The Kissing Fish : We have history...

Shelter

Where blokes are concerned,  Angel is one of those pretty long suffering ones that I consider myself privileged to know. This image totally didn't start out like this :-). That was several hours and many wardrobe changes after it first started looking a bit more like this :

A quick screen capture in which I drew a quick bossy art directiony scribble

I'm blogging more these days, trying to get into a habit of sharing my thoughts and providing more insight into the sort of thinking and work that goes into creating my Flickr images.

I hope you have enjoyed this little amusing snippet and that you have a wonderful and creative day.

xx
D

The Lucky Fish : Breaking Ice with Lyrical Bizzare!

Break The Ice

Over on FineSmith Sim (Azure Island) there is a mixer for Bloggers and Designers to meet  titled "Break the ice"

I am delighted to have been put in touch with Lyrical Bizzare who creates these amazing Full Perms designs all very inspiring stuff and so ofcourse we have a flickr moment :

Ice Queen

In this image :
By Lyrical B!zzare
Snow Queen Gown (Rigged Mesh Head Dress, Flexi Fur, High Waisted Skirt and Mesh Train all mapped with spectacular specular maps)
Snow Queen Jewels (Remixed by me)- necklace (modified), earring (worn as head adornment)
The above is available to purchase on Finesmith Sim till the end of the week
Nails

Bg is pic of frost on my car!

The Fashion Fish : The Mens Department (Dec. Round)

Voyuer

Hurray for TMD I say, and whilst this event is one for the boys - there is always some great stuff there for shopaholics of any gender or species. (Everything is possible on SL mostly didn't you know?)

In this image :
Wearing BSD Design Studio IT girl  shining black heels (POE Hunt item)
B@R Business Woman (Grey)
.{Mes Petites Coutures}. Audrey Cigarette (Mesh)
Essences Olyvia02 TDRF Doux blonde
.ID. Striking Eyes/Blue
MONS / Makeups - Glamourous Look - Lipstick red
*Dura- Boys&Girls*24 Sienna

From The Mens Dept.
[ARIA] Hiver sideboard cabinet + Print + Bottle Tray and Candles
(Bottle tray twig accented with : [keke] sphere - snow,clip bird - neut, clip candle - fog + 8f8 Post Apocalyptic Ball - Infinite Search)
[ARIA] Hiver pouf with knit throw + plain
Balaclava Stargazer Telescope + stool (Gold)
7 - Portable Furnace
Lost Junction - Sneezy Garden Gnome (From We <3 Roleplay) Gift!


Pose : !Bang Mini Sits (M2) (From The Arcade)

The Fashion Fish : December and the Winter light.

Half Light

The year has certainly flown - more so as the days have started to get shorter. Even over in SL land, there's a wintery sort of theme that is reflecting the season. Many stores are offering goodies in advent calendar style and there are also several winter fairs about. (As in the above pic - Mesh Eyes Opalesenza from Cubic Cherry for Frost Fair )

Sheleg

Sheleg is (to my mind) a sort of wintry piece particularly in silver, with its branching detail. This Finesmith offering is available at the J&A expo.

Lavan

And also in that same sort of twighlight is this piece featuring Lavan, another seasonal creation gift that is from Finesmith for 25 for 25

The Art Fish : My first SL arty type thing!

I'm very excited about being part of Miamai's launch for their black label collection and it will actually be the first time that I'll have ever exhibited my artsy nonsense in the virtual world. (Ok so we're not counting the stuff I make!)

Having been sworn to secrecy about the pieces that I have made for this event, I can tell you that I have dreamt up a lot more ideas than what you will eventually be able to see at the launch. What is no longer a secret is the theme of the event - The Golden Thread.

What I love most in collaborations is the bouncing of ideas and the way discussion leads to new explorations inspired by such interchanges. I had already been thinking of how to merge elements of the raw 'wireframe' captures into full renders for some time and it struck me as being quite relevant to this theme - the idea that the SL grid itself can be seen in its raw state as a web of many points connected together by lines - like threads. In the end I discarded this idea as part of the exhibit, deciding that this was better explored outside of the above abstraction.

