New Year 2010

Here's to the new year and new beginnings!

2009 has been a good year, being in a new relationship, making new friends and finally learning to live for myself rather than solely for others.

I want to say thanks to everyone this year, those who have loved me, been loyal to me, helped me and thought of me, and those who have made me a stronger person.

I'm going into this new year with a few lovely new starts - an engagement, finishing university and the beginning of my career (hopefully).

Here's to a brilliant 2010!

Meh..

So what's going in my life lately RL wise? Well I have a shiny new job and I'm just about to start a new year at uni.

I also just got myself a new phone, which I am less than pleased with now. When it came I found some of the features hard to work with but thought I just needed to get used to them.

Now I've heard that there are clones of this phone around and, apparently, mine is one of them. Looking at the pictures on the net of the real ones, the menu icons etc look different to mine and the videos on youtube seem to work so much smoother.

I've also just found out that I could have bought the real version for a few pounds more and had it shipped straight from the UK, instead of waiting around for it to be delivered from China. Now I'm stuck with this stupid lump of plastic that I've suddenly taken a hating to when I could have had a shiny new phone :(

Bit of a rant really, wouldn't really usually wind me up this much. I guess that's what you get from ebaying and getting your hopes up.

Current Happenings

So, I haven't posted for a few days and I thought it was about time I gave you an update as to what I am doing at the mo.

I have been on SL a lot less over the past few days, I'm trying to find something that holds my interest a little more and something fun I can do during the times of boredom. This hunting for something else to do has resulted in me finding and downloading a game called Shaiya - I would join the ranks of the WoWers but I am a poor student with few funds :P - which seems good at the moment, the usual MMORPG layout with elves and stuff like that. Yeah sure, I'm not sure whether getting myself into a game is such a good idea, but it's keeping me entertained.

During my brief time in SL I'm helping with work on Adeo Digital and changing my avatars clothes - that's about it really. In RL I'm waiting to hear from my new employers as to when I will be going for training etc. I'm at home a lot and enjoying the relaxing time, but am looking forward to going back to uni and getting stuck in with the nights out etc. Oh yeah, and the work..

Rezzable Black Swan

Today I took the time to go and visit the Rezzable Black Swan sim. I've never been there before so I thought, since Rezzable are soon apparently leaving Second Life, it would be a good time to go.

The layout of the sim was awesome, I loved following the path to each of the seperate statues and displays. I thought I'd show you some pictures :)

The Little Things..

This blog was originally changed and intended to be about my real life and the goings on there.

However, as you can see it's quickly changed back into a Second Life blog, with a few RL appearances here and there. Over the past 7 months I have taken a hiatus from Second Life to concentrate on my RL, returned to Second Life, began a business with my partner and also become a little lost socially.

I guess I should introduce you to the new business first. It's been a while since I last posted and so, you haven't heard anything about said business. May I introduce you to Adeo Digital (if you can't see it because of Flash, there is a non Flash version coming up soon!). We deal with providing scripting, sculpting, texturing and animation solutions for all kinds of people, something that we (both me and Hell) enjoy doing.

When I first returned to Second Life, I came back with a desire to be a fashion blogger, setting up my own fashion blog Second Thought. That blog is still going, though considerably slower than it was before. With both Adeo and Second Thought I'm never really stuck for things to do productivity wise. However, once thing I have noticed more increasingly throughout the past couple of weeks is the decline in my social activity within SL.

The places where I used to hang out, have an awesome time and feel at home at, don't feel like home anymore.. Either they are empty and quiet, and all of my friends have either gone elsewhere or aren't online as much or I just don't feel the same.

As such, I have been searching for somewhere to meet new people - or meet up with my friends that are still around - so I can have some company during the chilling times. I enjoyed wandering around exploring for a while and taking pictures but this gets very lonely, especially when some people can sit infront of you for half an hour and not even say hi. I am also finding that all of the places I am finding to hang out and meet people aren't the same - not comparing to what I miss from before.

I think SL has become a very lonely place for me, somewhere, perhaps, where I only now find enjoyment when I am working. It'd be cool if I could find a place 'for me' again, but we'll see.

Random thought of the day..

To day I realised that no matter how much work you have to do inworld, how many people you know and how many places you visit.. it can still get lonely sometimes.

Oh and I did a pic :)

So I went exploring..

After a hard days work, I decided to chill out and do what I rarely ever do. Go and explore.

My first thought was to visit the sim of Greenies Home, which I think is an awesome sim and keeps me amused for hours. From there I received a folder full of landmarks of each of Rezzable's builds and so, I decided I'd give each one a visit.

Now what good would a tourist/site see-er be if she didn't take pictures? And I did. I took a LOT of pictures lol.

So I thought I'd show you a selection of my favourites :) (Am having problems uploading so will give you the links!)

Hope you like!

Greenies Home 1

Greenies Home 2

Greenies Home 3

Greenies Home 4

Carnival of Doom 1

Carnival of Doom 2

Carnival of Doom 3

Crimson Shadow

Tunnel of Light 1 (Courtesy of Hell)

Tunnel of Light 2 (Courtesy of Hell)

Time for..

