Merry Christmas !

5th Annual "Christmas at Wild Castle" Ball

Happy Holidays !

Time for the Christmas Expo !!!

Slideshow from Relay For Life of InWorldz

Today is the day for the Second Relay For Life of Inworldz !

Slideshow of Images from this year's Burn2

Happy 7th Anniversary, Avilion

Time for Burn2

Burn2 is here. Art and various events will cover the next days.
Unfortunately my pass for the press day did not get through, so for the moment I share the press release about this year's edition

Announcing the Selected Artists From Submissions For Juried Plots, BURN2 2013

Press Contact: Mia Quinote
communications@burn2.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, August 11, 2013
BURN2 is happy to announce the 2013 Juried Art and Theme Camp plot winners! We had 19 applicants this year who submitted proposals to amaze us, engage us, and energize the playa with their amazing builds! You’ll see artists who have never been on the playa before, as well as seasoned artists who generously create participatory art over the years; artists whom we have grown to love. You can see these artists and more when the gates open at BURN2 for a week of creative celebration and festivities starting October 19th!  We’re planning a full week and we’re getting very excited in the planning stages with everything coming together for a great event!

Thank you EVERYONE who submitted applications for these plots. Your ideas ARE AMAZING, and it did not make for an easy decision process.  For those who submitted, we  want to let you know it’s not too late to grab your own plot and build your camp.
And to a Lamplighter’s drum roll, we announce the names of the 10 selected artists and the titles of their builds:

• Giovanna Cerise "The magic of objects" 
• Alesha Hax "Cult­Ure Queen" 
• MORLITA Quan "Sokofa" 
• Loki Eliot "The Sand Fairy" 
• Caro Fayray "Anomaly" 
• Ginger Lorakeet "Inside Art" 
• Juliana Burns "Camp Marshmallow" 
• catboy Qunhua "Catboy's Camp of Cuisine, Culture, and Comedy"       
• Sarrah Docherty "Cargo Train"
• Marianne McCann "Inner Child Camp"

>>>MORECongratulations Art plot and Theme Camp winners!

BURN2 is an official Burning Man Regional, following the 10 Principles and spreading Burning
Culture through volunteerism and the celebration of Community, Art, and Fire on the virtual
playa. A place for SL residents and Burners alike to radically participate in one of the most
loved events in Second Life.

The theme this year is "CARGO CULT."  Learn more about the theme here:
http://www.burningman.com/art_of_burningman/bm13_theme.html

Some important dates for the Juried Camp Artists

Building starts: 9/20/13
Building/placement ends: 10/12/13
BURN2 Cargo Cult opens: 10/19/13
BURN2 Cargo Cult ends: 10/27/13

All builders and artists agree to comply with the Ten Principles of Burning Man and BURN2
(http://www.burn2.org/ten­principles) and the BURN2 Builder Guidelines
(http://www.burn2.org/Builderguidelines).  All builders and artists agree to comply with Linden
Lab’'s Terms of Service and Community Standards.
We encourage the press to provide this information to the public, and please join us in seeing
the immediacy creativity of moment that participatory art can create on the playa at BURN2!

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We encourage you to use the following labels and hashtags when you write about the event:
BURN2,  #burn2 . We will promote those tags to make it easier for people to find your content.
Want more information? 

Check out these resources:

Website: http://burn2.org
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/burn2/
Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/BURN_two
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/BURN2BURNERS
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Burn2.SL/
Regional Page: http://regionals.burningman.com/regionals/cyberspace/second­life/

Contact people: communications@burn2.org
Steering Committee: steering@burn2.org
BURNING MAN Regional Contact: secondlife@burningman.com

the new Issue of Prim Perfect is out

Prim Perfect: Issue 49 - September 2013

Publish at Calameo or read more publications.

Slideshows from the Relay

the Relay is Opening !

From Relay Weekend and Track 2013

Today We Relay !