In my post yesterday, I wrote about discovering this fantastic online fractal paint program and promised that I would make some brushes for your download with this new toy as follows :

My first fractal brush set!

With these brushes made,  I eventually decided to try and make that wireframe composite and created this piece :

Spark

Have yourself a fantastic and creative day!

xxx

Deetz

The Art Fish : Discovers Fractal Flames!

Flame Painter Free | online paint program

Fire And Ice - Created entirely on flame painter.

So this is a new thing for me and that is liking something on blogger but this thing is SOOOOOOO fabulous that I just had to share!

I've been playing with fractal programs that run on the Mac and whilst they are amazing

Freezing Octopus - Created on Ultrafractal (http://www.ultrafractal.com/)

They weren't exactly the sort of fractals I had been trying to make.
I absolutely love FlamePainter and the online version isn't shabby at all! Creating many varying shapes in a decent enough size to make some really great fractal brushes which I shall be sharing with you wonderful folks very soon!

Meanwhile...
Here's more scribbles I did.

The Fashion Fish : Goldfish are everywhere

Yulia by FINESMITH

Hedge Deux by Zibska

Flower head Goldfish by Half Deer
Lotus Flowers by Monger Yesterday


SLURLS:
Zibska @ Zenshi
FINESMITH
Half Deer (@Lantern Festival)
Monger (On Marketplace)

The Odd Fashion Fish : Details and things...

Finally returning you to your usual programming...

Details

The above :
I really love and admire Zibska's fashion ideas even more so after finishing this nail guard idea that I've been working on the past week. She's a genuine powerhouse of creative vision that continues to inspire me in my image making.

Details :

Peter's poses : Ballerina 6

Zibska Luna Noir at Zibska's Zenshi location 

Goth1c0 Leather Bondage Mask

Lily Nail Guard Charcoal available at Typhoon Haiyan Fundraiser from 22nd Nov - 8th Dec

I'm a creature of habit... a fact that I'm noticing more as I sprint past a few more rez-days...
So forgive me for not updating this blog or my flickr stream as often as I perhaps should do - particularly when I am being creative. I tend to become a sort of building hermit and don't really emerge out of my shell until I have fashioned my malformed ideas into an actual semblance I can tolerate!
I have indeed been quite busy trying to script up and finish a sum total of 60 nails [2+2 x (9x2) x 3 + (3 x 2) - 12 + (9 x2 again) - It went something like that... ], not including the sets I had to discard due to silly errors on my tired part.

I really am grateful that my collection of quirky art nail guard designs have been so well received on flickr as well as in my personal inbox. Thank you all so much for the support and kind comments.

My biggest concern is for those who may find my creations disappointing because they do not fit. I really have tried to be as explicit as possible about the sizes that are available and the fact that the nails are not modifiable in their gacha version for many reasons.

A fully modifiable (but non transferable) version of nails is also sold at the event as a limited edition exclusive.

Lily Nail Guard " Sunshine after the rain"
This version is copy/modify and comes in two parts for each hand.

I have made these things especially for this event which is close to my heart because my childhood memories are filled with Filipino acquaintances. Whilst we have lost touch over the years, I fondly remember and genuinely hope they are all well.

Lastly.

Thank you to my fellow bloggers who have dropped notes to me this week offering blogging services. 

Actually, I'm not really sure I have any products to offer  as I do not really think of myself as a serious content creator or retailer in SL. What I do need though are fellow geekettes and guinea pigs. So if you don't mind being spammed by my experiments, are brilliant at scripting in LSL, can make magic happen with Blender or C4D - lets make beautiful digital noise together!

Being the people pleaser that I am - I have made a freebie!

It's absolutely yours to claim just for visiting the Typhoon Haiyan Fundraiser and my lil vendors.

Some facts about Typhoon Haiyan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-24899006

Source : UN Report 

11.5 million people are affected

2.5 million people in need of food aid

544,606 people displaced

130,074 houses destroyed

1,215 evacuation centres set up

Something interesting you might like to know :

http://www.shelterbox.org/

Shelterbox provide emergency shelter and lifesaving supplies for families around the world who are affected by disasters, at the time when they need it the most.

