soror Nishi

It was almost a year ago that Richard Gras came to me in SL and asked if I would like to help out with a movie. He said he liked my stuff and would like some help with the Virtual part of his film which spanned both worlds [RL/SL]. I did mention it to some people but there was a bit of ‘non disclosure’ stuff so I just waited til it was edited etc… then I sort of forgot it…

It took him two years in all to write, get funding and produce the film. I did a few things like a tree and some skins for the principle avis and Cole was the main Machinima filmer.

As a part of the SL sequence Richard asked me to retexture a Klimt. It seems like the only recorded image of this Klimt is in black and white and he wanted me to colour it. I was quite nervous about this as I have the greatest respect for Klimt but, seeing as it was a SL texture and no larger than 1024, I figured I would get away with it.

Anyway, the Movie is slowly making the rounds of festivals-for-avante-garde-movies, not that I have seen it yet…

Details here…. so if you are in Brazil…

I guess that’s the problem with not having the clout of a big studio behind you… you just have to wait until someone screens it..

:))

Yep, we’ve all been there/here …. a project gets long, very long and in the end you have trouble maintaining the level of interest or enthusiasm that you had at the start. I know I have made pieces that, in the end, I couldn’t bear to look at any more.

The best thing is a break, and I’ve been out fighting blackberry thickets today and now, with thorns still reluctant to be evicted from my skin, I have had the distance I need to jump back in.

I thought I would show you a recent success rather than a failure as the failures are really more about my learning certain things about new media [new to me] and the technicalities involved in such… more later for those interested.

These are my lily pads. They cast perfectly, more or less and I have painted them like the ones I made Inworld, all cool…

My recent not-so-successful bits are as follows….

1) Bubbles are the plague of any casting and some resins are easier to deal with than others. On one I used an electric toothbrush touching the outside of the mould to act like a vibrator [please... behave!] but on the crystal resin it doesn’t work. The crystal resin, well, at least the one I am using, takes ages to set. Mostly it tends to clear itself but it seems quite unpredictable. Anyway…. repairing bubbles will just have to be factored in to the casting of any piece, luckily not every piece.

2) I thought I would spray the base I am making with a filler/primer paint as a final coat… seemed like a good idea at the time. The air temperature was too low and the paint ‘balled’ in mid-air so it’s gotta all be sandpapered down to a smooth finish. Doh! Well, you live and learn…

Anyway… I could go on but suffice to say the other thing I have to consider now is that the moulds I have made for some of the pieces are good for a one-off casting but a production line would require a much better made mould than I have been making. The quality will have to improve if I want these moulds to last. In fact designing the moulds is going to be a serious business if I want to continue with this and one which will require a fair amount of trial and error before I am happy with the results.

I guess I hadn’t realised quite how many new skills I would have to acquire in order to complete the task in question. Still… it’s all going forward and on a good day I think I might meet my deadline on the 10th March. Only time and a fair wind will show if this is delusional.

Have a good week, I’m gonna be planting potatoes tomorrow..

:))

As I managed to bash my hand in the kitchen I can only assume that my subconscious is telling me what my brain already knows, namely that I’m bored with this sculpturing lark and need a break. Due to various circumstances I have been working away in my sort-of-studio-cum-spare-bedroom for the last 4 days and enough is enough…

So…rabbit, is also the term used for general, non-directional wittering which is what I intend doing as I am well versed in the exchange of meaningless trivia.

Fat-free yoghurt has been annoying me for ages now. I have always believed that milk was a suspension of fat in water and that fat free milk would, logically be water … well, actually its whey, but I know you can’t make yoghurt from whey, only norwegian-style brown cheese.. So…what is fat free yoghurt then? It turns out that they bung in a bit of whey powder and wall-paper paste. That is what has been irritating me really, the fact that they are allowed to still call it yoghurt when it is better suited to hanging paper. I accidentally bought low-fat creme freche … what a nightmare it tasted of nothing, what next? low fat clotted cream? Alcohol-free wine? oh, yes, it’s on the same supermarket shelf as meat-free lamb cutlets.

So… as I am just rabbiting on and I can’t repeat my Use-Of-Crap-Words-Fouling-The-English-Language-Rant I might as well continue on the food thing. I bought a litre of cheap Cola from Tescos. Just 17p, (that’s about 25 cents), half of it I used to remove the fur from the inside of my electric kettle [just pour it in before you go to bed] and the other half I used to clean the limescale out of the toilet [same method]. It is the cheapest cleaner around but how is it legal … a) to sell it so cheap and … b) why are people allowed to drink it? I think water is about 1000% more expensive.

OK, so enough of all that…I’m off to bed. Working in the snow tomorrow and putting the sculpturing on hold til Friday now .. (it’s all going fine).

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

:))

For the last couple of months I have been looking at stuff on the supermarket shelves in a different light. I am usually fairly aware of size and shape but recently I’ve been so occupied with this sculpture I’m doing that everything I see gets evaluated with one part of my brain for its potential incorporation into my project as my problem solving lobes take control.

[recent thrifty tip : bamboo skewers make very cheap disposable stirring sticks and cheap kitchen surface cleaner comes in a very re-usable spray bottle..]

But one thing has been avoiding me for a while…a small ball shaped soft object smaller than a ping-pong ball….needed to cast plaster around for shaping into a flower. My final choice, made in a flash of inspiration, was a cherry tomato…

Ahh… vegetable based sculpture, well, it amused me…and it worked perfectly.

This weekend sees me pouring silicone rubber today followed by making support moulds from plaster for this lot…

5 pitcher plants, 6 lilly pads and 3 mushrooms, and a few assorted bits… all in crystal resin except for the mushrooms which I think I’ll make solid, for a bit of contrast.

Managed to set up a test of the lighting this last week and took a very blurry photo but the principle seems good even if the light needs to be a little stronger. My ongoing paint problems (the glass paint I’m using is like nail varnish and difficult to brush a larger surface as it dries and clogs too much) I am going to try and overcome by trying to spray it with an empty spray bottle. ….if that doesn’t work I am very impressed with the following cheap spray system.. here. On the manufacturers website the system is about $9 with refills at $6, perfect. Will report back on the tests….

Although I haven’t been online much this last week (it’s been a full gardening week) there are few who will not have heard of the closing of Pirats and Norden, two very energetic and enlightened art galleries. Their enthusiasm has been a great asset for SL and it seems a bit silly to let all the best things slowly disappear for the sake of a few dollars, but …. no deals to be done with the Boys, I guess. Thanks to Wizzy for Tweeting this …. just more of the usual… idiocy.

Good news from Inworldz tho as Toymaker has taken up the offer of a free sim from Jeri and is stating to build there. A great builder… hurrah… The Elf Clan Fantasy Festival art show is now open on the Equilibrium sim, also sponsored by Jeri and well worth a look if you are/visit Inworldz… a lot of artists are showing there, myself included. (I have only built a modest thingy due to time constraints)..

The snow has fallen in my RL world and everywhere is quiet and clean looking. We got about 4 inches in the night and people are staying indoors … most of them won’t be pouring silicone…

Must get on… have a good sunday..

:))

It is certain that the definition of success or failure is determined by the initial expectations one has for a venture.

Coming from the perfect world of VR’s to the messy and imperfect world of matter is bound to be a difficult transition, especially if you are a bit of a perfectionist, as I am. Coupled with my eternal optimism I did tend towards the idea that if I could think it, I could do it. Well, life is somewhat trickier than that and I have had a few things to come to grips with.

Please don’t think that I don’t love the whole process, because I do.  The very self-educational process has always been the primary reason for doing arty stuff, the actual product I have always seen as a bit of a by-product of the process…. one reason why I have always held firm in the idea that the total number of visitors to a sim is no indication of anything except traffic.

So, with 32 components needed to make up my latest lampscape project it is only to be expected that some of them will cause me the greatest trouble while others will just appear, almost like rezzing prims.

My greatest problem so far is an egg shaped former I am planning to use as a former for the canopy. My idea is to cast a wax egg and form the canopy around it so that I can then melt the wax and leave a hollow canopy with no ‘joins’. This has proved interesting and frustrating.

Firstly, sculpting a perfect egg is a very tricky thing, it’s a demanding object as the eye can spot any deviations from the ‘true’ form very easily. Used to just rezzing spheres and stretching them a little in VRs has only enhanced my eye for imperfections. So… leaving that aside I decided to mould and then cast the more or less egg that I have sculpted. Here my poor mould-making skills have been shown up somewhat but I have sort of struggled though, knowing that by the 32nd mould I will be quite good at all this.

The egg saga continues, however, as wax shrinks on cooling and tends to pull the rubber inner mould away from the outer support mould. I read that beeswax doesn’t shrink, so I got some. The thing is, it does. Never believe what you read on the internet. Anyway… 2 moulds and 7 pours later I am still no nearer to solving this one, but I like a challenge… it is becoming a quest.

