New World Notes

Cajsa's Choices: Six Stylish SL Fashion Photags with Composite Couture

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

The composite of three or four fashion shots pulled together is a standard in Second Life fashion blogging, but Tea Peony (above and below) takes it to a new level. Her composites include different delicious angles that highlight details with narrow and wide slices.

She creates a mood that is fun, cheeky, and she never forgets that the point is highlighting the clothing and accessories. Her blog can be found at Hitchhikers Guide to Second Life.

Mokotana Boa is another fashion blogger who demonstrates how in one image, she can highlight individual details and show the fashions not only in the best possible light, but also project an individual style that makes her work instantly recognizable. I like how she samples three colors and creates a palette for each photo.

She also can lend those same talents to non-fashion decor items as you can see in the photo above. This Road Trip composite from Mokotana Boa is fabulous combination of the sideview mood shot and the details people want to see. She brands photos with her blog logo, but her real brand is her distinctive style. Her blog can be found at Moka's Way.

More masters of composite pics below!

Flickr of the Day: Fallout Cosplay in Second Life Turned Into Graphic Novel

Avatar-based cosplay of video games is popular in Second Life, but rather than just do a cosplay tribute to the Fallout series, Jordan Taylor (NSFW warning: his photostream also contains some adult content) created a series of striking, shadowy screenshots, added captions, and made himself a veritable graphic novel of adventures in the wasteland -- click here to start on Page 1 and then just click the arrow to advance to the next panel.

Hat tip: Cajsa, of course.

 

Cajsa's Choices: The Breathtaking Action Imagery of Eripom Moonwall, a Virtual Weapons Manufacturer in Second Life

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When I first saw Eripom Moonwall’s photostream I was struck by the vivid action scenes portrayed in her photos and the realistic scene-setting as brilliant and complete as a Hollywood set dresser. NSFW warning: Her photostream is a mix of her fabulous action photos -- and extreme BDSM erotica that many may find disturbing, and definitely not worksafe. She content rates her photos correctly, however, so if your Flickr settings are on Moderate, you will only see her action scenes and avoid any issues on a shared or restricted computer.

A thirtysomething securities analyst from Tokyo Chiyoda-Ku, Eri has a secret Second Life as an arms manufacturer. Really, I was amazed to learn that many of her photos are the result of her work producing machinima advertising her firearms in Second Life. Her company is called SAC, an acronym for SSOC Armament Co. Her YouTube videos and Flickr photos (featured on NWN last week here) are a big part of her marketing. She estimates that Flickr increases her sales by 20 to 30% per month.

Eripom Moonwall self-portrait

After the break, meet Ms. Moonwall: Real world stock market expert, virtual world weaponsmith and artist.

Flickr Photographer of the Day: The Sci-Fi Second Life of Dragonlila

Dragonlila is a fantastic SL Flickr photographer that Cajsa just recommended to me from her voluminous list of great virtual image makers she follows and often writes about here. Shadowy, dense, perfectly composed, most of Dragonlila's pics feature a sexy bionic woman doing what she does in the virtual world, often with a girlfriend, or sometimes, a bionic dolphin. Yes, really:

Game of Thrones Cosplay is So Popular in Second Life There's a "Winter is Coming" Gacha

Meriluu made this pretty impressive Khaleesi cosplay, which isn't surprising, because there's so much Game of Thrones cosplay in Second Life, whole sims and communities are devoted to it. Surprising to me at least, as Merilu explains on her blog, is there's a "Winter is Coming" gacha giving away all kinds of GoT-inspired goodies like this.

Flickr hat tip as usual to Cajsa L.

Trump Depicted as King Joffrey Rages in Second Life in Fantastic Photos

These aren't officially from the Avatars Against Trump Flickr group, but Huckleberry Hax has a beautifully composed series of Second Life photos depicting Trump more or less as Game of Thrones' cowardly tyrant boy king Joffrey Baratheon.

"Oh," Mr. Hax tells me modestly, "nothing more original or clever than being sick of a world in which power corrupts!" Also, they were created as part of another Flickr group, The Paper Crown Pass, in which members must take SL photos of their avatar wearing a crown for a month.

Couple more below, see the rest on Huckleberry's Flickr -- as you'd expect from something inspired by GoT, a few are a bit NSFW-ish.