One box costs £590.

Thank you for helping.

Dita.

  

The Fashion Fish : A Dream Within

Soo yes I've been snap snap snapping away and creating images inspired by the previews for this :

"A Dream Within..." organised by Bodza Blackadder  is a charity event benefitting Crohn's and Colitis UK (info: www.crohnsandcolitis.org.uk/) 50% of the income of each exclusive gown design will go to Crohn's and Colitis UK as will the donations raised during the event itself which is hosted at Azure Island - FINESMITH (Running for a week commencing 9th Nov from 1pm SLT.) maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Azure%20Island/128/100/8

 This involves some amazing fashionspiration by the grid's most talented couturiers!

Here's what I shot :

'Aphrodite'
*Living Imagination* Stardust Gown by Bodza BlackAdder

'Evening Star'
Lil' Stardust Gown by Irina Strazytski - Poet's Heart

'Lights'

Joy Fellini: Etincelle Gown

' Rêves Doux'
 Les Petits Détails - White Orchid Gown

'Heart don't fail me now'
Aliza Karu - Dreamland Gown

'Feeling Autumn'
Solidea Folies – Terra Gown

'Aviarian Dreaming'
Lana Dress by Désir (Vivien Emerald)

Through a Fish Eye Lens : Black Stork - Production Notes.

So if you have been following my flickr you'll know I crashed quite a few times recently. *Sad face*

Black Stork I - Finished composition.

It got so bad that I just decided to abandon that particular set of images instead of re-taking them! However, as promised I have decided to share a few more techniques I use in my SL photography.

In the last crash, I wrote a little about lighting and so in this "crash course" (hyuk hyuk), I'll share a bit about this idea of 'Camera'

Original RAW

Many people have different approaches and philosophies about SL photography and it's all interesting to me. Some people see manipulating photos out of second life from within a third party photo retouching software such as photoshop or gimp, to be 'cheating'. I think, like most things in life - it's all a bit of a grey area. Certainly if your manipulated images are used to promote an item that looks nothing like the actual product itself then I would say that lacks ethics.

For myself, capturing images in second life is only part of the process and it is possible to imagine something further or more than the initial capture. Which brings me to discussing the image below.

Some sims such as China where these images were initially shot , do not allow the rezzing of objects which can make taking images in them something of a guerrilla affair.

Black Stork II - Finished Composition

Trying to get a good angle for poses that float your avatar off ground isn't always easy and so that's usually when I make the decision to create a composite image out of a series of images. Thus this blog is really about the infinite capabilities of a virtual 'camera' as limited only by your imagination.

Black Stork II is comprised of three main images.
This is the raw of Dolly Dita on white background.

Primary Background RAW image

Secondary RAW image element used in foreground

Quite often in composites, people will take their images on green or blue screens for the purpose of a technique known as Chroma keying. This is just a way to uniformly mask out a colour in order to replace this mask with a different image. The main rule to bear in mind when applying this technique is to avoid using a mask colour that is repeated in the parts of the image you wish to keep.
My own photoshop techniques come from my own evolving use of the program and while there may be other more efficient ways to achieve the same results, this is how I do it as follows :

How to make a good picture (in second life) :

Part 2 - Mistress/Master your environment

Click here for Part 1

This is a basic tutorial about my technique for compositing an image using White BG with Photoshop CS6

Geekery : I am using Photoshop CS6 extended on a Macbook Pro using a 2.6GHZ Intel Core i7, NVIDIA GT 650M (1GB Video RAM), Running OSX 10.8.5 with a 500GB M4 SSD (Solid State Disk) drive.

I use a white background mostly because this keeps shadow colours untainted

Copy your corrected image with full white background onto your background substitute
Then change the layer properties to Multiply.

Layer 1 is the selected layer in this image and it has been converted to 'Multiply'

Create a duplicate of your pasted layer  and you can either use
Color Range (From your Select drop down menu)
or Magic Wand to select your unwanted areas.
In this example I've used the Magic Wand Tool.

