Get a Free Lepidopter Flying Machine Inspired & Authorized by Dinotopia Author James Gurney

The Mechanical Lepidoptera is a flying machine you can get for free on the Second Life Marketplace, and it's quite cool for all kinds of reasons. For one thing, it's, you know, a flying machine with moving wings, which you can use to traverse the virtual world airborne like a steamunk boss. For another, it's inspired by a painting from James Gurney, creator of the beloved Dinotopia franchise, who recently unveiled it at the Jules Verne Museum in Nantes, France (pictured above). But I'm not even finished: The SL version was created by an SLer named Bunnys Fride, who sought and received Mr. Gurney's approval to create the virtual version, and make it available for free. Here's James Gurney blogging about the SL version. Which makes this all extra excellent:

A lot of fan-made content in SL is based on stuff from well-known movies, TV, and books, and isn't created with the original creator's approval. That's not necessarily the most horrible thing, but Mr. Fride's experience suggests a much better approach: Contact the original creator, ask for their approval, then create a virtual version with their blessing. Which likely means, as in this case, they'll help you promote it. Speaking of which, watch this machinima tribute to the Lepidopter:

Machinima by Natascha Wood, with great music by Epic Soul Factory under a Creative Commons license, making this whole enterprise a virtuous circle of cool creatives across many mediums making each other look even cooler.

Found via Second Life's Reddit group, from a submission by partyon.

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Comments

[Orca Flotta]

Old hat ;)
I don't wanna brag about it but I already bloggered it in June.

http://orcasl.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-lepidoptera.html

And Natascha had already made the video then.

What I found remarkable: Bunnys Fride is obviously a quite capable builder, why she didn't make other content eludes me.

[Marie Resch]

Oh no I can't find it - where is it? *cries*

[Marie Resch]

oh WHEW I found it - it's here:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Mechanical-Lepidoptera/3576314

[SpaceCase]

Nice coverage and back story.

A lot of freebie bloggers covered this at the end of May.

And a shout out to the reddit thread might be nice: http://www.reddit.com/r/secondlife/comments/vut1q/so_i_found_a_reddit_sandbox_in_sl_and_found_this/

[SpaceCase]

@Orca, Bunnys Fride *does make other content... https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/85548

[Hamlet Au]

"a shout out to the reddit thread might be nice"

That might be nice, yes. Which is why it's at the bottom of the post.

[SpaceCase]

Herp Derp. I haz the reading fail. Sorry!