Sunday, May 20, 2012
The Home & Garden Expo in Second Life®
I've been really busy lately with lots of new things; but for the past couple of months, a lot of my effort has been focused on the Home and Garden Expo in SL™.
The Expo is run every year, to benefit Relay for Life. This is the first year I've been part of it. I have a small booth on the edge of a sim. If you're an SL Resident, please come and visit!
I've been doing a lot of Mesh Work, now that we can import models built in other programs into SL, and I have some new stuff that is totally meshy goodness. Low prim, beautifully detailed, and (for now) available only at the Expo.
Come check it out! You can play with the demos, buy individual bits, and take a look at the LI (which might surprise you.)
I'm still doing some sculpt work, and you'll find a couple of new quilt designs, a bench with a sparrow that's full of birdsong, and a few other goodies there as well.
And, of course, since the entire event is to benefit Relay for Life, I've made two new items that are exclusive to the show just for the Relay. All proceeds from the sale of those items go to the Relay, so please take a look.
The Home & Garden Expo is running from May 19th to May 28th. See you there!
Sunday, January 08, 2012
It's Been a While...
It's been months since I blogged, because things have just been like that.
As some of you might know, I spent most of 2011 being quite sick. In October (sometime after my last blog post,) it became acute enough that I went to the doctor and had Many Tests. We finally got the results in December. The good news is that all the tests came back negative. Yay! The doctor said that it looks to him like I got a virus around this time last year, and then got another one before I had fully recovered from that one. After that, I was worn down, and just kept getting one thing after another, and never really getting over any of them.
So the end result is that I need to rest when I'm tired and really want to fall over, instead of pushing through the fatigue and just keeping on keeping on. Pretty much the opposite of what I had to do with the fibro. But it seems to be working. So hopefully I'll be doing better soon!
And now that that's taken care of, I get to tell you what I've been doing lately!
I have started to quilt! I don't know if I'll get good enough to sell any, but I'm having way more fun than I probably should.
I've been designing quilts in Electric Quilt for some time, and selling virtual quilts in Second Life®. But I decided that I wanted real ones; quilts I could actually hold, and cuddle up under.
So, I made a couple of pieced blocks to use on Christmas bags. (Let me know if you want to see pictures.) In the process, I learned that I really enjoy free-motion quilting!
Now I'm working on a quilt for my cat, to use as part of a cat bed. I designed it in EQ, and I'm part of the way through sewing it.
This is the design. I used the actual fabrics that I'm putting into the quilt for it, so I could see exactly what it was going to look like. I made a bunch of designs, but this is the one that Michael and I liked the best. (The others were variations of Jacob's Ladders, and would probably have been simpler. But ah well!)
I got all the fabric squares cut out, and made into 1/2 square triangle patches yesterday. Today I started to sew the blocks together. This is a single block.
And this is the four blocks that will be in this quilt, all finished, and laid out so I can see what the quilt top is going to look like.
It was at this point that I realized there's a mistake. If you look at the bottom right corner, which is nearly off the image, you'll see that the patch on the bottom row, second from the right, needs to be rotated 90° clockwise. Aarrgh!
And I was so careful, too! But apparently not careful enough.
However, I'm spent for tonight, so I'll be taking that corner apart and fixing it tomorrow. At least it's on the edge!
If any of you want the pattern for this block, please let me know in the comments. I'll get back to my normal work soon, but I thought you might like to see something that I'm doing just for fun!
As some of you might know, I spent most of 2011 being quite sick. In October (sometime after my last blog post,) it became acute enough that I went to the doctor and had Many Tests. We finally got the results in December. The good news is that all the tests came back negative. Yay! The doctor said that it looks to him like I got a virus around this time last year, and then got another one before I had fully recovered from that one. After that, I was worn down, and just kept getting one thing after another, and never really getting over any of them.
So the end result is that I need to rest when I'm tired and really want to fall over, instead of pushing through the fatigue and just keeping on keeping on. Pretty much the opposite of what I had to do with the fibro. But it seems to be working. So hopefully I'll be doing better soon!
And now that that's taken care of, I get to tell you what I've been doing lately!
I have started to quilt! I don't know if I'll get good enough to sell any, but I'm having way more fun than I probably should.
I've been designing quilts in Electric Quilt for some time, and selling virtual quilts in Second Life®. But I decided that I wanted real ones; quilts I could actually hold, and cuddle up under.
So, I made a couple of pieced blocks to use on Christmas bags. (Let me know if you want to see pictures.) In the process, I learned that I really enjoy free-motion quilting!
Now I'm working on a quilt for my cat, to use as part of a cat bed. I designed it in EQ, and I'm part of the way through sewing it.
This is the design. I used the actual fabrics that I'm putting into the quilt for it, so I could see exactly what it was going to look like. I made a bunch of designs, but this is the one that Michael and I liked the best. (The others were variations of Jacob's Ladders, and would probably have been simpler. But ah well!)