In using a white mask, inevitably you will end up selecting highlights which are also white and within range.
Filling these up in Quick Mask enables you to finesse your final image.

This 'Halo' effect is quite a common result in composites.
When the mask used is not white, I tend to select these bleeders using "replace color"

Multiply overlays your image onto the background like a transparency/alpha.
Placing a white 'mask' underneath a multiply layer creates an area of solid colour.

Unlike erasing surrounding pixels - simply erasing the white mask enables retention of delicate details.

Filling in the gaps of your white mask will restore highlights.

Your layers should look something like this.

Production Credits :
Shot @ maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/China/116/179/51
Wearing : Zibska - Portia Noir (Attachments)
Info: Portia Noir is exclusive to and part of Zibska's mini collection at the Zenshi location called Zibska Noir. Available starting Saturday 02 November. maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zenshi%20East/219/102/27
Zibska - Severine Earrings

Else : Donna Flora - TANIA hat by the unforgettable Squinternet Larnia
=Z=Kiosk Birdcage (Blue) Gacha from Chapter Four
Etoile Ballet Shoes. marketplace.secondlife.com/p/EtoileBallet-Shoes-Black/353...
La Gyo - Baroque Brows Silver (The Arcade Gacha) - Modified by tinting
Doll COCO - BJD with 001V Doll head + Bodysuit Black

The Fashion Fish : Zombie Couture...

So what should you be caught dead in this upcoming Zombie apocalypse?

Sirens

Close up : Spiked Eyepiece for Halloween by Finesmith Jewellery

Credits :
Finesmith Halloween Collection of Eye and Hair Pieces.
More info : http://finesmithjewelry.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/finesmith-haloween.html 
Taxi : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Azure%20Island/141/152/9

With Hair from Alice Project :

The Fish Eye Lens : How to make a good picture. (Introduction and so on dedicated to Amita)

Haha ok so today I crashed and made this capture :

ARGHS!!!!

Amita Yorcliffe suggested (in a comment) that I make a tutorial on how to take good pictures - she even said the magic word pleaseeee (with four e's!!!!) so how can I say no eh? Truth be told I had been thinking of sharing my processes anyway  to beef up my blog content ;-). This is actually kind of a difficult thing for me to do because I'm really quite a disorganised goldfish brain but I'll try my best !
I think it would be interesting to explore the idea and learn from it too!

I certainly don't claim to be an expert in the field of good picture taking given the wealth of talent in the ole flickr pool; I'm pretty average with the occasional lucky break! With that said - how I'll go about blogging about these techniques is, I'll write a tutorial covering some aspect of SL photo taking whenever a crash has occurred and I need to channel my frustration into something more positive than a major rant!

One thing I do believe in is that there are some basic rules about aesthetics that other more brainy people than me have often theorised and written about. These can be learned and applied in your own projects. What is good is always a matter of opinion and style and these change and develop as you become more experienced. So perhaps the bestest no.1 rule in good picture taking is to take a lot of pictures! The rest is as follows.

How to make a good picture (in second life) :

Part 1 - Mistress/Master your environment (Light)

The essential things you want to control in most picture set ups are

Lights, Camera and Action.

So for this blog tutorial I'll write a little about setting up light sources in second life.

Note : 

Phoenix Firestorm Viewer is my viewer of choice for my own Second Life. Therefore the user interface and settings may vary from your own SL experience.

Lighting in Second Life (The Basics)

This tutorial will cover the following points

• 1) Planning the set up of your studio/location
• 2) Making basic lights

1. Planning the set up of your studio/location

While there is no hard and fast rule to setting up your studio,
I find setting up in an East West direction just makes sun/wind light settings easier to understand.  

I will write a blog about my own explorations with windlight settings in a later tutorial.

Briefly, the biggest reason for setting up your studio direction in this illustration, is so that you can use sun position in a controlled manner to create dramatic lighting. If you'd like to get into this straight away - Strawberry Singh has written a wonderful tutorial on windlight settings here

2. Making basic lights
You will need some very basic SL building skills.

You now have a set of photography lights that you can easily modify to suit your needs!