Day 78: Leopard Dress

Day 74: Black and White Dress

Today's soft-focus images seem to have blurred out most of the details of the eyes and skin that I wore for this shoot; however, the focus has cleaned up the jaggy edges created by cutting away the background, so it's somewhat of a compromise.


I can't remember if I mentioned this previously, so I'm going to go ahead and mention it anyway - I'm using shades of off-white in all my work now, both to reduce the starkness of a pure white, and in preparation for requiring a surface to do highlights and shadows on when I get around to learning to create wrinkles in fabric. I'm also using off-white as my background in images, which makes it easier to see the clothing.

This dress was inspired by a design I saw in a sewing magazine. I included plenty of panels to smooth out the pleated look of the skirt somewhat, and used plenty of flare to give a nice sense of flow, though it looks even less like the original that way.

Today's skin and eyes are by Robin Sojourner; I don't recall the names, exactly, but if you search for Robin by name, she has her stores listed in her picks. Today's hair is the ETD/Aveda Flip, a Black Pack, I seem to remember.

This last shot shows me walking with the dress on; I wasn't quite sure whether to attempt to match up stripes on my skirt with my pants, whether to leave the pants all white, or to use some combination. In the end I left it as you see it: off-white pants, with black stockings from above the knee. It still looks odd, to my mind, but better than it looked in the other combinations.

I'd love to know what my avatar was thinking when I took this shot. She has a real brood on :)

Day 71: BowCollarJacket

I was quite happy with how this jacket turned out until I realised that the detailing was too subtle to show up properly. I think I will re-do this soon to take that into account.

The bow has become somewhat distorted through blurring here, and looks better inworld.

Day 70: Cut Out Shirt

This shirt was remarkably easy to throw together. I used a slew of guidelines in the Gimp to line up the cut-out positions, and put the shirt template on to work out where the row of cut outs should go.

Day 69: CyberShirt and Butterfly Back

I have been busy the past few days; busy enough with outfits and garments and work that I haven't had the time to blog about it!

A thing I learned about Sharpening and Blurring: it's a great idea to Sharpen before saving a texture to be uploaded to Second Life, because of the blurring you get when compression causes information loss, and an even better one to Blur before uploading photos to this blog, especially if I have cut away the background, to get rid of jagged edges.



To make today's two shirts I very simply used some Gimp brushes that I found online. Effective, aren't they?

Day 68: Blue Military Jacket Two

This is how I originally conceived this jacket - with the frilly bit around the bottom. And I think it works well like that. It's a feminine frippery thrown around the bottom of a more severe jacket, and that's how it was all designed to go together. Then, obviously, in the making of the garment, I had the chance to see it without the frill - and it looked as good if not better.



The jacket took quite a while to figure out, but not long to pull together after I worked out how to do what I was doing. I wanted to have wrinkles and all sorts of complicated doodads, but I'm just not that advanced yet, so I made do with a few symbolic lines and some totally pinched buttons. I did make the belt buckle myself :)

And today I'm on location somewhere else! But where? Contact me with the answer, and I'll arrange for you to get something nifty.

Day 67, Tues 10 07 2007: Black Frilled Skirt and Bling Shirt

This skirt has really had its issues. We've fought, and we haven't really made up. The thing looks right only if you stay still, and stand in a particular way. It's not conducive to posing, walking, flying or much else. Especially sitting with one's legs crossed.

Th concept seemed simple enough. Make two halves of a skirt with the LoopRez Generator by ged Larson. Attach each half to the appropriate upper leg. Obviously still not the best for walking or crossing legs, but there you have it.

Maybe it's just the animations I'm using. I'd hate to think that I needed a set just for wearing THIS SKIRT, and this skirt only. That would be ... disappointing, to say the least.


The shirt - now the shirt is much more reasonable. I made that using Robin (Sojourner) Wood's T-Shirt texture thingy, because I'm really not proficient with wrinkles in fabric yet. The image on the front is a reference to Tateru Nino's web comic, in her blog "Dwell on it" (it is best to go back to the beginning and read from scratch, which you can also do if you follow secondlifeinsider.com). If you can't quite make out what it says ... um, too bad! Read the comic, leave a comment or talk to me inworld, damnit!