On the more ‘success’ side I have moved on with the base and the lilly pads and pitcher plants so that they may well be ripe for moulding next weekend. Below is my first test pour of the trunk in clear resin and my first trials with the glass paints which are a real bugger.

Glass paints are like nail varnish and you know what a sod that can be. A fair amount of trialling and experimentation will be necessary to come up with a respectable texture using something which globs up and runs and dissolves the underlying coat. Luckily cellulose thinners do give you the option of cleaning it all off and starting again.

This is a test texture for the rock too, but I have since come up with a much better one and I have successfully poured my first rock from my mould in resin, so that just needs a bit of repairs and is ready to paint, my first RL prim.

When I was making jewellery I came up with the idea that flaws in the perfect surface need to be removed “if they detract from the overall enjoyment” so, I guess that is my benchmark of success and failure. One is on one side of that line, the other not so.

:))

I confided to a friend that I was worried I may be turning into one of those sad people that spend 10 years of their life making a scale model of the Eiffel Tower out of matchsticks making sure every rivet was correctly placed to reflect the original construction. This because of the endless (seemingly) hours I am using to complete this lampscape project which I am probably only half-way through.

Their response was, well, you may be a little eccentric but you aren’t as mad as someone who calls their son “Newt”. Which is probably true, I wouldn’t call my daughter “Frog” either. Pondlife is not really a good source of inspiration for child-naming, in my humble opinion.

So the multimillionaire pondlife nominee who supports child labour and hates health care, gay marriage and abortions will be celebrating tonight while I stare at resin. Such is life.

My problems this week have stemmed from my trying to cast a wax former for my canopy using parafin wax which, because it shrinks when it dries, pulls the rubber mould away from the support mould and creates a dent. I have since found out that beeswax doesn’t shrink, so Amazon is sending me what I need.

On the positive side … my own pondlife, pitcher plants and water lillies, have been progressing although I haven’t yet settled on a final design for the lilly flower. I poured a first trial pour of the tree trunk with some very smelly clear resin which is cheaper than the Gedeo crystal resin and trialed some paints … so things are slowly moving forward.

It seems that the Royal Academy needs an entry form, including photos by the 13th of March, so that is a bit of a deadline, but not one I am going to stress out about too much. Things take the time they need.

The gallery also wants to know about flammability and VOC’s (volatile organic compounds), information which I have been trying to get from the manufacturers with, mostly, little success. As there is also a restriction on ‘dangerous electrical components’, I am glad I have gone for the 12 volt LED solution as that is about as safe as it gets. I am still unsure if they will accept my piece …  the only way of finding out is to submit it.

So … that’s about it. My room is gradually filling with parts of moulds and chemical substances and the vacuum cleaner is filling up with bits of resin and dust of diverse origin.

Psychologically I am at that half-way point where you start to wonder about your sanity but know that things will turn out OK in the end. I maybe need to go and watch some TV and pour a large drink. It’ll all be here still on the morrow.

Have a good Sunday.

:))

Lots of mixing and lots of rezzin resin.

3 moulds done,  about 6 or 7 to go still.

:))

Will commonsense prevail? That seems to be a possibility as a lot of those previous SOPA supporters now seem to be starting to jump ship. With excuses like “having consulted those in the industry…”  something any sane person would have done before the knee-jerk reaction to the ‘suffering’ [AKA greedy] film industry got their claws into you, fools! This might, of course, be premature, my celebrating logic over greed, but there is no doubt that voter pressure is what has made the difference. The longer people have to think about it and tell the politicians what a crap idea it is, the less likely it is that it will happen. More here… keep the pressure up though…

It seems like January 18th has been marked out as a protest day online against SOPA. Some sites, Reddit, and now Cheezburger will take down their sites for a day to show how the internet could be broken by SOPA. A voluntary blackout, partial so far….

In the UK it will become illegal for ‘free’ schools to preach creationist theories instead of evolution which is of course a small step in the right direction… I guess I was heartened by the news about the creationists and hope that there is still a core of rational folks around.

“No school, free or otherwise, will ever be allowed to teach creationism instead of valid and thoroughly evidenced scientific theories. The Education Secretary has been crystal clear that teaching creationism as scientific fact is wrong. He will not accept any academy or free school proposal which plans to teach creationism in the science curriculum. All free school proposals are subject to due diligence checks by the new specialist unit within the Department for Education to ensure that people that are setting up the school are suitable. Valid and thoroughly evidenced scientific theories, such as evolution, will always be the foundation of science teaching in all schools in England.”

