Launching my first dresses: Starlight and Bliss :)

Second Life now has a new dress designer – yes, I’ve just completed my second dress so I thought a mini lanch was called for!

The Starlight is a sexy short dress with beaded detailing on the bodice.  I’ve made it in eight rich colours and it’s selling nicely already, so I must have done something right.

~ AMU ~ Starlight dress in crimson (click me to see the other colours in this design)

The Bliss gown comes in the same range of colours as the Starlight so the tops are interchangeable.  It’s my first gown and after much fiddling, dance testing and a little swearing I’m happy with the result.  It has hip attachments to make it move nicely, which also make it look pretty good when you sit.  Here it is in emerald green:

~ AMU ~ Bliss gown in emerald (click here to see more colours in this design)

I’ve got a small shop at Landsby (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Borgbeef/53/86/44)

You can also browse through my dresses and photography in my XStreet store.

New Beginnings

I’ve got a whole pile of news gathered up for you, so I’m going to break it into several posts so you don’t fall asleep!

First bit of news is that I’m working at a new club, the Blue Moon Bordello.  We recently completed the move to Zindra and the business has expanded.  We now have the Bordello, a Saloon, outdoor performance stage, surf beach, shops and even a chapel.  All on a beautiful beach in Beehollow.

The Blue Moon has a vintage theme, adding some sultry jazz, blues and vintage radio.  We have live comedy and music and several of us DJ at the club playing our own selections of everything from rock to chillout, jazz and so on.

I’m going to have to take new photos of the current site, as I only have these pics from the opening night of our old club.

You’re very welcome to visit us, though you’ll need to be adult verified to enter Zindra. Click here:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Beehollow/87/203/31

I’m DJing at Destinys tonight at 2pm SLT

I’ve got two hours of the best rock music I can get my paws on. And it’s all lined up for you lucky listeners tonight.  So if you want to kick the weekend off in style, get yourself to Destiny Escort Club.

Clairede Dirval live at Destiny’s

Clairede Dirval returned to play another gig at Destiny’s where I work.  This lady is just amazing!  You seriously have to check out her concerts in Second Life.  This is one tallented singer/songwriter and she’s so much fun to listen to.

You can check out her music over on Clairede’s Myspace page.  She has a group in Second Life if you want to know where you can pick up your next dose of Clairede

My RL partner Naiki has posted up some pics from last night on his blog.

The Happy Hippo Education Centre

I did a quick search for areas where I could learn some basic building skills and one of the results was the Happy Hippo Education Centre.  SL URL for the Happy Hippo.

Front view of the Happy Hippo Learning Centre

The Happy Hippo offers free training, and you can train at your own pace.  You can also come back later if you want to look over a lesson again.

Here’s a view of the tutorial areas where you can see the cubicles for students to work in.

Tutorial Cubicles

I really wish all the tutorials in Second Life were like these.  Rather than being presented with a lot of reading, you learn by building items right in the cubicle.

What I did was create items in front of me, to the left of my avatar so I could see the tutorial screen and change settings at the other side.  Then I could see what the settings were doing as they took effect.  I think this practical visual method of learning is excellent.  It gives you confidence in building items from the beginning, rather than feeling like a long textbook exercise.

Once I did the courses at the Happy Hippo, my head was full of ideas I wanted to try. I’m keen to look around all the other building tutorials now and see what else I can learn.

The Happy Hippo also do group classes, which I haven’t been online to attend yet.  There’s also a group where you can chat to other Happy Hippsters.

All in all, I love the Happy Hippo and will continue to visit as new tutorials are released.  I certainly recommend that you visit.

An introduction

It’s over a year since I started my Second Life character, and at the time I just didn’t gel with it.  There was a lot to learn, I didn’t know anyone (I can be a bit shy in RL) and basically I didn’t know where to start.  I wanted to get into SL, but I just couldn’t.  And I was on a dialup internet connection.  I think the min specs these days include broadband internet, and for good reason.  It’s amazing I even managed to log in, never mind move about!  So I pretty much put my SL account into limbo until recently…

Moving forward to about six months ago, my partner (Naiki Muliaina) had gotten into Second Life himself and made some friends.  It didn’t take me long to log in and take a look around again.  I met (and made friends with) Nai’s friends. In all honesty I spent most of this time socialising or exploring.  And shopping!  My new friends were sporting some great looks and I’m forever indebted to Kendall Larnia for helping me find great skins, hair and clothes.

So now, I’ve started working at the club that Nai and I began hanging out in – Destiny’s, and I’m hoping to build up my SL design skills over the coming weeks and months so I can hopefully start my own business too.

I’m going to use this blog before I get too super savvy with SL, so I can note down advice to newbies when I’m seeing their perspective better.  I think once you get good at something, you forget those first basic things.  So I’ll compile a few pages of newbie info and keep adding new bits and improving others.

I’ll also highlight those great shops I’ve found, interesting SL news and events and basically anything I feel is “interesting” in SL.  I hope you enjoy reading it