Angel Outfit - New

Angel Outfit - includes scripted Halo (particle glow/on off), scripted Wings - and the dress. All for 499L. If you just want the wings those are available separately too.

Avalon Black Fairy Wings

New at Material Squirrel.
These look great with the color change option, you can really personalize your wings to whatever color you want.

Sculpted Prim Demon Wings - FINALLY

Ah, it's sooo much harder to get things done when you have a baby. Did I mention that Ziggy and I had a baby in September? A real-life one. Tomorrow she will be 7 weeks old!

So what does that have to do with sculpted prim demon wings? Well, nothing if you aren't me - but for me, these were a challenge to get finished, photographed, put up in the store, and listed. It took grabbing a moment here and there and doing a bit of a work at a time. Ziggy and I had these mostly completed before she arrived - but we've been putting the finishing touches on them for the past few weeks - in between comforting and feeding our crying baby. But they are finally done!

Available in world at Material Squirrel Store on Winged Isle.
Also on SL Exchange
And on
Shop on Rez

New Fashion Blog

Oooh, a shiny new fashion blog has arrived. Second Impression was started by Alexis Stapovic and her wacky talented friend Jade. Alexis did the build for my sim (awesome build). But you should go visit this blog not just cause Alexis is my friend, but cause so far it's really awesome. Go. Now.

Dark-Angel - Great Customer Art

Dark-Angel
Originally uploaded by Nyla Rossini

With a baby, sometimes I can compute with one hand while holding the baby with the other. But I can't type much or get on SL or make textures, so I was surfing around Flickr when I found this wonderful art feature the Material Squirrel Dark Angel wings. Very cool.

Free Wings!

To join the Material Squirrel group - go to Search, the group tab, search for Material Squirrel and join. There are no fees. The wings have all the features of our regular wings and are perfect for Halloween.

New Wings

New wing designs. These were designed by Rayl Graves. I don't usually accept other people's designs, but when he showed me his sketch, I knew they had to be made into wings. I did the photoshop work on these. I'm not very good at working on other people's things, it took me a while to finish them. But now they are done :)

Dear Lindens

Dear Lindens,

Please do the following before my head explodes:

1) Fix the embedded notecard link problems. 90% of my customer IMs are about this issue. Yes, I know the fix - You can drag the link/notecard from the main notecard directly into your inventory and it will open. But normal users don't know this. I've even put my help files online and I STILL get customer IMs over this. It's not their fault, they can't open them. It's not my fault either. This has been broken since JUNE. Get a move on!

2) Please teach newbies how to give inventory via the profile before they leave Orientation island. I cannot meet every newbie who wants to give me inventory in person and there seems to be no education in this before they leave Orientation island. Old timers laugh at me when I tell them I have a notecard with instructions, and then they double over laughing when I show them my illustrated guide to giving inventory. But newbies don't know. Again, not their fault.

3) Please teach newbies how to find people via Search-->people so they don't try to friend me so they can IM me. I feel horrid and mean when I decline friendships, but I don't friend unless people talk to me. Otherwise, my FL would be insane.

Thanks,
Kala Bijoux

Help Files on Web site

All Material Squirrel Help files are now online at our website.

I've also included screen shots in the online help files, which will hopefully be more helpful to people than just text instructions.

Angel Wings & Goth Wings

I actually released these last week, but with SL being so unstable, I didn't blog about them. But here they are :)

New Tattoos

I love this cherry set - but it was difficult to put the ad together. Hopefully it's not too hodge-podge.

And something for the boys.

New Wings

Several new wings were released last week. If you are a member of my update/support group (Material Squirrel), then you know that I had a treasure hunt for wings and also for the horns. If not, join so you don't miss out on future freebies :)

New Sculpted Prim Horns!

New sculpted prim (sculpties) horns at Material Squirrel. Many different colors, lots of different designs. Scripted with animations and particle effects. Only 99L each pair of horns.

Big Thanks!

Big thanks to everyone who bought the Relay for Life angel wings! Together we raised L 48,438 - that's a terrific amount for a great cause!!!

Sculpties & Other Thoughts

I'm having fun watching the new sculptie products come out. PixelDolls really showed us the possibilities of sculpties and I also like Launa Fauna's jean legs. In general, I think fashion designers are embracing sculpties faster than they did flexi prims. Of course, there is the learning curve involved, which is considerable, unless you already have 3D modeling experience. I'd take a class, if I could find one. But Ziggy and I are muddling along ok and figuring out a few things. Right now I have Wings 3D open cause Blender is just not working with my brain, it completely baffles me. The menus aren't intuitive and most things rely on keyboard shortcuts, which I have a hard time remembering. For example, if you press 1 on the numbers pad in Blender, you are taken back to the front original view. But if you press 1 on the keyboard above Q, well . . . I don't know what happens, but it really messes things up. And undo won't fix it.