Love Kawaii Photographers on Flickr? Check Out Cajsa's Choices

I'm going through the Flickr feed of "Bomi" just gawking and you should too. She's one of the SL photographers featured in Cajsa Lilliehook's lovely compilation of Kawaii-themed Flickr feeds, so you should also check that out too.

Cajsa's Choices: Five SL Photographers Who Capture the Spirit of Kawaii

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Kawaii is the Japanese word for cute and has come to define a cultural movement that may have begun in Japan but has conquered the world, crossing cultures and uniting young people in a worldview that is charming, sweet, darling, and above all else, cute. This week, I am going to highlight five great Second Life photographers who capture the spirit of kawaii.

Myka Semyorka did the opening photo as well as the one above. Kawaii is cute, but it is not facile and the Good-Evil photo reminds us of that. Semyorka is a story-telling photographer and her stream is filled with stories. Many of her photos are constructed on several planes, all filled with details that tell her story. Spending time looking at the totality of her photos as well as the details reveal the thought she puts into her shots, often some little bit of humor you could easily miss. She has a blog you can check out at  🌸🌸🌸ブログクレジット🌸🌸🌸 [Mika Madoka].

Aru arpeged also tells fun stories with her photos. Her stream is full of pictures of her doing things with friends and taking full advantage of the new articulate Bento hands. Her photos evoke more emotion than the simple, “awww, that’s cute.” Kawaii is cute, but it encompasses a wide range of emotions, including sorrow, loneliness, and alienation along with the cute and adorable. You can also see her work on her blog which she publishes in English and Japanese as Eat☻Nap☺Play.

Three more below the break!

Cajsa's Choices: Ten of My Favorite SL Images Framed Within a Frame

"High" by Marcus Lynch

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When it comes to pictures, the word frame gets a workout. After all, the entirety of the picture is the frame in which the artist chose to present the subject. The angle, distance, how it is cropped, all decisions that go into the frame. Then, of course, sometimes the picture itself is put in a frame,  and we spend hours at a frame shop dithering over matte colors, bevels, checking dozens of corner samples.

Sometimes, too, the artist creates a frame within the picture, a frame within a frame.

Frames within the frame of the picture create context and and depth. They create different planes within the photo, a foreground or a background, for example. In "High", the photo by Marcus Lynch, above, you can see how frames creates multiple layers. In the front we have the man framed by the dark walls of the structure, the skyscrapers are framed by the opening in the ceiling and the plane is framed by the buildings. This complex layering creates a starkly powerful picture.

The foreground frame is by far the most common. Trees and the blurred leaves and flowers that artfully frame the subject are ubiquitous. This picture above takes what is a bit of tired cliche and freshens it up. The tree frames the subject, but is in turn framed by shadow and water. The foreground frame is about giving context in terms of size and distance. Our eyes want visual clues to where the subject is, and the foreground frame is the easiest clue. It gives us perspective, something pictures need.

Eight more fantastic frame-within-frame photos follow below!

Cajsa’s Choices: The Second Life Art Nouveau of Jewel Appletor

"Friends" by Jewel Appletor

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When I look at Jewel Appletor’s SL images of Flickr, I am reminded of illustrations you might find in turn of the last century’s books, fashion and fiction illustrations that are romantic and rich in Art Nouveau ornamentation. I mistakenly assumed she did a lot of post-processing, but when I interviewed her for New World Notes, I discovered she creates this assemblage in world and photographs it. To say I am blown away is an understatement.

Appletor’s aesthetic grew out her pleasure in the many beautiful pieces she has collected from Second Life creators over the years. She puts them together “to tell a story that comes deep within her heart and soul” as she describes it. Though she began her SL photography by taking photos of her explorations, memorializing the sims she visited, once it occurred to her that she could put together her own tableaux, there was no looking back.

"If I Had Wings"

Appletor is another of the many SL residents whose life was profoundly altered by joining Second Life. This is where she met the man who eventually became her husband and the reason she moved from Canada’s West Coast to the U.S. east coast. A creative in her first life, she is pursuing her dream of couture fashion and window design. As you browse her photostream, where her physical and virtual tableaux are arrayed together, you see the continuity of her vision. While it’s expressed very differently, there is the same richness in ornamentation and affection for the romance of lace, flowers, and sumptuous details.

After the break, Jewel talks with me about her artwork in SL -- and how it led to meeting her RL husband: