Second Places – nimil’s adventures in wonderland

One Click Vacations

August 17, 2011 by nimilblackflag

sheesh.. i haven’t written since july…

a couple of weeks ago i asked people on plurk to provide me with slurls or landmarks to their favourite sims in second life. i went to each of these sims and took one photo that i felt represented the sim in my eyes. and now i’m sharing those with you!

No Salvation (must be adult to enter)

this was a very fun project! and i got to see a bunch of places i’ve never been to before which was awesome. i’m sure i will do this again, so if you are friends with me on plurk be on the lookout when i ask for favourite sims!

adventures in japan: Giftmas Edition

December 18, 2010 by nimilblackflag

its giftmas time and lucas and i decided to go check out probably the BEST giftmas event on the entire grid. the love soul and nipponbashi sims are COVERED IN ZOMBIES! santa zombies to be technical, and they need your help to put a stop to their evil rein of terror.

lucas and i carefully donned out battle gear in preparation for the task at hand… ok i donned battle gear.

(actually he put on the santa suit but sl would not let me see it so lol this is what he was wearing when he got here)

you start out with a choice between reindeer or santa suit, a hud and a pillow starter weapon. the object of the game is simple, beat the shit out of zombies, level up, and collect prizes along the way!

the pillow sucks but it has a great death animation :p

i finally leveled up and found a ticket for the death hand which is quite useful though i keep running out of energy very fast D:

lucas and i took to the streets of nipponbashi and battled many scary boss zombies. i died many times.

we also browsed some of the shops and cafes along the way. someone translate this for me.. because i want to know what it says lol.

i found out that the cake really is a lie.. and often contains traps.

and lucas found a merry go round that makes you sit on a pig in a slutty pose.

we even found awesome gift ideas for arahan!

imagine peace

July 29, 2010 by nimilblackflag

i was pretty shocked to find out a couple of days ago that yoko ono has a sim in second life! lucas found out about it on twitter and retweeted the invite to go see a lighting of the imagine peace tower. he and i went to the second lighting of the night and we were pretty disappointed that it was fairly empty. we did meet up with crap mariner there, and i listened while they and lucas talked about the early days of the internets (which always makes me feel like a baby) we hung out for a while and i took some photos.

and no crap was not having problems rezzing. they have become a shadow of their former self.

you can check out the imagine peace tower here.

where was i?

April 13, 2010 by nimilblackflag

a lot of people have been asking where i’ve been. i’ve gotten quiet and pretty much all of march i was rather inactive on my blog, flickr, and other stuff. well the first reason for that is just real life depression, and i’m slowly trying to work though that. still a lot of stuff to get used to after the death of my father.

the second reason for this is that lucas and i were working on a sim for a store owner who contacted him. although he doesn’t usually do custom work, we were asked to build them a 100% custom build. everything from textures to sculpties to terraforming, all of it was 100% made by us, no prefab work at all. and he would have free reign on the idea of how it should look. that perked his interest and we decided to accept it.

it ended up with too many things changed to what was laid out to make the effort worth while, so we decided to part ways with them after the initial month.

fortunately we got some really good material out of it that might turn out to be sold at the store. among other things, it gave us a new store build to play with too.

to leave this entry i thought i would share some pictures that i took while we were building the sim.

most of this work is lucas’ i’m not much of a builder so he’s the star here. i made some cool textures though and it taught me a lot about making textures for builds.

lucas had a cool idea for this place including some stuff he never got the chance to build. one thing he was able to build was the heart.

in his own words:

“i wanted to imagine a sim having a heart, literally. and since we’ve kinda worked with ‘heart themes’ in the past this was an idea that kept appealing to me. to imagine a transplanted heart growing inside of a sim and spreading its arms out to touch and make everything its own.”

to give you an idea of how big that heart was… that little hard to see dot to the right is lucas standing there… so just imagine how massive it was in person.

the store build was based loosely on the house from edward scissorhands, and i’m really kinda glad we get to keep it, because i love it. and yes i’m trying to talk him into making prefabs, but feel free to try begging him yourself as well :p

i made this awesome window light thing! it came out pretty cool for my first try at something like this. i also made the textures for the store including that awesome shattered window.

in the end i can’t say i’m not disappointed that we didn’t get to finish the sim. we had some great ideas for the rest of the place that we never got a chance to make. i hope that lucas will put some of this stuff up for sale in the future.

