Heaven and Hell

Skin: Munchflower Zauis
Angel wing hair credit: ETD
Demon wing hair credits: Lost Thereian

Open Registration Thoughts

I popped over to the birthday sim the other day and smack into the middle of a town hall meeting with Philip Linden. The issue of the day was the new open registration.

Personally, I am worried about this too. Mainly because of the age issue. If you take away the safeguard for keeping kids out of the main grid, then I think that opens up LL to a big liability. I'm not convinced that they will be able to keep kids out. And I think that in general, the Lindens are rather naive about the graphic sexual nature of SL. I don't know, we'll see what happens.

I also wonder if we'll see more content creators in developing countries. Which will be interesting. If someone in South East Asia has access to the software and some talent, they could easily become the next big dress designer. And like any global competition, they will be able to produce things cheaper. Or script cheaper. Or build cheaper.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing . . . it will just be very interesting.

Time to get off the computer soon, I think my wrist needs a rest day. (I have had issues with carpal tunnel for years.)

No refunds

*sigh* In the past week or so, I've had a few (ok, just 2) people want a refund on their wings. For both, their reason was basically buyer's remorse. One person said he never wore the wings.

I buy a lot of stuff in SL. Some of it looks really great in the ad box picks but when I put it on, it doesn't look right. And for stuff I never wear . . . heh, would you like to see my hair folder??? I've bought plenty of hair that just doesn't work for whatever reason. But you don't see me whining to the creators. No, I suck up the fact that I spent 50cents on a something I don't like and move on.

So now I have a refund policy. I didn't want to do this. It makes it look like I don't stand behind the items I sell, but I do. I want people to be happy with my wings. If the wings have a problem, I want to know. If someone wants a certain feature, again, I want to know. I probably can't give them that feature right away, but I often incorporate the idea into future releases.

But I also can't accept refunds on items that someone bought 2 weeks ago and has suddenly decided they just don't like.

I do wonder if this will hurt my sales. *sigh*

Dragonfly Wings

I've been wanting to design some dragonfly wings for quite some time now.

These are translucent, like a real dragonfly wing would be . . . just a bit more um colorful.

Again, I should post a full body shot . . . but it's Friday evening (again) and I'm lazy and Ziggy is home from work and I want Chinese food . . .

Credits:
all hair by Rita Groshomme
skin by Munflower Zaius

Relay for Life Angel Set

The very talented Tuli Asturias and I teamed up to create this Angel outfit set. All proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society Relay for Life Fund. The limited edition outfit includes lace undershirt, underpants, socks, gloves and 2 cute flexible angel wings.

The wings are nonscripted, but they are still flexi. I will sell you the scripted versions of the wings if you want, but you have to donate another 200L to the Relay for Life Fund. You can IM me for details.

This was so much fun to create and it was great to work with Tuli, who was very patient with me. I am not always easy to work with - I tend to get bogged down in details at times. And lately I'm just very easily distracted. But I think this collaboration is really special and it certainly goes to a VERY worthwhile cause.

Available in world at:
Material Squirrel
and
Lollypop

Trade-In & blog links

I've been meaning to mention this for a while now, but I keep forgetting.

If you have 3.0 version of my wings in the normal size and it is interferes with your arms, I will accept trade-ins for the new 3.1 version of the wings. The new version doesn't cut into the arms as much. Of course, it will if you put your arms behind you, but there is nothing I can do about that.

Just drop me a folder with the old wings in it and I will drop you a new set of wings. Or you can IM me with the name of the wings as well.

Again, this is only for 3.0 flexi wings in the normal size. Not the Grande size.

--

Also, if you have a SL blog and want to do a link trade (link mine, I'll link yours), then drop me a comment.

Am I wearing my prim skirt correctly? And other assorted topics of the day.

So I'm wearing this cute prim skirt . . . and I must admit, aside from that one experience with Starley's prim skirt which I did not wear correctly, I'm a prim skirt virgin. In this case, I just attached the darn skirt and it looks pretty good. But it sits low on the hips. Barely on the hips in fact. So . . . is that where a prim skirt should sit?

This animation pose doesn't really show it off to the best ability, but it was sooo cute.

Credits on this outfit:
Wings: Um, me
Hair: Toast Bard (with a little recoloring)
Skirt: PixelDolls
Shirt: Luxe (Mistress Midnight)
Tights: Canimal Zephyr
Shoes: Lynnix Muse

---

Celebrity Trollop mentioned my wings and Tuli Asturias' clothing designs in her SecondStyle Fashionista blog. Tuli and I met a few days ago and we're hoping to do more clothes/wing outfit combinations.

Which nicely segues into me mentioning my new store build. I'm hoping to collaborate with several people - including Selene Sterling for a store with more clothes & wings. I hope it will lean towards the fantasy/fae/mystical realm. Like I told Ziggy when I was describing my store build - "I want it goth & fantasy but not too twee." Luckily I had some room to grow at my plot in Eunpyung. I'm hoping this will be the last build for some time - it's rather distracting.

