Male Angel of Destruction

I feel like I've been working on this outfit forever. I released the female version at the beginning of November, so it's taken me literally weeks to get this together. I was very blocked with this one - I hate to revisit old work and since I'd already done the female half, this felt very much like revision.

But it's done finally.

Available at my store in Eunpyung
and also
SL Boutique

SL Exchange

Tattered Wings in Black & White

New wings - available in world at Material Squirrel
Available in Black & White (off white a bit) in large and small sizes and also with xcite! features.

On SL Boutique
On SL Exchange

Steps Taken

Well, I've done what I can (which isn't much) to avoid the copybot.

1) Put up the a !quit script yesterday that did not spam people constantly. Took this down at midnight after I learned that most versions of the copybot now ignore this command. And most of my neighbors finally seemed to have changed and removed their scripts as well, so my store is no longer being spammed with other people's copybot protectors.

2) Turned build off on my land. Frankly, I hate this step. It feels like turning off right click on websites - fairly useless for stealing images and punishes people on your website. This is only a temporary measure for me right now. I will be turning build back on.

3) I plan to spend time in my shop, instead of my skybox. Except for modeling, where I need to use my skybox. This is probably something I should more of anyway, to get an idea of customer issues and concerns. (People can always IM me to talk me about business stuff, but not everyone does.)

4) A large anti-copybot sign warning anyone who uses it or attempts to use it that they will be banned from my store.

I also took the opportunity to take my store down time to put up new pose stands where you can buy the wings directly from the pose stand. This was a customer request given to Ziggy (my scripter & husband) who thought it was a great idea. I've wanted this for a long time but didn't think it was possible. So now it is done.

I hope to release some new wings soon. It has been FAR too long since I've put out new stuff.

Public Enemy #1 - Copybot

I am not even sure where to begin to communicate my thoughts on this matter. My real life has been hectic lately and throw this into the pile and yesterday I just could not deal with SL and resulting issues. So I did nothing. Inlcuding not releasing new items.

Today I am faced with the choice to close store and join the ranks of shops that have closed, even tho I am not in 100% agreement with this decision. If I do not, I look like I am clueless or careless. If I do, I then risk losing income, customers, a creative outlet, and more. And this is not to say that I disrespect the people who have closed, they have done so out of their own convictions and that's fine.

Currently, I am thinking of closing my store to my group members only and cleaning up my shop. I need to decide if I am going to temporarily remove pose stands. And I plan to put up a sign regarding the ban of anyone caught using the copybot in my store.

I have seen similiar signs concerning banning members of the group who created the bot, but I do not agree with this. On the face of this, they may seem like an irresponsible group of hackers - Linden sanctioned hackers at that. But after talking with my husband Ziggy, I've come to better understand what they do. Frankly, finding the holes in SecondLife is a good thing. Cause if this group that has Linden members doesn't, someone else will. And they certainly won't alert LL to the problems until much more damage has been done. The group has found several serious holes in the code which LL fixed.

Which brings me back to Linden Labs. Frankly, they should have taken these steps prior to this. They knew they had issues with the texture ripper over the summer, yet they utterly refused to do anything about it. Now they seem to be stepping up to the plate, but their slow awareness is frustrating. The possible fix that Robin Linden brought up to bake the textures to objects WILL really help with the texture theft issue - but does not address the copybot problem at all.

The copybot may copy the texture onto the object, but it can't save that item as a skin or shirt. Each texture isn't copied over and over again, unlike objects. When you buy a shirt, you don't get the shirt texture, rather your inventory gets a pointer the UUID (identifier#) of the shirt texture. It's only the server once.

What the copybot CAN do is completely copy objects like shoes and hair AND their textures. And wings. It can copy the textures, because the object has that tag to the UUID texture.

It cannot copy scripts or (at last word) flexi parameters. But flexi parameters are sent to the client side, so with some tweaking, they could be copied.

And the current copybot "protector" does nothing more than spam people. And even if you decide that your customers need to put up with the spam, it's a temporary fix at best and it wouldn't take much to change the scripts in the copybot to get around that.

So. . . back to square 1.

And also . . .

It appears that when I upgraded to the new version of blogger, it reposted a bunch of my posts on several feeds. I had no control over that, but I do apologize for spamming you all with old posts.

Red Head Love

I just had to blog this outfit before I had to change to do some modeling for my adboxes. Frankly, I don't usually go the red head route. I don't know why - maybe cause it feels like an exclusive club - red heads tend to be passionate about their hair and coloring.

Or maybe I just never had a good red head skin? Munchflower Zaius dropped a bunch of redhead skins on me the other day to try out and wowser, they are cool. They are SO well done and so cute - how can you resist freckles??