I got all the fabric squares cut out, and made into 1/2 square triangle patches yesterday. Today I started to sew the blocks together. This is a single block.
And this is the four blocks that will be in this quilt, all finished, and laid out so I can see what the quilt top is going to look like.
It was at this point that I realized there's a mistake. If you look at the bottom right corner, which is nearly off the image, you'll see that the patch on the bottom row, second from the right, needs to be rotated 90° clockwise. Aarrgh!
And I was so careful, too! But apparently not careful enough.
However, I'm spent for tonight, so I'll be taking that corner apart and fixing it tomorrow. At least it's on the edge!
If any of you want the pattern for this block, please let me know in the comments. I'll get back to my normal work soon, but I thought you might like to see something that I'm doing just for fun!
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Now Open - a Zazzle store!
Last week, while trying to print out a Robinton print, I had a real debacle with the printer. (Suffice it to say it took five hours of fussing with it to get a decent print.) So I decided to stop printing things myself, and instead move the print side of the store to Zazzle.
There are some real advantages to this. The Zazzle prints aren't signed, of course, but they can do the work much less expensively than I can, and can also print much larger prints! So you can get a print that's the size of the original painting (17x22 inches), on Matte Heavyweight paper, for only a few dollars more than it would cost to buy an 8.5x11 inch print from me. You can even get one for less, if you want to use other paper.
By default they don't come matted; but you can have them framed if you want to.
And, of course, as long as I'm doing this, I'm making the pictures available on lots of other things as well. Like cards, postcards, buttons, iPhone cases, and so on. (If there's an image you really want to see on something I haven't put it on, let me know, and I will.)
I'm also trying a few mug designs that I originally made for Second Life®, just for fun. We've ordered one of those, and I'll let you know how they turn out.
So, right now, I have Robinton and Jaxom up on the Pern side of things, and Music Lover, Trinket, Firebird, and Songbirds up in the Fantasy store. And I have Boo!, since it's so close to Halloween.
On the SL™ side of things, I'm working on a batch of new sculpts that I'm going to be selling full perms for builders. So stay tuned! Lots of stuff coming up all over!
There are some real advantages to this. The Zazzle prints aren't signed, of course, but they can do the work much less expensively than I can, and can also print much larger prints! So you can get a print that's the size of the original painting (17x22 inches), on Matte Heavyweight paper, for only a few dollars more than it would cost to buy an 8.5x11 inch print from me. You can even get one for less, if you want to use other paper.
By default they don't come matted; but you can have them framed if you want to.
And, of course, as long as I'm doing this, I'm making the pictures available on lots of other things as well. Like cards, postcards, buttons, iPhone cases, and so on. (If there's an image you really want to see on something I haven't put it on, let me know, and I will.)
I'm also trying a few mug designs that I originally made for Second Life®, just for fun. We've ordered one of those, and I'll let you know how they turn out.
So, right now, I have Robinton and Jaxom up on the Pern side of things, and Music Lover, Trinket, Firebird, and Songbirds up in the Fantasy store. And I have Boo!, since it's so close to Halloween.
On the SL™ side of things, I'm working on a batch of new sculpts that I'm going to be selling full perms for builders. So stay tuned! Lots of stuff coming up all over!
Friday, September 02, 2011
Gatcha Festival and Summer Sale in Second Life®
If you're a resident of SL™ you might be interested to know that The Nest, where I have a shop, is doing a special Labor Day/End of Summer/Sim Opening parts and celebration!
The parts kicks off at 4 PM SL time, with a couple of DJs, and lots of other festivities.
The Gatcha festival starts then, too. I made a little white wicker occasional table for it, with a quilted cloth that's finished with lace and satin in the border on top. There's a pile of 3 books on the table shelf, and a flowerpot full of blooms on top of the table. The table, books, and plant are 3 different objects, so you can use them together, or separately.
It comes in 9 varieties, with 9 different quilts, and 9 kinds of flowers.
The flowers are from the Arctic Greenhouse; but all the rest of it is my own original sculpts and textures. There's a lot of detail here. The shadows of the lace are burned into the table top, there's a raised design on the flowerpot, and the books are real books that I actually own.
Here's a closeup of one with White Flag Iris, so you can get a better idea of what a single table looks like.
Just L$65 for a try. Come visit my Gatcha machine at The Nest
Also, as part of the promotion and sale, I have set my picnic table, and all the snack coolers and ground quilts for sale at 50% off the normal price! Yep, half off, but only at my Home & Garden Store at The Nest. They're still full price in my main store, and the Marketplace, because we're trying to encourage people to come see The Nest.
And really, it's well worth seeing! It's right next door to Cheeky Pea (you can see my shop from the Cheeky Pea main store) and most of your favorite furniture, home and garden stores are right there on one of the two sims.