Another of my random arty farty posts, and an update.

I've not been writing much on here recently (tut tut, slap on the wrist) as I've been working on my new fashion blog Second Thought. So far, so good! I'm slowly learning my technique and improving my Photoshop skills along with doing the three things I love to do most when it comes to Second Life: writing, art and dressing my avatar up!

In the RL prospect of things I'm job hunting -.- and generally getting on with things. Oh, and eating cake.

So I was taking a break from all the reviewing and thought I'd take a wander round some places I haven't really looked at before. And I'm very pleased with the resulting pictures. Both are rather dark and somewhat bleak but I feel that they came out well, and look good!

Hope you like ^.^

Abyss

Darkness

Why does everything..

...have to break at once!

Mini rant post here hehe ^.^

So I have a lovely laptop that my grandad bought for me when my old computer get taken away. I treat it like gold, it gets cleaned regularly, kept on clean surfaces only and generally mollycoddled.

So it's typical that it chooses now, less than a year later and just when I'm started to need it to work again, to slowly start breaking bit by bit. So far in the past three days I have been to PC World three times - to buy a mouse, yet another mouse and then a power adapter.

What gets me is that my housemate has a laptop which she throws about, breaks the screen for and generally treats badly and hers is fine! Hehe, ah well, I guess that's just how it is ^.^

So if I suddenly disappear for a bit without a trace, you know what's happened :P

The Official Banner

Something I have been working hard on lately and am really enjoying is my new fashion blog Second Thought.

I have been working on improving my writing and reviewing skills, as well as improving my artwork in Photoshop and within Second Life. After coming up with several new reviews, I've finally got round to creating the official banner for the blog.

I'm really pleased with the final result; the pictures are a lot clearer than my previous attempts and I feel that it looks professional and clean cut. Thanks to Ben Candlin for helping me ^.^

Hope you like!

Another one?!

Only recently it struck me how much I enjoyed fiddling with my avatar's appearance in Second Life, with regards to hair, skin and clothes. Oh and of course shoes! :P

So, as a result of this revelation, may I present to you Second Thought, my new fashion review blog! Now, I must confess I have never written reviews before, but I have done a little researching and am intending to improve vastly during my time writing on the new blog.

I'm hoping to keep the readers updated with any new yummy goodies that I find whilst logged into Second Life, showing them what each product is like and the pros and cons of each item.

I hope you enjoy reading as much as I do writing and taking the pictures ^.^

More Arty Farty and Fun..

I'm sure you're all getting fed up of my arty farty random posts by now, but one more won't hurt huh? Since I last took those pictures featuring Ryker Beck's skin Candace I have, once again, picked up the bug that is random picture taking. No reason, no meaning, except that I enjoy taking them and editing them up for the sake of it.

So I went back into Second Life, and bought myself a new skin. Yes, OK, it was another of the Candace skins from Genesis (soon to be rebranded as Exodi) but this time with more makeup, a more striking look called Spring Reign. The skin itself is beautifully made, the makeup being just enough without going overboard.

In addition to this new buy, I decided to search out Rrishanna Regina and Mr Prad Prathivi's (I don't know why I always call him Mr, the name just has the ring to it don't you think?) newly rebuilt home at Southsea Point. I haven't been around to see the new build and so, wanted to go and check it out. The landscaping is stunning, with a beautiful waterfall in the gardens, rock pools and plants scattered tastefully. The house itself has an appealing simplicity to it, each section leading onto the next with a winding path, which is then echoed by a slatted wooden roof that is just dying to be sat on.

So that's what I did, I sat on the roof and took a couple of pics. And, graphics willing, I think they came out quite well!

Digital Art and Trying Out Ryker's New Skin.

I have been seeing many different pictures go up around Flickr showing Ryker Beck's new skin, Candace, in it's final glory. So, me being me, I had to go and try it and join in ^.^

It was also an opportunity to log back into Second Life for a second, update my avatar's look a little and take a few pictures. Thanks to Ben who let me use his computer ^.^ (Can I have nice graphics please?)

I'm quite pleased with how they came out; I took one showing the whole body and a closer one for more detail. Used a bloom effect on both to highlight them a bit, and they look pretty ^.^

I hope you like!

Gone But Never Forgotten

I have wanted to write this post for a couple of days but have not been sure how to approach it. I wanted to get past the initial surge of surprise posting and state my own thoughts on the subject after the dust had settled.

Recently, we have had to say goodbye to one of my favourite bloggers, Mr Prad Prathivi.

Prad is a good friend of mine, very talented, very dedicated to his work and as such, his blog proved to one of the few blogs that I enjoyed reading regularly. It provided a good, healthy combination of comedic satire, thought provoking pieces and general good natured ranting whilst never taking himself too seriously.

It’s an honest shame to see him go, and I hope that the other bloggers on Metaversally Speaking manage to keep the blog up and running in the absence of this prolific writing figure.