Here's a closeup:

Isn't that so sweet?

Credits:
Skin: Munchflower Zaius (Nomine) - new line of redhead skins
Hair : Kin Keiko
Shoes: Shiny Things
Top: Nomine & Silent Sparrow
Skirt: A work in progress by yours truly. I probably shouldn't be featuring stuff I'm still working on it, but I love the skirt with this. Yes. I need to make the top and few extras for it, maybe today, maybe tomorrow.

Angel of Destruction - Fear Her!

Maybe she's just mad about Xmas commercials on the TV before Halloween. Or maybe it's one of those days. But this angel is NOT nice.

You get 2 version of the outfit and wings. One pre-destruction (without the blood/gore) and one post (full of gore). And of course the skirts are flexi. And the wings do everything our wings do ( Flapping, Unfurl, Hover Flap & More with HUD).

And I'm working on a male outfit for this as well. Don't worry, I'm not going the male toga route (scary!).

If you were in my update group - this was the Halloween treat you received. Everyone else has to buy it. So . . . if you want to join my group, just go to groups and search for Material Squirrel and join. If you need more detailed instructions, go to my store and there is a adbox to click on and get a notecard with precise instructions. I will be giving my update group more free wings for holidays and just in general.

And also, I did it - bought an island. I expect it to be at least a few weeks until I get it - possibly longer. But soon, I'll be pulling out the pixel mixed drinks and living the island life.

Linden Labs Killed my Pony

Ok, not really.

But they certainly have made me blue today.

This news about the large increase in island fees had to happen just when I was contemplating buying an island.

I know, I've talked about the land thing before in my blog and it sounded like I was going to put off the island thing.

But around the beginning of last week, I noticed that the number of scripts that the mainland sim I'm on was running around the max (6,000). Of course, there is no limit on scripts, but scripters have discovered that about 6,000 or more scripts on a sim greatly affects performance and LL has quietly admitted this is true. On Wednesday, I started to toy again with the island idea. On Thursday, I was almost ready to buy (and no, I had no insider knowledge), but I decided that I had nothing to lose by thinking about this big decision over the weekend.

Of course, now I am screwed.

If I don't get one of the 150 islands, then I think I will still have to move to another sim. I just cannot let my customers suffer because I happen to be on a sim with 2 casinos using a lot of scripts. But on the same hand, I can't justify the new tier cost and initial island cost. So I will be forced to find new land which will be outrageously priced to begin with and try to buy up a lot of the sim. And then just hope that no casinos/high scripter users or much worse, a high traffic camping chair set up moves in.

So . . . I still plan to release one more free set of wings to members of my Material Squirrel group tomorrow. I am just hoping to muster up some creativity out of my blues to complete that project.

New Demon Wings & Store Renovation

New Demon wings available. I finally got these out. People have asked for bat-like demon wings to spread fear across the SL landscape. Well, ok, at least the first part. So I'm hoping people like these. They are not my usual multi-prim feathers thing, so hopefully they are still enjoyed and um, actually sell. They fit the male avs better than the females, but I can make girl adjustments if necessary. It's just that I get so tired of photographing different sizes and stuff. So I'm going to see how these sell before I do different sizes.

They also come in green and a darker red.

On SL Exchange

On SL Boutique

And I've also redone my store. It's now way bigger with lots of room for me to expand and
grow. The next step is an island (I hope), but I'm miles and leagues away from that. Here's a pic of the outside that no one will ever see cause the landing point is inside the store.

Nomine Sim Open - Go VISIT!

Munchflower's Nomine sim is now open to the public. And you should go visit now. Her store is a wonderful build by Sky Everett inspired by The Series of Unfortunate Events. And that feeling is definitely there. And of course there are fabulous skins with Munch's new makeup (I've worn a couple in some past ads, but you'll see me in a lot more of them now that they are released.) And there are other faboo vendors like Luth, Nocturnal Threads, and um, me :)

Go visit Nomine now

New Halloween/Gothic themed outfit

Another outfit with a darker theme. I designed the skirt on this so that you can wear it after Halloween is over with other tops.

I'm having a blast designing spooky clothing, more to come. What I have in mind next will be slightly less spooky and more towards the Gothic.

Available at the Material Squirrel store
or
on SL Boutique

In which I bribe you to join my update group

On Wednesday or Thursday, I will be giving this set of wings FREE to all the people in my update group - Material Squirrel. And then I'll put it for up for sale for the other 885,270 people who aren't in my update group. To join my group, just search under group for "Material Squirrel" and join.

I had planned to release this today, but after reading the Linden blog and several customer issues, I'm waiting until after the update tomorrow. Scripted things are just really buggy right now. And of course since it is an update day, things don't always go as planned, so I may very well wait until Thursday.

