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LaskyaClaren

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Everything posted by LaskyaClaren

  1. Out and about. (I've got another with Scylla sitting beside me, but seriously . . . we've ALL seen quite enough of her, right?)
  2. Hanging out at Scylla's place. Most of it is summery still, but she very kindly made this corner winter just for me. (Really, she's a swell gal!)
  3. And of course, WHO is taking the credit? Sheesh. 🙄
  4. Do you really think that's such a good idea?
  5. Sisters. Sort of. I mean, we definitely share DNA.
  6. In the four years since I decided to "mesh up," I've been through a succession of 5 mesh heads by four different makers, and been unable to find the look I was looking for. So I was thrilled when the LeLutka free Raven head just, almost immediately, came together for me. It's so lovely to at last have a look I am happy with.
  7. Why? What good would that do? I am sure that Scylla can overtake Lil without recourse to such cheap tricks! You go, Scylla!
  8. This is an entirely unremarkable picture of an entirely unremarkable house. Except . . . I passed this house a few days ago on my wanderings. It's about 5 metres or so back from the SLRR tracks, perched on a tiny little outcrop at the edge of the cliff that descends into the interior of Heterocera Atoll. It's a pocket-sized house, not much larger than my own one-room boathouse (well, ok, Scylla's one-room boathouse, but she lets me sleep on the couch), and it's adorable. I didn't want to venture onto the property itself, but I did cam the interior briefly (yeah, yeah, like you've never done that). The living space is cluttered with all manner of things (mostly high quality mesh items). There's little or no overarching aesthetic theme, but the house looks thoroughly lived in and loved. Books and magazines lie around on all sorts of surfaces; there's a fireplace, and a sideboard with a cute pink turntable and speakers. On the walls above the bed are a half dozen pics of the owner with groups of friends -- sometimes just two people, and in others five or six, all smiling and mugging at the camera. On another wall is a plaque with a formal portrait of a seated woman in a uniform, and commendation of her for her work in the SL Coast Guard. Beside the house (to the left of my pic above) is a postage-stamp-sized bonfire area; a guitar sits propped up on an old tree stump. The entire house is a kind of self-portrait; it made me wish I could meet the owner. It's been lavished with love and care -- not as a beautifully elegant showpiece, but as a place where one can feel comfortable and at home. I loved the sense that you had to be careful how you moved about, as you might accidentally knock a precarious pile of books onto the floor. It made me reflect upon some of the places I have lived in SL. I love my boathouse (ok, fiiiiiiiine, Scylla's boathouse), but my favourite home for a long time was my beautiful little bookstore, especially when it was located in Hallelujah Blue. It was located on the main square of the sim, right next to the coffee shop. I used to sit on the counter and chat with people who'd just wandered in. I've had many cherished and loved places I hung out in, or frequented, but it was, more than anywhere else in SL ever has been, my home.
  9. So, tonight, I continued my walking tour along the rail lines of Heterocera. The section of the line I'm currently on is on the west side of the continent; the rails are situated on a sort of shelf, with a high cliff above, and a steep drop below to the east, where the land eventually gives way to the large inlet at the centre of the continent. While there certainly are lots of things to see beside the line, this means that one also needs to look both above and below if one isn't to miss cool things. The mainland has at least a partially deserved reputation for ugliness. There's little "zoning," except that which is enforced by the landowners (one passes tiny little towns or hamlets where something like an aesthetic theme has obviously been put in place), and so there's a great deal of ugly, some of it very old, to see. But there are also gems. Looking down the side of the cliff at one point, I spotted a very large and attractive Georgian edifice, with courtyard and outbuildings, and surrounded by trees. I decided to check it out. What I found is "Friendship Manor," a beautiful Georgian-style stone building that has, at least on the appearances of the rooms on the first floor, been abandoned. The furniture is covered with drop cloths, and there's a general look of neglect. As one heads to the upstairs, however, things get a bit more lively and, well, weird. I won't say more, in part because I'm not entirely sure what is going on there, but suffice it so that at least one of the rooms on the second floor is devoted to hydroponics and advanced computing. /me shrugs I also found a beautiful stable, complete with horses, in one of the attractive outbuildings; I'll be returning for that at some later date. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Parva/100/61/41
  10. My "home" is a train station -- the SLLU's "Unity Station" on the Heterocera SLRR line -- so, maybe naturally, one of my favourite things to do is to explore the mainland by following the SLRR tracks. But I don't take the trains myself. While my (*cough*) "sister" Scylla likes to zip around on her ridiculously cute little Vespa, I actually like to walk the lines. It gives me time to see what I'm passing, and to explore neat and curious little byways. And it's something I did as a kid in RL. One of my favourite things about the SLRR is the train stations; they are so varied and fun! Some of them are gorgeous. (There's a really pretty sushi bar right across from Unity Station where I like to sit.) Walking the rail lines means I sometimes have to get out of the way of oncoming trains. And every once in a while, more often than you'd think, the train is actually carrying a sight-seer. I generally shout out hello to them as they pass. I don't know why this makes me so ridiculously happy, but it does. Just like when i was a kid, in RL. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Obscure/163/82/79
  11. Meh -- I'm not PS expert, by any means! I think what you describe is more or less what's happening. It might indeed be possible to doctor the map in PS where that occurs -- dunno! Haven't tried it! Maybe I will now!