One of the gals at Linden Lifestyles mentioned not too long ago that she wanted to see more colors than red or black, and different colors mixed together. Based on my most recent clothes line, I can say, that the reason people aren't making things in different colors is cause they aren't selling. My red & black outfits sold the best. Of course, I did get pretty wild with the colors. But I really had fun with the colors more for me than for anyone else, which is good, cause most everyone else was not interested, evidently.

Big thanks to all the fashion bloggers who blogged my new stuff, including:
Appearance Mode
&
Style Disorder

New Clothes!

Introducing my new clothing line - Haunted Zuzu

It started out goth:


And then kinda went goth/side show circus (this outfit comes in purple and red as well)


And then even more Circus side show like and very very colorful:


And then I threw in a white dress to m




These are all located in the Haunted House in the corner of Winged Isle.

SL URL

or search for Haunted Zuzu

You should make this Hairstyle cause I can't but I will buy it.

If I could wrangle prims, I'd totally make this hair. But I can't (tho I'm having more luck with sculpties). So some talented hair maker should make this hair. Isn't it adorable???

I NEED this hair in SL. Just maybe not in blonde, cause I am not fond of blonde hair in SL (it never looks right). Pink and white would be awesome.

Angel Wings to benefit Relay for Life fund

New limited edition wings up at Material Squirrel!

These are angel wings in pink and purple. All sales from these wings will go to benefit the Relay for Life fund for the American Cancer Society! I will have these up for about 2 weeks to a month, then they will be taken off the shelves forever.

JIRA tutorial

The Lindens keep pointing us to the JIRA for problems. I'm sure this is a very efficient way for the Lindens to track bug process, but I think the interface can be rather intimidating for the average web surfer.

But there's a ton of great info in the JIRA. If you want an update on an existing problem, you can find out if anyone is working on it and their progress. Other residents also post comments and sometimes you can find work-arounds for your problems.

So here's a brief, very basic, tutorial on how to navigate the JIRA.

The Second Life Jira is located at:
https://jira.secondlife.com

Then you will see this screen:

Log in with your SL user name and password. (That's the easy part).

Then you'll see this rather confusing screen:

Let's assume we want to search for an existing bug/issue - like the inability to send Group Notices to large groups and have the notices pop-up on the screen.

Go to the Quick Search box on the top right hand of the screen:



Type in your issue. For example - Group notices. Hit Enter.

Then you get this screen. Wow, so much to sort through.


Usually I just quickly scan the list of issues quickly to try to find an open issue that matches my issue.

Looking in this area:


But using the left side of the screen, you can also narrow your search. Scroll down to the very end of all the possible search parameters to get to the View (enter) button.

In this case, the issue we are looking for is the second issue listed. Click on the Key number link.

Here is the bug page:


In the upper left corner, we basic info on the bug. In this case, we can see that it is a critical bug for the Lindens and someone is working on it. (Workingonit Linden is not the specific Linden working on it, I believe this is just a generic name, probably used so the actual Lindens don't get spammed with a bunch of time-wasting IMs.)



If you scroll down the comments (after the description), you'll see lots of comments - including some from Torley who says this is being worked on. You'll also find a few work-arounds if you read the comments (Search for Lord Leafblower, his suggest has worked for me a few times.)

You can also vote to have the Lindens fix the issue. I have no idea if this is effective, but I imagine it is a good way to draw the Linden's attention to a problem.


You can also search for a specific key number to get to the bug page.

If someone gives you a link like this:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-332

the last part of that the link is the key number
so enter
VWR-332
in the Quick Search button at the top right.

That key number documents the bug that is affecting the flapping of our wings. (Seen in world as the wings looking jerky while flapping.) If you've been affected by this bug (or heck even read this far), I'd really appreciate getting some votes on the issue so maybe the Lindens will start to look at it.

More Tips:

* The link to the JIRA from the Linden blog takes you to a FAQ (Wiki) page, which I initially found very very confusing cause I couldn't find the actual link to the JIRA.

* If you open an issue in JIRA, I would be sure that you are giving as detailed of a bug report as possible. You do NOT want to report stuff like "Nothing works. I keep crashing." You will just take up a Linden's time to clear out your report and make it harder for the rest of us to find the real issues. If you want instructions on how to file a competent, decent and helpful bug, go to the JIRA Wiki and search for "reporting an issue" and this will give you detailed instructions.