If you know where I was when I took this shot, let me know, and, err, I'll give you something nice. Heck, even if you make a fair guess I might give you something, just for participating :)

Day 65 Sun 06 07 2007: Kawaii Red Stripe Dress

Still sick; still suffering. *Sniff*

Nevermind.

I saw this ad and immediately wanted to own the dress. For real. Well, that wasn't happening: beside all other considerations, there's no way I'm going to fit into an outfit designed for a tiny Asian lass. I'm just not built that way.

So it became my SL project for today.

First I thought, aw, heck, how'm I going to do convincing stripes? Well, I found a tutorial (which I might follow next time), but I also found the Stripe Generator, with which I was able to make stripes in all orientations required really easily.



So, you see, the stripes were of little consequence. Even layering them so that there were stripes going this way, that and the other did not really cause a problem: it just meant more layers and more path-toolery.

The bow at the front was so easy it felt like cheating. I did bother to fill in the ribbon details on the bodice, but could not then work out how to align the skirt so as to show them.

The skirt was little enough trouble, especially now that I have a good idea of what settings to use with the LoopRez Generator. All it really took was a little upping and downing; because of the way breasts stick out, the skirt very conveniently tucks itself out of the way to the sides but shows up in the centre, creating exactly the line I needed.

Then, just when everything was going really well, I had to deal with the sleeves. I was determined to make prim sleeves, determined, I tell you!!

They didn't happen. I tried a torus. An ovoid. Many tori. Tori and an ovoid. I didn't even have much luck getting the arm covered completely, let alone creating the effect I wanted. I did try attaching objects to the shoulder. The upper arm. Both the shoulder and the upper arm. Eventually it was time to give up on prims for the day.

My next bright sleeve idea was to add the sleeves in on the jacket layer, seeming to remember that the jacket too had looseness settings. :( No such luck.

So, anyway, the thing's cute, is respectably akin to the original, and damnit, I'm too sick to work on it again today!!

Day, um, 62: Gold Shot-Silk Sequined Dress

What happened to the last couple of days, you ask? Where did all that dedication go? I was struck down for a couple of days with not a cold, I fear, but an influenza virus. I'm now well enough to cough and hack at my computer screen instead of merely flopping on the couch or lying in bed doing nothing at all.

I made a this replica using a sewing magazine I subscribe to as a guide. The original was an illustration, but the details state that a sequined fabric in gold was used. The original garment was Yves Saint Laurent.

The whole thing is really quite simple; a little jiggery pokery with textures, a wee skirt and a handful of toruses. The opaque black tights that go with the dress are system socks tinted black.

I have been left wondering whether I should have made a system skirt to go with this outfit, and indeed, may yet return to this outfit to refit it. The original is a tunic dress, designed to fit quite tightly through the thighs; I do think the flexis look nice, though - except for their unfortunate habit of exposing one's bottom when one walks around. *shrug* That's what same color underwear is for.

-> Here is an terrible shot of the original dress, showing virtually none of the detail that I carried across. Nevermind. You can see that this dress has been designed to fit a reed-thin model, and not really myself or my avatar, so the modifications and accommodations I have made make sense. It would be an interesting experiment to make a few more shapes to see how my designs go fitting a wide range of shapes ...

Lastly, a pic of me at home, on my lawn. I like to stop for any sunset and record the moment :)

Day 58, Sun 1 07 2007: Jeans with wrinkles

Further experimentation with denim, this time incorporating that all-time bugbear, the wrinkle, into the mix. I tried using bumpmapping, but just couldn't seem to get a satisfactory result; I think that I just need a bit more experimentation there to get it to happen. I turned instead to simply drawing on the denim, and dodging and burning in the creases. Above you can see my first attempts. Firstly, I started down too far into the crotch of the jeans. Next I made the creases too straight and not random or organic enough; the stitching didn't work out too well either, but I was still trying things out at this point. I also misplaced the pockets :)



















The next pair worked out considerably better. I drew on the fabric using a photo of the pair of jeans being worn as a guide. Not fabulous, but certainly better than the first two attempts. Not bad, for someone who "does not draw". As always, the drawn on parts look more realistic from a distance.



I'm just showing how the jeans evolved as I continued to add detail. I think the wrinkles around the back of the knees worked out particularly well. The pockets could do with a little more burning in.



The final shot in this series contains my first corset-like garment, also with wrinkles. Again, not quite right, but I think I'll reassess my skills in this area sometime when I've had more than a day's practice :)