Auction Runners, please note

If you are running an auction for a good cause, please please please put up some sort of donation box. Make it BIG.

That way those of us who only have a wee bit of time to drop by the auction can donate and then run. It makes it nice for the giver too, we don't have to explain to the host why we are dropping money on them, etc.

Just a thought :)

More Fairy Wings

More fairy themed wings!
I named these after my favorite Rockstar singer. Storm kicked serious booty on that show. The cool thing about these is that I put the color change script in them. So instead of buying multiple wings to match every outfit, you can change the color of the wings to match. And the really cool thing is that I'm not charging extra for this feature. Also available in Grande. I'm still working on the Xcite version, I have a scripting issue that I can't fix and need to wait for Ziggy to return home.

Another fairy wing - this one in bright white. I also put the color change in these wings as well, but it looks best with the pale colors. At least in my opinion.

All are available on SL Boutique and I'll be adding SLexchange very soon. And also of course in world.

Link to all my SLBoutique stuff

Credits:
Skins: Munchflower Zaius
Hair for Storm: ETD
Hair for Winter: Kin Keiko

Dark Fairy Wings Anyone?

A dark fairy look.

Available at my store in Eunpyung and also available with the Xcite! Scripts (lower level in my store)
and also on SL Boutique

Credits:
Hair: ETD
Skin: Munchflower Zaius

Shoe Ideas - The Retro Version

Part 2 of the "steal these shoe ideas" for the shoe makers of SL.

I love these shoes, but I can't wear heels this high IRL. But I'd love to dress up my av in some of these pinup style shoes. Yum.

I really love the version on the right. Shiny Things' Lollies shoe is very close to this.

Shoe ideas

I doubt I am going to make tons more shoes. The little prim work is very hard on my wrist, much harder than texture/clothing work. For that I can use my drawing tablet but prims have to be manipulated with a mouse. And there are so many shoe makers out there that are more talented than me.

I do have some shoe ideas and will possibly eventually make those.

But here's a whole bunch of shoes that I'd LOVE to see in SL but am not going to make myself. Here's a plea to those talented shoemakers, make these shoes. Please???

The shoes in this photo are kinda hard to see, but if you click on the picture for a closer look, it's that delicate scrollwork that is just gorgeous.

I love pointy toed heels.

Like Dorothy's shoes, only a bit more modern.

Ok, this needs a follow up post for all the retro shoes I need in SL. There are so many really cute retro shoes that I NEED.

Halloween Madness - Spider outfit

I am completely caught up in Halloween fever. Obsessed. If I could make items as fast as I could think of them . . . wow, I'd have an entire Halloween line. As it is, my wrist won't let me work more than 8 or so hours a day. Bummer.

But I did finish this little Tim Burton-esque spider outfit. There are lots of details that you can't really see from the pics, hidden spiders and such. Very October.

Available at my store (search for Material Squirrel), on the lower level right next to the Piggy Ziggy.
Or
SL Boutique

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In other news, one of my neighbors sold me his land so I don't have to worry about moving my store. I now have PLENTY of land to expand. I also have a hefty tier bill, but that's the price for moving up.

Photoshop CS Tip & Other stuff

Ok, have you heard of this "stamping a layer" thing in Photoshop CS??

If no, well, let me tell you about the beauty of this command.

Let's say you are working on several layers and you want to merge the layers and experiment with levels or make changes, but you don't really want to loose those layers as separate layers in case you need to make changes.

Now, you could make a copy of each of those layers and then merge them, but that's tedious.

Instead, use the Stamp Layer command. Have only the layers you want to duplicate as visible layers. Then hit control-alt-shift down at the same time, holding those down, hit e.

Magically you will get another layer with all the layers you have visible merged into that layer, but your old layers will still be there! Separate, not merged!

You'll have to forgive my bad explanation of this. I know this could be stated in a much more concise, clear manner. But I spent several hours out in the sun and my brain hurts. There's a post on the forum by Robin and this is explained by her, in those concise words you want.

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I'm seriously rethinking my idea to limited edition Halloween wings. I started to run some numbers and I'd have to charge a ridiculous amount for the wings in order to make my time back, even excluding a profit. So I think I will do some Halloween things, just not with the exclusive tag. I'm working on some Halloween fashions now, with wings to follow. Weee!

And also . . .

And the other twist in my panties is the new land system . . . . now when you search for land for sale, it tells lists rentals on private sims. But there is really NO WAY to know if you are buying a chunk of someone else's sims. Some people have clear signs, but most just have land for sale. Usually if you pull up the map, you can tell it's an island sim. But I almost bought land on Anshe's Dreamland sim which is all residential without even knowing it.

Argh!