"Yes," Ahmad Hosho writes of this image from his Koinup profile, as if already anticipating disbelief from viewers (including me), "it is a Second Life-based photo." Of course much was done after-image, a complex process Ahmad explains in great detail here. He describes this screenshot of an avatar as a self-portrait, and as it turns out, that's true on many levels-- in real life, Ahmad tells me, he lives in Egypt.
"May be first Egyptian/North African in Second Life," he muses. He became a Resident two years ago, but, he says, "I had hard times in 2006 to make people believe I am from Egypt." Instead, they insisted thinking he was European.
"My avatar is Nubian, by the way," he tells me later. "I think Nubian culture is one of most interesting ones out of Egypt." I tell him that I admire how he merged Nubian imagery to steampunk elements in his work.
"Well," Ahmad Hosho corrects me, smiling, "I combine: Nubian, steampunk, cyberpunk, 70s retro stuff with some hip hop."
"Awesome," I say, for how else could one reply.
See more of Ahmad's equally spectacular work on his Koinup profile, view the entire Tableau album here, and read on for guidelines to submitting one of your own.
Continue reading "New World Tableau: The Nubian Steampunk Self-Portrait of the Artist Ahmad Hosho" »
Recent dispatches from the outside world..
The Scratch client runs on your desktop, so you just have to leave it open in another window while running Second Life, as depicted above. Creating a script is astoundingly easy, because you just add interactivity variables (movement, chat dialog, etc.) which literally interlock like puzzle pieces. Once you're finished, you hit Copy Linden Script, and Scratch4SL converts your plain English instructions into LSL; you then copy/paste the resultant block of code as a new script into a given object. 
Update, 2:15pm: Charlanna Beresford is back from vacation and is compiling this week's Lanna List. If you want an event featured there, post the details in comments by 8pm SLT today!