Prad, your posts will be missed by a great number of people and I can only hope that in the future you may decide to take up, again, what has been another string to your bow.

Reaching for the stars..

As you have seen in previous posts, I have been trying my hand at Poser ^^

Well, yesterday me and Ben decided to sit, chill and generally fiddle with a picture or two. Little did we know that we would be up for a further three and a half hours, working late into the night.

It began by me setting a stimulus. For a while now I've wanted to create a picture that captured the lyrics from a certain Nickelback song that means a lot to me recently. So, yesterday I suggested just that, why not make a picture to the lyrics: 

"Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart? You know it's never to late to shoot for the stars regardless of who you are.."

The rest of the picture I can only really credit to Ben. We found a new software called Terragen, through which we created the landscape and lighting with much trial and error. Then, after creating our model in Poser - flowing dress and all - we brought the two together in Photoshop and added the final touches.

Well, when I say 'we' I mean that Ben did the majority of the graphical work, and I watched and suggested ideas.

I'm really pleased with the end result, it looks very realistic and I'm hoping to work on bringing both Terragen and Poser together in more pictures in the future ^^

A Rare Visit

Today I decided to go and visit the Crown and Pearl again in Second Life. I'd heard they were playing a game of SLopoly so that, along with the fact I was missing my friends in general, persuaded me to log in for a little bit and join them.

The game was already going when I joined, however, I sat and chatted for a good while whilst getting very confused by the monopoly game itself (and learning a few things about Monopoly in general - like you trade in it, perhaps that's why I've never finished a game). It was fun to visit again and great to catch up with the people there.

As usual, I managed to get some snaps whilst I was logged in and decided to quickly edit them up before I go to bed. I caught Mr Prathivi playing the piano and a rather nice sunset over the sea (seen at the beginning of the post)

I hope you like them. I'm quite pleased with them considering they were just quick edits.

And now I'm off to bed!

The Next Development

My next picture from Poser ^.^ I seem to be writing a lot of little things on this blog, all of them about nothing in particular, but I'm really pleased with this!

Let's try something else..

OK, so after several more experiments and attempts at getting some extras for DAZ Studio, I have decided that it didn't give me the detail and look I was going for and wiped it off my computer! And now, thanks to Ben, I have Poser to play with ^.^

I've only had a couple of plays with this software, but so far it seems a lot more detailed, easier to use with extra options for editing the character's features and the end result comes out looking a lot better than my experience with DAZ Studio.

Me and Ben spent a good two hours playing around with it the other day, experimenting with different characters and then exporting into Photoshop to play around with it further. The progress of our playing around is shown below:

So here is the first result of our experimenting, just playing around with the positioning of the character and adding in a little lighting.

The result of Ben's editing the picture in Photoshop :) I think the zoom blur really adds to it and creates a feeling of power in the boy's hands.

This is my first attempt at a full blown picture. It has very little editing to it, merely adding in a background and border along with highlighting the eyes. I'm actually really pleased with this.

Ben's final picture. The small version doesn't do it justice, but we had a lot of trouble getting these two to render. I love the sense of intimacy in this picture :)

Drip, drip, drip little April shower..

OK, so yesterday started off fairly dull, clouds everywhere and a little muggy. Me and my housemates made the important decision to go food shopping later on in the day as we desperately needed food and, as we all hate food shopping, we could all spur each other on.

So it was pretty ironic when it began raining roughly about an hour before we were due to set off. Well, it wasn't just raining, it was really pouring it down. And then the thunder began. Now, before I go on I must note that I had been wishing for a thunder storm for quite some time, mostly for the fact I just wanted to run around in the rain! But I didn't really feel like running around in this kind of thunder.

The second flash of lightening sent our TV flickering and the following thunder shook the doors and windows and, almost immediately, the decision was "Screw this, we're not going out."

And for good reason! The rain was coming in through the doors, through gaps in the windows.. it felt like everywhere at the time.. the house seemed to be falling apart in front of our eyes.

But the rain stopped in time, and the house didn't fall down, and we did go shopping, and the taxi was late, and it began to rain again as we were waiting outside the house.

Then we got to the shops and spent way too much, and stood outside waiting for another taxi in the rain. For half an hour.

Ah, don't you just love the timing of British weather :)

The Lady

Yesterday I found and downloaded some software called DAZ Studio 2.3, and decided to give it a go.

I started off my Photoshopping through Second Life, using the original digital pics and editing them a little to make them a little more 'arty'.

Since I have left Second Life I have been finding it hard to find some way of continuing my digital art and now, I think I've found it!

This is my first attempt at creating a picture. It's called The Lady and is a combination of DAZ Studio and other graphics I found round and about the internet.

I'm hoping to carry on improving with practice and time :)

Total Revamp

A drastic change to the appearance of the blog, and a drastic change to the content!

Welcome to my new real life blog! I'm going to concentrate on what means a lot to me in life - updates, moments, occasions and all the little things that make my life what it is!

I'll try to be a good blogger and keep it up to date and regular!