  12. Well, she is my older sister! I think she's "prettier" -- but I'm the one with style. But don't tell her I said so.
  13. Sometimes I get jagged or splattered edges on the blur -- I think it might have something to do with alpha layers, but I'm not certain either. Another problem is if you've got a scene with movement, of course. This one had some birds flying around, but they don't seem to have caused problems. I like it when it works: it's a very neat solution, and it gives one more control over it. On top of which, I occasionally crash when I turn DoF on in BD.
  14. Depth of field using a depth map as a mask. I've had mixed results with this, but it works well here I think.
  15. Yeah, all of those are definitely "you," despite some of the differences. The Freya head is really interesting, because it produces a kind of softer, feminized version of the other two. Still recognizably male, but with a nudge towards the feminine? I really like it. I met a guy in-world yesterday who was using the Freya for his male avatar -- he was having the same problem with the Catwa eye HUD I was, and having a hard time following the thread of the conversation in the group chat, so he contacted me to ask what I'd done. We talked about modifying the head for men (he didn't know you could edit the eyebrows). I think he was going for a much more obviously masculine look. It worked ok, but I think you're using the head better.
  16. When I first went "mesh" with my main, Scylla, about a year and a half ago, I think I had the conception that it should be possible to achieve a "look" that was recognizably like my old system avatar, but better -- more "realistic." I think a lot of us went into, or go into, mesh heads for the first time with that intention, because we become attached to how we look: it's part of our identity. A few people here have done that very well, most notably, I think, @GoSpeed Racer. I wasn't able to achieve that very exactly with Scylla, for a number of reasons, but I think I've managed it nearly as well as possible with Laskya, who's now wearing the Catwa Freya. I think this is what I had in mind by "the same, but better." It's by no means an exact replication, but it seems to me pretty darn close: she looks, to me, recognizably "the same person." So, here's a side-by-side comparison. For the purposes of the pic, I'm wearing the same (old) sculptie/flexie hair, and the same outfit. My apologies for the quality of the image: I don't seem to have kept many pics of Laskya, and this one has been grabbed off my old blog. ETA: I think I look older here. Which is entirely appropriate! You may now applaud.
  17. I can't for the life of me figure out what that black and white furry thing is, but your avatar is absolutely adorable. Nice pic!
  18. Hi. I'm Laskya, and I'm really not taking any of your bull**** So, "sis" finally let me drop a bit of money on some new mesh hardware. Gone is the old Logo head (which I quite liked) and Altamura body (which was glitchy, but I'm grateful for it). This is the Catwa Freya and Maitreya, with Deetalez skin. Believe it or not, I looked more judgy before I took some advice on shaping around the eyes and mouth. Oh, this is a raw shot, btw. Just cropped. I probably should have fixed a few clothing glitches, but meh . . . let Scylla labour over her pics. I'm far too busy considering whether I like you or not. (The answer is probably "not.") ETA: @Skell Dagger, I got some help figuring out why my eye HUD wasn't working from two of your colleagues, Kittia and Mejer (I think were their names?). Both were really sweet and helpful! You work with some nice people!
  19. Being a woman is actually pretty damned great, as I'm pretty sure you know most of the time. Being Rhonda is even cooler. Hugs.
  20. I don't seem to get out as often these days, but when I do, it's to screw around with Windlight and saturation at an art sim.
  21. Two alts. Alt 1: Male, whom I used almost purely as an ironic socket puppet (posing as a Gorean master) to post satirical/jokey threads here. Pretty much every thread he started eventually got nuked by mods, although 2 or 3 of the OPs were preserved on the old SLU forum. I suppose I could resurrect and use him as an "extra" in photos, but that would mean updating his look to mesh, and he doesn't really deserve it: he's (literally) kind of a Dick. Alt 2: A slightly dreary, overly-earnest would-be photographer who occasionally posts here, and whom I take in-world pretty frequently, because she whines if I don't. Technically, her account is older than mine, but we all know who the real sock puppet is. I don't own land, so I don't need tier, I couldn't RP my way out of a paper bag, and I don't do anything in-world that I wouldn't want associated with myself, so I don't really much need alts.
  22. Even alts get to have adventures, sometimes.
  23. Sheep. They probably seemed a good idea at the time.
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