From Relay Weekend and Track 2013

Under the Sea Expo

Happy 10th Birthday , Second Life !!!

Home and Garden Expo

Time for the Home and Garden Expo. Always a fascinating event that every years fills my inventory with fabulous buildings that I'll never be able to rezz :D

Fantasy Faire Featured Shop : Mythos by Karalia Halostar

You can't miss Mythos, when visiting the Lumenaria sim at the Faire. It is the one in a bubble, at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lumenaria/189/194/31

Karalia Holostar started creating around 2009, getting his inspiration after having toured in awe the sims of Julia Hathor. After finding some tutorial by Torley Lindens on Youtube (for which he's still grateful) he started his adventure as a SL creator.

Karalia mainly specialize in buildings, landscapings and plants and he's also increasing his collection of fountains. His creations are fantasy themed, even if he defines them "weird n wonderful".

He gives me some samples of his creations and also some images of his main products, and all look charming.

The next three photos are courtesy of Karalia Holostar

Especially for the Fantasy Faire Karalia prepared two exclusive products : the amethyst rose cottage, in FL purple colors, and the candy tree.

Karalia also has a sim where his main shop resides: a lovely place, surely worth a visit, where you can recognize the feeling you get visiting his shop.

Not much time left for this year's Fantasy Faire, but there is still time and a visit to Mythos' shop is worth. And right next to Karalia's shop you can also find Pyewicket’s Myths the shop belonging to Pyewicket Tiger, Karalia's partner, who is displaying an impressive look worth a visit by itself !

Fantasy Faire Featured Shop : Dinkies by Etheria Parrott

The sim of Ravenshard is without any doubt the most yummy of the entire Fantasy Faire. And is it a suprise that it is the sim that hosts the colony of tiny merchants at the Faire ?

Among shops such as Druscilla's Whim (which I covered last year) , Stuff Xavian Made and Totally Tinies we find Dinkies, the shop by Etheria Parrott. Etheria's shop is very interesting and unique, since she creates the more and more popular mesh-based tiny avatars. Dinkies are increasing popular and they have the right to be. They are absolutely adorable!

Etheria, like many other secondifers started manipulating prims at the Library of Prims, teaching herself how to build from examples and diagrams. Soon she made a prim teddy bear avatar and set it for sale. The teddy bear was successful and gave her a small income that was enough to pay rental on a shop and make clothes for the avatar. From the teddy bear the next step was a range of quad puppy avatars that people seemed to love too.

The sculpties era started and Etheria realized that she needed a 3D editing program to create things with them, so she started learning Blender.

With sculpties Etheria made an avatar of Yoda, that has always been very popular.

And then mesh came out, so she needed to learn yet another whole new way of modelling. At first Etheria made a Disney baby Brave Bear. For obvious reasons she could not market that in SL. It was an experiment to see if she could make a tiny mesh avatar and it worked. Then, in Etheria's own words, "... a friend suggested reshaping the head to make a cat so I tried and it worked. And that's how a litter of Dinkies were born".

Dinkies are painted in 3D coat from real photographs. Most of them from the photographs of several cats. It is still not easy to find all the angles needed, so sometimes it is necessary to make some of it up.

Dinkies have been very successful so far, even the Fantasy Faire committee has adopted the Dinkies as their "uniform" during the current campaign. Etheria however likes to look ahead, so she is now thinking about making more clothes for them. She is about to release a designer's kit so that anyone can design for Dinkies. 

Eventually Etheria is considering making also animals other than cats, but that's going to be a major effort since she would need new bodies designed from scratch. In the short term she is considering adding two more options to the 6 different types of cats she has now. This won't be trivial either. As mentioned, finding the right photos to make a new cat is not an easy task, and recently Etheria has been more concerned with clothing for the Dinkies.

Another major feature of Dinkies is that they work very well with the animations created for biggies (regular avatars). AOs and most dances work fine and the feeling is very smooth and natural.

