New World Notes

New World Tableau: Shoji Kumaki's "My Dear Barcelona 17"

Recently found in my New World Tableau group on Koinup, this utterly lovely Tableau by Shoji Kumaki, "My Dear Barcelona 17", was taken from a sim of the same name. (Click here for SLurl and different image sizes.) "I love Barcelona, both in SL and in RL," Shoji tells me, "and it’s this sentiment that promoted me to take this picture." He took dozens of photos through a WindLight setting of his own custom design, called “Foggy Sunset", then blurred the background with Photoshop, and darkened the periphery with Picnik’s “Vignette” effect. (Kumaki's flamenco partner is Hiroko Morigi.) "As you may know," he adds, "half of SL Barcelona is gone due to financial reasons. SL Barcelona is one of a handful of sims that have remained unchanged since their creation, which is extremely rare in a fast-changing world of Second Life. I hope the rest of the sims will be self-sustainable and survive for as long as possible." And that visitors keep going there to twirl beneath the towers.

See more of Shoji Kumaki's great photographs here; see the entire Tableau series here. Want to submit entries of your own for me to consider? Join my New World Tableau group on Koinup, and start uploading them there.

New World Tableau: "Light" by Carlotta Ceawlin

I found Carlotta Ceawlin's gloriously luminescent screenshot in my New World Tableau group on Koinup. To create it, she used "a foggy WindLight setting in blue", then moved her camera position around, to catch the beams of light at their most perfect point. See the rest of my ongoing Tableau series devoted to Second Life and OpenSim screenshots made into art; to submit an image of your own for consideration, upload it to my Tableau group.

New World Tableau: Faerie Hax's "Computer Says No"

I found Faerie's fourth wall-bursting screenshot in my New World Tableau group, and fell in love-- go here for bigger sizes. How did she create it? The process is fairly involved, but as Ms. Hax's image suggests, often worth the effort: check out the step-by-step tutorial on her blog. See more of Faerie's works on her Koinup profile, and go here to check out the whole Tableau series.

New World Tableau: Turlu Tulu's "Project Weapon X"

I love this metaverse tribute to Wolverine, a uniquely Second Life spin on a character who looks neither quite like Hugh Jackman nor the original Marvel version. (Click here for larger versions.) It was created, Mr. Tulu tells me, by merging two Second Life screenshots, "One for the landscape and the other of the character; all is fully from Second Life." The avatar's accessories were created by a friend, Lorelei Congrejo. After layering the two images, he digitally enhanced the musculature with Photoshop's burn/dodge tool, "adding blood and snow on the avie (brushes I created)." Tulu is one of Second Life's great masters of heroic screenshot imagery, as featured in New World Tableau here and also here. See much more on his Koinup profile, and check out the whole Tableau series here.

New World Tableau: "The Town That Couldn't Forget"

Ariel Brearly's "Town That Couldn't Forget", posted with artist's permission -- click here for different sizes

Ms. Ariel Brearly is an amazing artist, capable of transforming Second Life screenshots into digital paintings to be besotted by.  (I'm not her only admirer; here's another.) Incredibly, though, she merely describes herself as "a learner in Photoshop".

"I like the surreal and the absurd," she adds, "so sometimes I 'stick stuff together' to see how it looks.  My photography skills are limited -- I'm a learner in that too -- so often, my pics might come out of a bad shot!" I suspect you'll find that hard to believe, too: see much more of Ariel Brearly's work on her Koinup profile.  Read on for details on how she created it, after the break. And see the whole Tableau series here.

New World Tableau: Connie Sec's Nude In Shadowdraft

Most screenshots taken in KirstenLee's Shadowdraft or other open source versions of the Lindens' dynamic lighting code focus on the way it renders architecture and other objects. This detail from a nude portrait modeled and created by Connie Sec shows us how shadow makes an avatar's flesh come alive. Click here for the full view, or after the break (possibly not safe for work viewing, obviously.) Of course, she performed more loving ministrations on the image before and after post-processing, which included some tricky details that screenshots in Shadowdraft bring up. Read how she did it after the break.

New World Tableau: Gauge Laville's "Desafinado"

This mysterious and gorgeously composed photo comes from Gauge Laville, shot in Welsh Lakes, with minimal post-processing of contrast and brightness. See different size variations here, and more great imagery from Mr. Laville in his Koinup profile. He also blogs about SL at This is your Second Life.

Want to submit a Tableau of your own? Join my Koinup NWT group, and enter images to be considered there. Other submission methods after the break.

New World Tableau: "Hellreaver" By Panteleimon Aeon

Also known as "Harbinger of Damnation", Panteleimon's startling image depicts the avatar of a friend, Cerdwin Flanagan. "[S]he was my inspiration for the pic... very talented, and has the most amazing avies I've seen in SL."

He took it as she flew through the sim of Euphoria, using Torley's custom WindLight setting of Tuscan Sun as a filter, then ran a layer of texture over that in post-production. (Larger versions here.) "I wanted to give a demonic feel to her particular avi, as it suited, and the pose she was doing was also very appropriate, and the colors were also very fitting." See more of Mr. Aeon's great work on his Koinup page.

Want to submit a Tableau of your own? Join my Koinup NWT group, and enter images to be considered there. Other submission methods after the break.

New World Tableau: Tana Robbiani's Self Portrait

I love the blurry melancholy suggested by Ms. Robbiani's self portrait, suggesting a woman looking back at you in sadness for reasons you're free to imagine.  She created it from a pose animation that was also used when she posed for this image by Pan Aeon.  To achieve this effect in post-processing, she blurred, textured, and muted the colors, employing a black and white layer and blue filters "The hair part was the most difficult," she tells me, "because I copied a real life patch of hair and pasted, and tweaked each group strand of hair... took me many hours and many layers!"

See more Tana Robbiani's works in her Koinup profile; see all the New World Tableau images here.  And click on for guidelines for submitting your own.

New World Tableau: Andromega Volare's "Wreck Framed"

Andromega Volare took this beautifully melancholy photo on the shore of Surfline Rezzable, a sim that's since gone. "There is not much post-processing done," Mr. Volare tells me, "I just increased the contrast and the saturation a bit and added a frame." The image inspires him to muse about lost metaverse places. "A pity that a lot of awesome sims are gone," he says. "At least we have some shots to remember."  Click here to see larger sizes, and here to see more of Volare's equally great photos and images on his Koinup profile. See all the New World Tableau images here.  And click on for guidelines for submitting your own.