Not that this is the only stupidity flying around, but at least it’s one finger in the dyke [no LGBT pun intended].

Drones and mass detention centres still worry me. It seems that no one knows how many drones are spying on us, or, if they do then they certainly aren’t telling….. and although the US seems to be at the forefront of this drone bonanza, the UK has its drones too.

Not that the UK military offers free hardware to all the police forces (I hope, what do I know?) like it does in the States. Free hardware obviously encourages escalation and militarisation of the police. But then the Occupy WallStreet movement has demonstrated that the Government has reason to be worried about the population they believed they could ride rough-shod over. We can organise too.

There is space for 2 million detainees in US concentration camps, but then Haliburton always get the best contracts…. and prison labour does help keep costs down now that slaves are illegal. However, all these preparations “can’t stop an idea whose time has come”…

Virtual World news… well, I got a very long and detailed news letter today from 3rd Rock Grid which I did manage to plough my way through without retaining much of the data…seems like a general upgrade. They like many other grids are now implementing Vivox voice and generally having a spring clean.

InWorldz‘z code chompers extraordinaire Tranq et al have been busy too… full report here from Ele…. though she’s keeping something up her sleeve for the Vegas meet.

Nice image of InWorldz tweeted by Tranq at Wizzy’s request…

Hope you have a great weekend, I’m making resin support moulds for 3 moulds which I hope to have finished for Monday, I’m using Jesmonite… not so smelly and no VOC’s…. 3 down, just another 5 moulds to go… all good so far, tho…

:))

Well, I thought some of you might like to be kept up to date with my ongoing sculpturing exploits … soo … some photos..

The start of my mould making activities… after smearing the highly polished and laquered prims with Vaseline (petroleum jelly) I started today on the silicone rubber which is a very messy business. So far these have three layers of rubber on them … and it has mostly gone well. I got some disposable brushes and used old sour cream pots which I’ve been collecting, so everything can just go in the bin…

Otherwise I’ve been working on the base which has a hidden tube for the wires that will supply the LED, this has still got a lot of sanding and filling to do before it gets moulded, but, as it is one of the last parts I’ll need, there’s no hurry with it.

Likewise the water lillies and the pitcher plants are not needed first off, so I’ve just started on them… the lilly flower which I intend incorporating will need some clever thinking as it’s gonna be a bit tricky both to mould and to light up with a ‘glow’ effect. That I haven’t even started on…

Onward… :))

Jeri Rahja, in conjunction with the Elven Clan, is organising a new Art Fest in InWorldz.

The admissions should be submitted by the 15th of January to Jeri Rahja and should be appropriate to the theme.

the full submission details are here…. send a notecard with…..

“Your Name:

Are you entering as an Experienced or a Novice Artists:

Your Team Name (if applicable – please name the individuals involved):

Your Gallery, Store or Service name:

Your Build concept (one paragraph description – for promotional purposes only)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please send this completed notecard to Jeri Rahja and IM her to let her know you have sent her inventory.

PLEASE NOTE:
The first 31 completed applications will be allocated plots.
Plus 4 water plots
Further completed applications received by midnight 15 January will be considered at the complete discretion of the organisers.
Only completed notecards will be eligible for allocation of a plot.
Only competed notecards received before midnight 15 January will be eligible for allocation of a plot.

Plots will be allocated on the 16th of January – and the group assignment/tag will be given out – building will be completed by February 3 rd.

Judging there after

Plots are 30 x 30 each area may utilize 900 prims height may go as high  you must utilize a TP from Zauber

Please remember this is Fantasy and this is a PG Sim  and abide by the rules of a PG sim of the Elven Clan …  with saying this should you  have any questions – with regards to your creation – please contact Jeri Rahja  – before you start your build – because should it not met the criteria of the Elven Clan – I am sorry to state the art work will be elminated from the Fest and will be removed.

Chair Person  Jeri Rahja
Co Chair – Snoots Dwagon

Script  Police – Zauber Paracelsus

This is a juried art fest  we do have 3 qualified Judges

1) quadrapop tree
2) Jayjay Zifanwe
3) Velazquez Bonetto

Our publicists will be Nazz Lane and Braiwinde Magic

Head Of Entertainment – Sunbeam Magic”

So, if you are feeling a bit Fantasy/Elven, let Jeri know and join us there…

:))