So come by and check it out!
The parts kicks off at 4 PM SL time, with a couple of DJs, and lots of other festivities.
The Gatcha festival starts then, too. I made a little white wicker occasional table for it, with a quilted cloth that's finished with lace and satin in the border on top. There's a pile of 3 books on the table shelf, and a flowerpot full of blooms on top of the table. The table, books, and plant are 3 different objects, so you can use them together, or separately.
It comes in 9 varieties, with 9 different quilts, and 9 kinds of flowers.
The flowers are from the Arctic Greenhouse; but all the rest of it is my own original sculpts and textures. There's a lot of detail here. The shadows of the lace are burned into the table top, there's a raised design on the flowerpot, and the books are real books that I actually own.
Here's a closeup of one with White Flag Iris, so you can get a better idea of what a single table looks like.
Just L$65 for a try. Come visit my Gatcha machine at The Nest
Also, as part of the promotion and sale, I have set my picnic table, and all the snack coolers and ground quilts for sale at 50% off the normal price! Yep, half off, but only at my Home & Garden Store at The Nest. They're still full price in my main store, and the Marketplace, because we're trying to encourage people to come see The Nest.
And really, it's well worth seeing! It's right next door to Cheeky Pea (you can see my shop from the Cheeky Pea main store) and most of your favorite furniture, home and garden stores are right there on one of the two sims.
So come by and check it out!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Mesh in Second LIfe®
Mesh came to SL™ last week. For those not familiar with it, that means that, for the first time, we can now upload models that we make in other 3D applications directly to SL, with their UV Maps and everything else intact.
It's a huge change, and like all other changes in SL, it's not without controversy and confusion. To help alleviate some of that, I've made a mesh object for people to experiment with, and 3 videos to help explain how to work with it.
The first one talks about what mesh is, what Prim Equivalency is, what LOD is (and how to adjust the LOD you see using renderVolumeLODfactor,) what UV Maps are, and how to save a texture from SL onto your own hard drive.
The second one explains how to use the UV Map to easily put a texture on the plant stand.
The third one shows how to bring your finished textures back into SL, and put them back on the model.
If you are an SL resident, and you want to try playing with the plant stand yourself, you can get it at the SL Marketplace.
Enjoy!
It's a huge change, and like all other changes in SL, it's not without controversy and confusion. To help alleviate some of that, I've made a mesh object for people to experiment with, and 3 videos to help explain how to work with it.
The first one talks about what mesh is, what Prim Equivalency is, what LOD is (and how to adjust the LOD you see using renderVolumeLODfactor,) what UV Maps are, and how to save a texture from SL onto your own hard drive.
The second one explains how to use the UV Map to easily put a texture on the plant stand.
The third one shows how to bring your finished textures back into SL, and put them back on the model.
If you are an SL resident, and you want to try playing with the plant stand yourself, you can get it at the SL Marketplace.
Enjoy!
New Photoshop Tutorial - Brushes 10 - Organizing Your Brushes
Another Tuesday, another Photoshop Tutorial!
This time, we finish up the series about brushes in Photoshop CS4 and earlier with a discussion about how to make a brush from a color image, using either a Black & White Adjustment Layer, or Lab color, to get the values you want for your brush.
I'll also show you how to easily copy the settings from one brush preset to another one.
Finally, we'll talk about how to organize your brushes, save them so they show up in the Brushes menu, and save them so they won't; but you can find them easily.
Next time, I'm going to do something else, because I feel like all I've talked about for months and months is brushes! (Mostly because that's all I've talked about for months and months.) I'll get back to them, and do brushes in CS5, later.
If there's anything you're really curious about in Photoshop, let me know!
This time, we finish up the series about brushes in Photoshop CS4 and earlier with a discussion about how to make a brush from a color image, using either a Black & White Adjustment Layer, or Lab color, to get the values you want for your brush.
I'll also show you how to easily copy the settings from one brush preset to another one.
Finally, we'll talk about how to organize your brushes, save them so they show up in the Brushes menu, and save them so they won't; but you can find them easily.
Next time, I'm going to do something else, because I feel like all I've talked about for months and months is brushes! (Mostly because that's all I've talked about for months and months.) I'll get back to them, and do brushes in CS5, later.
If there's anything you're really curious about in Photoshop, let me know!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
No Tutorial; but a Busy Week!
Hi everyone! I'm sorry to say that Michael and I both got sick over the weekend, and I was congested yesterday and unable to film a new tutorial. So there's not going to be one this week.
However, I've been very busy with all kinds of other things, mostly in Second Life®, since I last posted.
First, I just opened a new store! It's on a new sim called "The Nest" which is a home and garden paradise; a lot of the best known and most highly respected furniture designers in SL have shops there. I've been trying to get a shop in a place that people come for furniture for some time, because people usually don't think of me as a place to go to get stuff for your home. Mostly because I haven't been making things like that for long.