And while we're on the subject . . . I am so uncreative about buildings, mine are so boxy. *sigh* But hopefully I'll be adding some details to this that should make the whole thing look better. I've had a blast with detailed texturing . . . but the build itself is still fairly typical. Oh well.

New Wings - Celtic Style

New Celtic-inspired wings, with a dark theme.

These also come in purple and blue (not pictured cause I'm lazy). I'm trying to offer more wing colors when possible. People often ask for a wing texture in a different color. Specifally, they ask for purple, blue, red, or black. I've only been asked for pink ONCE.

A certain critic mentioned that I should post more full body pics to show off the wings. I intend to do this. But it's Friday and laziness is triumphing today.

RL products vs SL products

Lately in SL blogs and discussions, I've heard a lot about real life businesses coming to SL to sell their wares. Aimee Weber has designed a SL store for American Apparel that sparked an interesting discussion on the forums. Ordinal Malaprop said that rl companies would be "handicapped by their preconceptions" and I think that states the case beautifully.

For example, I make wings in SL. This is not a real life product. Unless they get really good at genetic engineering, it never will be.

This isn't a new discussion - I've been hearing about this since I joined in 2004. "What if Hot Topic had a store and you could buy a SL Hot Topic shirt and then they'd also send you a RL Hot Topic shirt?"

First, the skinny ass avatar's clothing might not fit the RL counterpart. For example, I'm a tall female av in SL. Why? Because I'm short in RL damnit. I wanted to tower over men and be able to reach the tall kitchen shelves. Well, if I had a SL kitchen I guess. I suppose that's a barrier that could be overcome . . . but would it be worth it?

And that's the real question, is there any money for RL companies selling SL stuff? Probably not. Sure, there are a few land barons making BIG money. But content creators that make good money are not cashing out to the tune of an amount of cash that would interest a big company. If they make a decent yearly salary, that's really not enough for a company to imagine hiring a work force and paying them to create content. Time is money.

On the other hand . . . I think that there is a possibility for RL companies to promote their brand in SL. And actually, I think the American Apparel store is one of the best examples I've seen of it yet. They'll get people to come to the store because it's unique to have a RL company in SL and people will go visit their website and maybe buy stuff.

But then when Gap comes along and tries the same thing . . . that promotion will be stale and no one will be interested.

And that's the problem, these companies have to continue to think unique. And most RL companies aren't terribly good at doing that. Go read Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin. The whole book is about how these days you really have to be unique so the early adapters notice you and then promote your brand. That's the key to having a RL or SL Starbucks-like phenomenon.

Groovy Skybox, Baby

In SL, it's a challenge to find furniture that does not say "Harem Love Slave" or "Blood Drinker." Not that there is anything wrong with such genres or themes - but I wanted something different for my skybox.

Partly because I often have customers up there for custom wing requests and I don't want people to get the impression that they are walking into my luuuuuv shack, because they are not. Again, love shacks are cool if that is your thing, but my skybox is mostly a working place. So I wanted something fun, something playful.

After MUCH searching, I finally found these awesome couches by Laurie Partridge. They are only 75L each, score! The zebra lamps are also created by Ms. Partridge and they will set you back a whole 10L. The hanging lamp is by Xandi Mars. She had some adorable furniture at her store, but it was a little bit more than I wanted to pay and I had a hard time seeing how I was going to mix and match.

I know many people want the whole furniture set or outfit, but I really love to mix and match.

Both furniture designers had their shop locations in their picks, so I won't bother to list out the shop locations. (Plus I'm not logged into SL right now and I'm lazy.)

Trixy Wings

Also available in Green (pictured in last post) and Sunet (not pictured, a nice yellow one).

These are the Grande size - but I decided not to put Grande on the ad pics because they aren't available in the smaller size. (Unless you really want them in that size, but they look much better in this large size, trust me.)

These are available at the Matieral Wings Store in Eunpyung - but that sim is running REALLY slow for me when I was there all afternoon. I don't know the cause.

So you can also find my wings at Domus (check Munchflower Zaius' profile) or the Enchanted Silver Moon Galleria (check Selene Sterling's profile).

Hair by Lash Xevious
Skin by Munchflower Zaius

Designing for ME

When I saw this outfit by Lollypop, I knew I had to have it. Talk about fulfilling all of my anime outfit desires!!!

And I had to design a pair of wings to go with it.

Credits:
Oufit: Lollypop
Tights: Me (not for sale, but if you are reading this far and you really want these tights, IM me and I'll drop the folder on you for free)
Hair: Curious Kitties
Shoes: Asri Falcone
I really need to find some better shoes to complete this outfit. These are a much older pair of shoes and "shoe technology" has really progressed since I bought these. (At the time, they were very good.)

