired to go. That was when "Rok Chik Stars" was born and I went a little crazy - magnets, keyrings, tshirts, tiles, keepsake boxes and notebooks/pad. I had a ball.

Retro Rok by MisTikkal

BFF ROK STAR CHIKS by MisTikkal

Rok Chiks by MisTikkal

Rok Chik Stars by MisTikkal

Rock Star by MisTikkal

Rok Chik Roadie by MisTikkal

And that's just the beginning. But joy oh bliss, Zazzle introduced PUZZLES! Interlocking jigsaw puzzles. I've loved jigsaws since I was a wee thing. By the time I was 8 I was onto the puzzles as big as space would allow. So when Zazzle brough puzzles in I jumped at the chance to design them. No I haven't forgotten "Eutopia". I'm on the way to designing puzzles with some of those SL pics - sketching, painting, and coming up with some lovely designs for gifts or for those who just can't pass a puzzle by. I've only started so there's lots more to come.

The Boat Shed by MisTikkal

Garden Benches and Gazebo by MisTikkal

Until next time hope you too are having fun. May your holidays be full of joy and peace. Bye for now

Eutopia PART 2 - before and after

Thus far the only shots have been the finished product but I thought it might be interesting to anyone who does not know how these pictures arrive at our computers to see a little of the work involved. The small pics from FAA can be clicked on and will take you to the original, much larger and clearer picture, unblurred and with all the detail visible.


Max's Rustica has been a favourite from the first time I saw it. The before pic shows his talent, but not the warmth of both his creation  and his personality.

Before

And after

The White Taj had a host of problems, including a badly distorted background. Not a major problem as I wanted to treat it to a digital watercolour treatment, but an annoyance as this doesn't always happen, it's one of those unpredictable hitches that occur and can include bars at the sides and down the middle of a picture. Most annoying for a perfectionist.

Fractured and tiled water in the background and I didn't like the pink clouds as they didn't match up with the rest of the picture, also the messy background detracted from the central focus of the Taj itself, a wonderfully creative piece of SL architecture.

Treated to some watercolour, sketching and a few effects.

The windmill was actually quite a clear picture, but the I wanted the main focus of attention to be on the windmill itself. I had some fun painting and then playing with the appearance of this one.

This was fun to do and ArtRage makes painting a joy.

I hope you enjoyed an inside look at part of the process. It's not my intention to persuade anyone they can't live without SL :) Second Life is not everyone's cup of tea. My main desire is to give credit, and yes, thanks, to the creators who have made SL the imaginative experience it is for those of us who do enjoy visiting and can count among their friends some of those creators. I have found overall that the artists and creators inside SL are very generous and helpful as well as a lot of fun to be around.


Comments are welcome.


To be continued. :)

EUTOPIA & EUPHORIA

Eutopia and euphoria are two words that seem to go together, but it didn't start that way, at least not for me.

One of many aspects of Tempura

This is my story of how I entered SL (Second Life) full of mocking cynicism and how and what changed my mind.


Illness and Recovery
After a long illness I faced the boredom of recovery and recouperation. Recovery is in some ways more taxing than illness. The desire for a return to normalcy is high therefore so is the frustration level when strength and concentration can't live up to expectations, so a few hours in front of a computer seemed a more rewarding diversion than the rubbish served up on TV.


I had laughed (derogatively) about the virtual world of SL, but decided to look at what the fuss was about, assuming I would have some more laughs in doing so. In time I learned to eat humble pie over that attitude.

Svarga was the first sim (virtual parcel of land) that captured my imagination. And so ... I began to 'tour'. These pictures and the blog are the result of almost 4 years work in obtaining the skills and knowledge to present my artwork based on my thoughts and feelings about SL.






Capture
What captured me and kept me there?


At first it was the astonishing creativity I encountered. Later it was the friends I made, friends from all over the world.


When do-gooders and politicians decry SL for their own biased reasons, I think of the 'shut-ins' I've met who, while in SL, meet, greet, make friends, and learn new skills - skills that can be applied in the real world, or RL (Real Life) as we say in SL;  friendships that span both worlds and would otherwise be impossible. Given how SL friendships enriched my own life at a time when recovery kept me shut inside to the point where I became quite agoraphobic, I have little patience with fundamentalists of whatever colour and belief that seek to ban SL.  Their reasons are, as usual, to do with sex (ho hum!). Of course there is sex in SL ... hello! there are human beings in SL.


Horse and carriage. Where's the one, there's the other. Funny how the people who most want to do away with SL seem to know more about the sex sims than the rest of us! Oh, whoops, except of course, those journos who go looking for sex stories to spice up their badly written 'human interest stories'. Sorry, if you're looking for those I just haven't had time to find them and capture them. Maybe later :)







Controversy
If you want to get into some controversial arguments the best place to start is with Linden Labs, what they are doing (or rather NOT doing) to protect creators:
the viewers that leave LL's own viewer eating the dust:
the loss of Phoenix and all the fuss around that loss:
not to mention the sacking of some 30 LL personnel who were fully engaged in SL and both supportive and protective of SL creators.  
Now that's worth getting in a knot about. And it's just the start.
So hold off on all the blah about sex sims and let's talk about creativity.

One of the most imaginative and most visited sim creators in SL and recognised outside of Second Life for her considerable talents.

Creativity and SL
Sadly more than a few sims, and quite a number of creators in SL have departed, and not because they had other or better things to do. They left because of theft.

Maxwell Graf - creator of Rustica - has had more than his fair share stolen by those who do not respect copyright. His artistic talent ensures that his creations stand out as unique, and his sim at Rustica is much more than a place to buy 'interesting furniture'.

There are those in SL who come in with what has become known as a 'game mentality'. Perhaps they've played other 'games' where winning was everything. The thing is, Second Life is NOT a game. It's a social platform where one can indeed play games if that's what one wants. But a game it is not. Games have defined roles and goals.


Ironically if it was a 'game' and the rules were enforced, the losers would be those who steal, sometimes in ways that are so blatant as to leave the most vocal stunned into silence.


This is my tribute to those creators who enriched my life during my recovery, and who continue to amaze, surprise, and delight me. My wish for you is that LL will at last wake up to the fact that without you, there is no SL. Without your talent, imagination, willingness to work for a pittance and put in long long hours to produce marvels, SL would (and may yet) die.



May you continue to flourish and give us wonders to enjoy. Every minute spent working on these has reminded me of just how much joy I had in those first months of recovery when every day seemed bleak until my cynicism was wiped out and my eyes were opened to a whole new world. A world that included friends from
USA
China
Japan
UK and
Germany to name a but a few.
My heartfelt thanks.

(To be continued)