*In the top right corner (above the Quick search field), you will see some personalized options for your account. If you've opened a bug in the JIRA, it should be listed.

I hope this helps people to at least take a look at JIRA. If you have anything to add, please leave a comment and I will add it if appropriate. Corrections more than welcome as well.

Business Owner Blues

When I ran a busines with RL inventory, I used to get asked for donations all the time. And I was a very very small business. Many of the requests were quite ridiculous. Some came on a regular monthly basis.

In Second Life, donations are a bit different. After all, if I give out a few free wings at an event, I am not out any money. (Unlike a RL business where I'd be out whatever wholesale amount I paid for that item.) Still, I get a lot of requests for stuff that would cost me time and money. Advertising is one of the most difficult ones. I really don't have any need for advertising beyond this blog, forums, and classified ads. If I made more clothes, an ad in one of the fashionista mags or blogs would make sense too, I think. But other than that, I really really have to be sold on an advertising pitch and NO ONE has been able to do that yet.

Half the problem is that people don't think outside of the box and they are still trying to do advertising in the same way that it works in RL. I suspect the first person who does this will make a windfall, but they will really need an idea that slams it out of the ball park.

In addition to advertising, there are those people who have the balls to ask for wings to resell, scripts to resell, full perm scripts, full perm textures, and anything else that involves them doing no work at the expense of my own time and effort. Of course, these people are easy to say no to . . . but still, you get enough of these requests and you start wanting to shout "TAKE BOTH OF MY KIDNEYS WHILE YOU ARE AT IT."

And then there are the people who want vendor space or something like that. I respect these people for having initiative, at least they are trying to make stuff on their own. But I can't say yes to everyone.

So . . . I think when SL clothes designers or other sellers get a little snippy about giving out preview items to bloggers, this is why. The reason is less the bloggers and more the people before who want a free ride and both kidneys while they sit on the couch. It's not professional to get to that boiling point, but after a while, these request for your hardwork by slackers is just tiring.

And just to be clear, Material Squirrel doesn't have a policy on preview items for bloggers. If I were asked, I'd want to see your blog. And I'd probably say yes. Can't say that I've ever been asked tho.

New Butterfly Wings

Lots of colors, 2 sizes. A great girly look.

Available in world at Material Squirrel.

Red Red Rose Dress Set

I've wanted to create a black dress with red roses for a while now, my skills are finally up to it.

Available at Nomine and the Material Squirrel Store on Winged Isle.

also on

SL Boutique

SL Exchange

Demon Wings - New!

The first is the Thethra Demon Wing in Black
On SL Exchange
On SL Boutique

The second set is the Volkh Demon Wings. I've listed them on the websites in packs (great deal if you want them all) but you can get them separately at Winged Isle (Material Squirrel) in world.
On SL Exchange
On SL Boutique

----
I can't seem to send any notices to my group. I think it's the huge amount of people on SL, but it's a bummer. I got a couple of group notices today, but the groups are way smaller than mine.

PS - I've gotten several freebies from SilentSparrow's group. I love her clothes, so getting extra freebies is just wonderful :)

News & Info & Rants

New Monster Truck Wing Version
We have a new version of our Monster Truck wings that should fix a bug that a few people have experienced. I tested it and it definitely fixes the problem. So if you have any 4.0 Monster Truck wings, give them back to me for a wing upgrade to the 4.1 version. The full upgrade instructions are in my store, but the gist is that you need to put your name in the folder name, with the number of wings to upgrade also. (Example - 10 Wings to upgrade, YourName) or in a notecard.

SL Website Woes
Anyone else having a problem not seeing any of your transactions? Last week they started being very slow to update, then on Saturday, they wouldn't show any of the current day's transactions. On Sunday, I noticed that it only showed 1/2 a day. Today, it's showing nothing for Monday's transactions. I don't know if this qualifies as bug, so I haven't reported it (plus I can never find the place to report a bug on the website). It irks me cause I use that info on a daily basis. Mostly just for my own personal tallying, but it really does help me know what is selling, what locations are selling. Sure, I could use the numbers in world, but the website is sooo much easier.

It's also far easier to find a transaction from someone (say they accidentally bought something twice) on the web page cause you can do a "find" and look for a name.

Actual Wing Info
I am working on some new wing designs, but due to RL stuff, I'm a bit slow. I hope to speed things up and get some wings out for everyone soon.

New Wings

I released many new wing designs on Friday - this is a very small sample. The Twinkle wings (first ones) come in pink, lavender, and lemon. And the mech ones come in