I will be selling these wings . . . as soon as I can bear to take off this really cute outfit and make some photographs for ad boxes. They will also be in other colors as well . . . I have another pink/purple one that I made first - before I decided I needed a pair of green wings and spent all of my evening in photoshop.

New Wings - Dark Butterfly and Sarut

Something shiny and red. I finally decided to change the shirt I wear for my ads. This corset top is by Kya Eliot and is a fantastic buy - it's really versatile.


Shiny Purple!
And the Dark Butterfly pattern, redone a bit for the new wings.


Credits:
Skin: Munchflower Zaius
Hair (Sarut): Lost Thereian
Hair (Dark Butterfly): Curious Kitten

Punk Fairy AKA Prim Hair that Rocks

I finally found some flexi prim hair that rocks. Well, Munchflower found it and told me about it. I've tried a flexi hair things, but I wasn't impressed. Sure . . . the hair moves, but it isn't much good if it makes me look like a rag doll.

Hair: Playful Kitten
I've always wanted a pink mohawk.
Undershirt and bloomers: SilentSparrow
Overshirt: Munchflower Zaius
Tights: By me. These are FREEBIES at my store (Material Squirrel Wings) in Eunpyung. You just have to do a little searching.
Shoes: Heart's Desire. Now defunct :(
Skin: Munchflower Zaius.
Wings: by Me (Kala Bijoux)

If pictures don't show up, it's cause Blogger is being a pain. You get what you pay for. Hit refresh a few times.

Imagination Limit?

Is there a limit to the imagination? Are there things we just can't imagine?

I often find that SL is a good test of imagination. In SL, so many things are possible. You can build a house the floats in the air, or rests on a delicate blade of grass. And yet, I find it so interesting that people still build very real world buildings and scenes.


For example, this street scene could be any big city in the US. In RL, such a street did not develop from careful planning and a blank field and no RL considerations. No, the traffic flow had to be taken into account, the cost of the landscaping, etc. But in SL, someone built this to look in RL (including an alley with a fire in a oil can and cardboard box). They could have built anything they imagined, but instead they stuck to reality.

And the build is a good one, if not particuliarly creative.

Here, the builder decided to make a pedestrian walk way - a typically unattractive, but necessary RL architectural element. However, in SL, we can FLY. Did someone just want to build a pedestrian walkway for nostalgia reasons? Just because they could?

And on the other hand, it's always nice to go to places like Curious Kitties where you'll find out of the ordinary builds.

SL has enough boring nightclubs and enough box skyscrapers. I'm guilty as the next person of not building the most out of the box things. But at least try for pretty and unusual or ugly and unusual or . . . . if you want to recreate real life, recreate Venice.

Nevermore Wings Re-Dux

I've spent most of this week changing boxes to the new flexi wings. I've also had to change the textures of some of my old wings. Some needed some alpha work - I've learned quite a bit aobut making better alpha channels.


These wings needed some major work but these were the favorites of a friend, so I had to redo them. Some of my wing designs I'm retiring. I still have 2 more that I want to re-do - the Dracul Dark Red Wings and definitely the Dark Butterfly because I have had numerous requests for that one.

But I'm happy with how the Nevermore wings came out. My av looks a bit like Angelica Houston in this ad, no?

Japanese Circus Girl Outfit Wanted

I want this outfit in SL. Minus the top hat because I've never met a SL hat that I liked. They all look stiff . And like RL, they mess up my hair.


The closest outfit I have is something like this. Ok, maybe it's not close, but the mood is similiar.

Hair: Zazi Fizz - one of those random flying around SL finds that I adore. I wish more people made hair like this - playful and rather unreal, but not so unreal that you feel like an anime character.
Oufit: Silent Sparrow.
Skin: Munchflower Zaius
Wings: How did you guess? Me!

I could make the outfit myself, but I don't really have time. But I want it!! I'm a sucker for that Tim Burton circus inspired stuff.

Flexi Wings are here!

We've finally got the new flexi wings out in SL.

Pictures don't capture the movement and beauty at all so I uploaded some video from SL. (That was a challenge, but I finally figured it out.)

Dancing in the Church

Flapping Wings in hover mode

In Lost Garden

Just move a little

All wings are HUD controlled so you can turn off hover, flexi, etc with a click of a button. (Chat options also availabled still.) You can control the flexi setting, so if you want just a touch of flexi or lots of flexi, it's up to you. By request, we also included a setting which allows you to set the spread of the wings. (Previous functions like open and close/auto on/off are still included as well!)

All are available at the Material Squirrel Wing Store. Check my picks (Kala Bijoux) for SL location.

All outfits, except the last one, are by Silent Sparrow. Skin by Munchflower Zaius. Hair by Rita Groshomme.