But with mesh upon us, I really want to have a place to sell meshy goods, and now I do!
I wasn't early enough to get a spot on Main Street, but I did snag a shack with a porch in Shacktown, so I'm right there on the same sim. And, truthfully, the whole place is fascinating enough that I'm guessing a lot of people will walk around and look at all of it!
I'm pretty excited about this, as you might be able to tell, and have already started to make new things just to display here. For instance, I made a quilt that drapes over the railing, because the shack really needed brightening up! You can see it in the picture below.
It's only L$75, mod/transfer and is also available from my main Home and Garden Store on Livingtree.
I've also made a new snack cooler, although it's more for Fireworks and things than for the new store. (I am selling it there, though!)
It's with packed 14 different snacks and 21 beverages in 5 categories; Healthy Snacks, Sweet Snacks, Soda Pop, Juice, and Milk. If you touch the cooler, you get a menu that lets you choose the category you want, but the actual food you get is random, which is more fun!
You can also sit on the cooler. There are 9 poses to let you do that. Touch the handle to change pose.
It's only 2 prims, L$300, transfer only, and is available from Home and Garden Store on Livingtree, my new Home and Garden store at the Nest and on the Marketplace.
Come and check it out at one of the stores!
And do come see the new store, Robin's Home and Garden at the Nest.
For this week, I'm playing with quilts. There should be some new ones out in time for Fireworks, with poses, pillows and small coolers. If all goes according to plan, they'll seat 3, and should come in at about 5 prims.
Now I'm going to go play with Electric Quilt for a while. Till next time!
However, I've been very busy with all kinds of other things, mostly in Second Life®, since I last posted.
First, I just opened a new store! It's on a new sim called "The Nest" which is a home and garden paradise; a lot of the best known and most highly respected furniture designers in SL have shops there. I've been trying to get a shop in a place that people come for furniture for some time, because people usually don't think of me as a place to go to get stuff for your home. Mostly because I haven't been making things like that for long.
But with mesh upon us, I really want to have a place to sell meshy goods, and now I do!
I wasn't early enough to get a spot on Main Street, but I did snag a shack with a porch in Shacktown, so I'm right there on the same sim. And, truthfully, the whole place is fascinating enough that I'm guessing a lot of people will walk around and look at all of it!
I'm pretty excited about this, as you might be able to tell, and have already started to make new things just to display here. For instance, I made a quilt that drapes over the railing, because the shack really needed brightening up! You can see it in the picture below.
It's only L$75, mod/transfer and is also available from my main Home and Garden Store on Livingtree.
I've also made a new snack cooler, although it's more for Fireworks and things than for the new store. (I am selling it there, though!)
It's with packed 14 different snacks and 21 beverages in 5 categories; Healthy Snacks, Sweet Snacks, Soda Pop, Juice, and Milk. If you touch the cooler, you get a menu that lets you choose the category you want, but the actual food you get is random, which is more fun!
You can also sit on the cooler. There are 9 poses to let you do that. Touch the handle to change pose.
It's only 2 prims, L$300, transfer only, and is available from Home and Garden Store on Livingtree, my new Home and Garden store at the Nest and on the Marketplace.
Come and check it out at one of the stores!
And do come see the new store, Robin's Home and Garden at the Nest.
For this week, I'm playing with quilts. There should be some new ones out in time for Fireworks, with poses, pillows and small coolers. If all goes according to plan, they'll seat 3, and should come in at about 5 prims.
Now I'm going to go play with Electric Quilt for a while. Till next time!
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
New Photoshop Tutorial - Brushes 9 - Making Your Own
It's Tuesday again, and in spite of being a bit hoarse, I managed to make another video tutorial yesterday so there's a new one up!
This week we continue the series about brushes in Photoshop with a lesson about making your own brush!
We start with a short discussion about setting up the workspace to make a new brush, and capturing a brush tip shape. Then we'll explore how to save your new brush as both a Brush Preset and a Tool Preset. Finally, we look at the differences between the two types of preset, and talk about how to choose which one to use.
Next week, we'll finish up this series with a lesson about organizing your growing brush collection, and how (and where) to save Brush Sets.
Until then, I hope you enjoy this tutorial!
This week we continue the series about brushes in Photoshop with a lesson about making your own brush!
We start with a short discussion about setting up the workspace to make a new brush, and capturing a brush tip shape. Then we'll explore how to save your new brush as both a Brush Preset and a Tool Preset. Finally, we look at the differences between the two types of preset, and talk about how to choose which one to use.
Next week, we'll finish up this series with a lesson about organizing your growing brush collection, and how (and where) to save Brush Sets.
Until then, I hope you enjoy this tutorial!
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