Thursday, March 27, 2008

Second store and OnRez

All of a sudden, I'm finding all these Ancient Egypt sites in SL. I just found a sim called Egypt Nile Valley, where they do roleplaying.

And, again, as with the Temple of the Gods, I got the last tent available.... Maybe I should go out and buy a lottery ticket.

On a related note, I've set up an OnRez account, so you can find Ancient Visions there too.

So, here are all the places where you can find Ancient Visions:
* Temple of the Gods
(Update: Removed the Egyptian RP sim. See entry about new store for details.)
* OnRez
* SLExchange

Soon, I'll build a main store for all my stuff. :) Stay tuned.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Nekhbet, the firstborn


Nekhbet, the first style, is now available, both inworld and in SLExchange.com.

Nekhbet comes in three packages:
* the sheath dress which is available in eight colors
* the accessories that goes with it
* the collar

But you call also get all three in a "full pack".


If you want more than one color, you only need to buy one full pack and buy additional dresses separately. Everything is Mod/Copy and the bands (armbands, wristbands, anklebands) are scripted so you can easily change the textures/colors. You can get more information about the products in SLExchange.

I named the style "Nekhbet", who is the Egyptian vulture goddess, because of the vulture headdress, which was apparently a popular style during those times. To the Egyptians, the vulture is representative of motherhood, so it's actually a good symbol. "Isis" was probably a better name because of the wings design, but there are too many hits when I search for "Isis" so it'd probably get lost in the searches.

As with any new line of products, this took me a long while to do, so I apologize sincerely to friends who had to get my Busy message. At least my custom Busy message made a couple of you chuckle. :D

First, I had to painstakingly recreate the pattern from scratch. Then I had to lay the pattern on a dress template. Then I had to make the straps meet front to back. Then I had to match up the patterns on the sides of the skirt. I didn't even bother with matching edges in the glitch pants, so don't wear the glitch pants alone. And I studied how to do the folds in the material. Sometimes, the folds don't look right after importing into SL. So there was a lot of trial and error involved in this. It's way easier to do a prim skirt, I tell ya. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that the pattern is also deformed where the folds are. ;)

But now that I have the base form, future designs will be a bit easier. Well, maybe 20% easier. *sigh*

To be honest, I was just planning to do the dress itself and the collar, but when I was showing the draft version to Lora Chadbourne along with the source picture, she asked, "How are you gonna do the headdress?" Troublesome girl. So I had to do the rest of the accessories too. But I'm making her wear the bird on her head everytime I see her. :D

And, just for fun, I made a display which makes you imitate the pose of the source picture next to it. You can see it in my tent at the courtyard of the Temple of the Gods, which is an Egyptian-style temple. I was very lucky to get the last tent available. After I finish tweaking that display, I'll post it in a group notice, so don't forget to join the "Ancient Visions" group.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Salaam

Salaam. Peace. It's a beautiful Arabic greeting.

I'm currently working on recreating some ancient clothing and will be setting up shop for these soon.

My current focus for Ancient Visions is Ancient Egypt and Persia, simply because my roleplaying has taken me there. Ancient Greece and Rome are not too far behind. My goal is to recreate those ancient fashions in Second Life as faithfully as I can.

I don't know how big the market is for this. Hopefully, it will appeal to the current roleplayers. Maybe it will attract the attention of educators who are looking for reproductions. And, then, there are costume parties and Halloween.

And, maybe,... just maybe,... even non-RP people might decide to wear them everywhere. After all, this is SL.