GODart and more…

October 13, 2009 by nimilblackflag

so the GODart opening party came and when and i had a great time! there was tons of lag and tons of people but everyone managed to move around enough to see the art and enjoy the music. and i even snapped some pictures.

loglady even put out the collector’s case from the twisted hunt! that was a shock but so awesome to see XD.

so later after all that happened, lucas and i went with a couple of friends to a fashion show at the DC district, which is owned by our friend drakon cortez. everything was going well and we were watching the models when some chick jumped onto the catwalk and then flew away… so we figured he bounced her or something. but moments later the entire fashion show area was covered in griefer particles! i have to admit it was kinda funny but i feel really bad for the designer, models, and most of all drak X_x but he bounced her ass out of there and the particles went with her. it was so weird though… its been a long time since i’ve seen an actual griefing lol. back when i was a noob they were everywhere… now its so rare.

speaking of fashion…

la ultima fiesta is now available at our store! this is my second dress ever and i am so proud of it. i’m really getting the hang of this clothing stuff! there’s a white version of this too but i’m partial to the black :p so go check those out at our store or on xstreet!

there’s something you guys should see

August 7, 2009 by nimilblackflag

i have an amazing friend in second life named arahan claveau. he does this amazing stuff called art. do you guys know what art is? no i’m not talking about photo shopping second life pictures, i’m talking about actual art! anyway, he’s a part of this great art show and i think you all should check it out.

brooklyn is watching, is an amazing idea set up by a gallery in the real world called “jack the pelican presents”, that allows people to set up small installations (or not so small) on their sim, at no cost, for about a week, and then they kick it back to you. the coolest part about it is that the whole thing is shown, live, via a computer in the actual gallery, that people in the gallery can navigate around with a small eyeball avatar. so not just second life people get to see the exhibits.

recently “biw” had a huge contest to determine the best of their first year in sl, and finally they chose their 5 winners. those winners are Dancoyote Antonelli, Bryn Oh, Nebulosus Severine, Selavy Oh and Glyph Graves. they were all given a copy of a prim version of the real gallery and told to run with it. their installations will be judged by some people and a winner will be determined out of those 5.

now some of the artists didn’t really like the fact that they were pretty much pitted against one another in a competition, and one of those, the winner selavy oh, decided to make his version of the gallery an installation inside an installation.

selavy asked some of the “rejected” artists to join his exhibit, and show their works. sorta sticking up a middle finger to the whole contest and making it even harder for the judges to decide. i really think he should win solely based on the fact that he gave up his chance to show things in favour of giving his space to others.

one of the people asked to make an installation in selavy’s space, is my dear mr. claveau. arahan has made some amazing, and thought provoking art over the years, and has always been a kind and wonderful friend to me, so i was very excited when he invited lucas and i to see what he had done for the show.

why yes, i am being an ass and not taking a good photo of this so that you will have to actually go and see it!

arahan’s exhibit is very personal to him and though it seems very vacant from this photo, there is a lot of feelings involved in it. he includes a note card which will help you understand what he’s trying to get at, but really even without the note card, you can tell that this is a piece of him. he’s recently also written a blog post about it if you would be interested in a full explanation.

the entire show is pretty amazing, and the artists selavy oh picked are all very different and their exhibits are all very… well.. lets just say, different 😉 and i suck because i forgot the names of most of the people showing in selavy’s space, but i do know that ichibot is also in there, and his stuff is usually a lot of wtf.. but i love it. so dammit there’s plenty to see all around!

the show kicks off today at 1pm slt and runs until august 23rd. you can read more about it, and brooklyn is watching at their website. and do go see the show!

tp to the installations

tp to the party that starts at 1pm slt

and while you’re checking out some fantastic art, do make sure to check out arthole as well.

oops

August 2, 2009 by nimilblackflag

the card stamp rally (now known as CHOICE!) rolled around and knocked me in the face right after buying a very expensive chunk of furniture >_> my wallet and i are now no longer on speaking terms.

i figured i’d just grab one or two things but as usual i went nuts and ended up with several cards hanging off my body. apparently i have never heard of moderation.

lucas and i finally finished the house saturday and put it down on our land. now the furnishing has begun! we’re still working on that part and need to finish making/buying the rest of the stuff we’re going to be putting in it. but i’m so glad the hard part is over with!

we ended up buying this really awesome (AND HUGE!) bed from a small furniture store called “mangoo” the beds are gigantic but they have very sweet poses in them. but because i am crazy for the pose base that instinct sells, we also bought one of those. still need to mod that and set it up, but for now.. relaxing time…

i also want to apologize if the above photos or any photos on this blog are missing.. the host i use for my blog pictures is crapping out i think… fixed.

so its Saturday

July 18, 2009 by nimilblackflag

and i was trying to come up with something to blog about but i couldn’t so instead i’ll just blog about life.

this whole week i’ve been traveling back and forth to 1 store… aoharu. why you ask? well because they have an amazing 50% off sale going on and i need to quell my fear of sculpted prim clothing and colour.

here’s me, fainting in the middle of aoharu, realizing my wallet is going to be raped of its contents any moment…

i ended up not buying as much as i figured i would.. i couldn’t decide on things, and i still could not bring myself to buy clothes that were in colours other than black! (i have a serious problem here…)

i got a shirt, and a jacket/dress thing.. and a hair, which i’ll probably blog all of on forced midnight. stopped off in the shoe department where i was greeted by this scary poster:

ok i am not saying this isn’t amazing photo work, but.. is.. she.. holding her foot up to show it to us!?!?! like “hay guyz! check out my detachable foot!” that’s the part that kinda freaked me out a bit about the whole thing.

