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 :)

Day 57, Sat 30 2007: Experiences in making textures: Denim

<- The first texture I had a bash at. Not bad, though I was following a tutorial :) It turned out that I had made the texture to the wrong scale, so it looked all grainy.

-> This is the texture after resizing. It doesn't make that much difference in these wee little photos, but making the texture finer made a huge difference in Second Life.

Short day today; not much else to report. I was out doing rl things most of the day ...

Day 56: Pink Petticoat

Time to completion: 1.5 hrs

Well, I was feeling a bit slack today, not really wanting to go out, so I thought I'd sit around at home for a bit, wash my hair, paint my nails, have a massage, that sort of thing. I wanted to stick on my dressing gown that I made a million years ago, but it looks like Sladen has it - it was just too much trouble to login as him/her, given the trouble my machine was having today.

At any rate, I've been keen to expand my experience with different fabric types, particularly since I'm a bit crap in that department - nothing like a bit of practice!! I pulled the lace from a photo, tiled the result by hand (because Make Seamless really messes up patterns), then erased the netting between the main parts of the lace to give a clean, open look.




I haven't focused in on the straps too much - they are a little wiggly over the shoulders, but It's my first attempt at making the straps so wee. Still, I think the triangular shape I've used might look better than a string strap at the shoulder; admittedly, it's not as appropriate for as many garments.

I paid no attention this time to matching the pattern at the seams where the lace is, though I think that I will investigate that soon. Or perhaps next. I may well get diverted by double layer skirts, or wrinkles, or clothing detailing like pockets and collars :)

I'm amazed that I've kept up creating, making up and blogging even for this long. It's pretty common for me to get frustrated early on in projects, feel bored and give up well before I could expect to see any results. I guess this is a good process in that I'm having substantial successes already.























Here's a brief update on my home turf. I've moved the photo booth out of the way to prepare a space for the waterfall and rock pile. I've laid out all my junk down on one platform, and set up the other with art of the walls and armchairs below that. Diana the Huntress protects all :)

Day 55: Red Brocade Skirt

Yet another effort with a ripped-off texture; one day I will get better at creating my own textures, but brocade is a bit of an ask for a beginner.

This is a 28 panel skirt with underwear underneath in the same texture. It's roughly ankle-length; I created the panels by expanding the template panel, rather than just lengthening it, so that there would not be gaps up the top.

Unbelievably, it's take me until today to think of posing myself up on the posing stand part of the LoopRez Generator to get the shape right (shakes head in disbelief). Anyway, that works like a dream - as it's intended to, I'm sure.





As you can see, I've played around with the backangle on this skirt as well, which makes a big difference for an ample bottomed lass like myself :)

The biggest difference with this skirt is the texuring. I've used the same texture file throughout, but for each panel I rotated the texture by 90 degrees, then offset the texture vertically. Each vertical offset is different to the two or three preceding, giving more of an impression of a skirt that is more homogeneous.

Day 54: White Dress with Pink Tie

Time to completion: 1hour


Finishing off this post a day late - I did the work on the clothing yesterday, but ran out of time to make this post.

Not much of note happened today; I simply completed the outfit I was unable to complete yesterday due to grid issues. It's sad that Message Liberation has been pushed back again, but if the problems this week have been anything to go by, it's better to get those sorted out first and get back on track with projects later.






Quite obviously this dress is based directly on yesterday's white shirt with a pink tie. The main feature of the skirt is the length - I made a new panel to use with ged's LoopRez Deluxe (which I'm starting to think I'm going to mention every single blog post), spread the information to the other panels in the skirt, and played around with the number of panels, flare, and other parameters.

I'm getting faster with the LoopRez Generator, getting to know it a little better. I can only imagine how long it would have taken me to hand-place all these panels, had I taken the time to learn to make clothing before the advent of this wonderful device. And what a tedious procedure it must have been, too! I do think though that I will end up somewhat hand-placing prims for skirts at some point in my clothing creation career, some time when I want an asymmetrical look.