Etheria shares with me a video of a performance (Rynn Verwood and Lauren Thibaud) that took place at the Faire the day before. Absolutely Fabulous !

Etheria graciously offers me to try a Dinkie, and I choose a grey one. It is absolutely cute and my AO and all the dances I try work perfectly. It is very funny to see a little cat using all those poses that I have became used to associate to the big avatar of Admiral Beaumont. Yet they say the the little cat is still me!

Here in the next pictures you can see kitty me near Etheria :-) 

Etheria has also produced some specific animations for Dinkies. So far she made a stand, a sit and and a laydown.

The Dinkies shop came late to the Fantasy Faire, so Etheria did not have the time to make anything explicitly faire-related, but she has a lovely pair of Dinkies velcro dinosaur trainers in a RFL vendor and they have sold very well so far.

I thank Etheria for her kindness and her patience answering to my questions, and I leave her with the promise to "spread the love". Dinkies deserve it !

Bay City Fashion Week

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/North%20Channel/128/128/25

Fantasy Faire Featured Shop: Raven's Heart by Thane Woodford

Raven's Heart is a shop where everybody trying to create a natural looking region may find something interesting.

Thane Woordford welcomes me into the shop telling me about his experience as a creator in SL: " "I am a jeweler rl, and when I entered SL it was like finding a whole new box of crayons in colours I had never seen before"

Thane has always been a creator, either of physical things or less tangible things, like songs. He grew up in an orchard farm and he has been mostly influenced by nature and the whole Art Nouveau period. First arrived in SL to view historical recreation sites, building bit hit pretty soon when he decided to learn how to make the maps that he wanted and could not find.

After the meeting with Sea Warcliffe, and his partner Beautiful Shamen, at Builder's Brewery, they started working as a team.

Raven's Heart specializes in low prim but natural looking things. 

Thane explains : "It has definitely evolved as I have learned more ways to twist the tail of my program, I also get ideas from my group, who are never shy of asking for what they want. I do abstract shapes for jewelers and clothing makers, statuary, symbols, I kind of go through periods of fascination with a form."

For the past years Thane has created many items for Relay For Life but, for this year's Fantasy Faire, he has created the mushroom cluster and stained glass window that can be found in the RFL vendors. Another item, still under construction, will be available for the auction.

RFL is very important for Thane, who is facing the battle in his own family these very days.

In his sim, Talisman, Thane did also set up a place where people can light candles for others who need healing or have passed over.

Thane ends our chat stressing once more the importance to create low prim items, so that
even people on a 512 plot can have a bird or a rabbit or a fawn in their yard.

Raven's Heart can be found at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lotus%20Valley%20Dream/41/195/32

Fantasy Faire Featured Shop: Niekra's Dreams by Niekra Torvalar

Niekra creates fantasy avatars, based both on her own original roleplaying stories and on various MMO games she plays, such as World of Warcraft and Aion. For instance the outfits for her sun priestess avatars were based off of a original Desert Elf story she and a friend came up with. They're part of a oasis town called the Sun Solace

Niekra's work started in 2009 with a small shop embedded in a much larger shop area. Since then she moved to her own space. I visited the main shop and it is very nice and elegant.

Niekra's avatar are mostly Fantasy subjects, elves, demons, but also humans and other creatures.

The shop area at the Fantasy Faire is in the beautiful and mysterious sim of DragonSpire at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20DragonSpire/142/49/38 and it is as charming as the main shop.

For the Fantasy Faire Niekra prepared two avatars, Shade and Pride, which are available at the store from in RFL vendors. Other products were also specially updated with more color options.

Here's, in the next picture, yours truly modeling the Shade Avatar

A stop by Niekra's Dream is strongly suggested when you are visiting the Fantasy Faire !

Fantasy Faire Preview Slideshow

More Fantasy Faire Preview

the Fantasy Faire is coming