so i rushed home after oggling everything and figured i’d drag lucas back there later and force him to buy sexy mens clothing.

bad idea! ok not totally a bad idea because rawr.. lucas looks hot in the stuff he got but holy fuck! the modding he had to do just to get things to fit his body was insane. we’d both expected to have to mod a little of course, but we also figured that, being that the store was japanese, he’d have a chance to fit into this stuff without much mod work because usually the japanese male clothing we find fits him pretty well. not the case here. it took him over an HOUR to mod a suit to fit his body. and another 30 minutes for the two jackets he bought. one shirt we’re still having problems with the collar on. so ouch.. buyer beware, if you aren’t one with the prims, you are going to have a hell of a time. lucas also took the plunge and purchased the men’s sandals with the prim toes. they came out pretty nice, and i decided today to give over to temptation and buy some myself…

yes i am was prim foot virgin, i did not own any pairs of shoes with prim feet, not even prim toes. i was a bit of a snob for a while, stating that i would never… but yes.. i did… i bought not one but 2 pairs of shoes from this store. a pair of heels and a pair of sandals. i bought the wrong colour sandals (that’s what i get for not letting things rez) but i still kinda like them, and i will probably go pick up the right ones later on tonight. oh and then i talked myself into buying a bright green dress.

the shoes that i got were.. interesting.. adjusting them so i didn’t have the scary leg/foot gap was easy, which was a relief.. i have seen so many horribly modded prim feet that i was worried i would look awful. i can’t get them to match my skin completely because my skin is a little more highlighty than the foot skin but i tried my best to match them up.. please do not fug my feet lol i am still a noob at this D:. the hud that you get for the feet is nice except it does not save the custom colours like it says it does.. and i’ll most likely send a note to the creator about that. also i don’t really like the +/- red blue green options.. i would much rather be able to input rgb values like some other shoes out there. however for a first time prim foot wearer, i like them and they look nice on me.

what else did i do this week?

well i got married… again. something that lucas and i have always done. anytime we find a working chapel in second life, we get married. its very romantic and one of these days i will make a wedding album of the photos of all our chapel escapades. this one was set up kinda like a vegas chapel complete with a little veil and bouquet for the bride.

and a sculptie elvis (who’s curled lip makes his face look kinda deformed). so congrats to us for getting married for the 238947294756234723th time.

there was also general silliness last night when my brother invited me to visit him and his wife while they planned out a new sky box. my sister was also there as well as ava’s best friend, so we had a little mini party. this is us playing onigokko.

and so that’s what i’ve done this week. its been alot of fun, and my wallet hates me.

just adding this photo to remind myself, and everyone else.. this is why i log into second life… <3

Lucas + Nimil on post 6, and other junk

December 19, 2008 by nimilblackflag

just wanted to link this 😀 lucas and i were recently featured in the herald as a post 6 couple. enjoy a little history about how we came to exist in this strange new world, and of course, some nudity :p oh and for those who are curious, the “i’m really a man” shirt was made by me, and i hope to set it up for sale soon. and no i am not really a man.

thank you bunny for letting us be a part of this! i’ve been reading the herald for a long time now.. yeah it’s not really a respectable sl newspaper but its amusing and i like things that are amusing.

the article is also great because the photos were taken in tainted hearth. those who don’t know, tainted hearth was built to be a darkly themed sim featuring some like-minded content creators. sadly, because tainted hearth was built on an open sim, the owners do not have the money to continue running it at the new higher price that LL has set. so tainted hearth will be returning to the depths at the end of this month. we dedicate our post to the sim, and it will be sorely missed. please go visit it if you have not, take a moment to enjoy the art that has been placed there, and make some memories of your own before it’s too late.

i guess i seem a bit silent recently, people may have noticed i’m not logging on as much anymore. i’m taking a little bit of a break. the holiday season always takes a toll on me and i tend to get grumpy and bleh… but i am hoping to work on a few projects and try to get better at some things in the coming year. my new years resolution will be to try harder, to not be such a basket case, and to be a bit more tactful with things. the things that come out of my mouth are sometimes not the best choice for situations.. but i am learning to curb that.

anyway, happy giftmess and enjoy your new year.

my favourite place

September 28, 2008 by nimilblackflag

you know… i opened this program on monday to do a blog challenge post on my favourite place in sl. but for some reason i could not come to one specific place that i concider my "fave". i mean.. my house, for one.. is a favourite place…

i have the ocean before me, photos of loved ones, big smushy couches, and the skylab…

but a girl has to leave home once in a while…

i like midian

one of the first roleplay sims i ever joined.. i still go there, to people watch.. and on the odd occasion play my quirky little rat girl…

i like water in second life… i don’t have the ability to see the ocean in my real life.. so being able to go and stand on a rock overlooking a stormy sea when ever i feel like it is really a great place…

i love rl places rebuilt in second life! i have no idea why… but sometimes it’s fun to visit something real in a world where everything is fake… sort of tethering i suppose.. and reminds us that we still cling to worlds we know even in a world of imagination.

so here it is on sunday and i’ve finally decided: sl is my favourite place.