Get the Inside Story On Some of Second Life's Most Beautiful Spaces With Draxtor Despres' Latest Mixed Reality Videos

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

One of Second Life's most acclaimed journalists and machinima artists has a new project, and it'll give you some amazing insight into the kinds of people that not only use Second Life, but shape the virtual world around them. The Drax Files: World Builders by Draxtor Despres recently came out with its second episode, featuring the face of SL's 1920's Berlin (and NWN reader) Jo Yardley. Take a look for yourself after the jump.

 

It's a fascinating look at one of the people responsible for one of Second Life's most treasured communities, as informative as it is beautiful and well-produced. Unsurprisingly both Hamlet and I are huge fans of much of Draxtor's previous work, which includes machinima work for media, profiles of other interesting and prominent residents, the documentary Login 2 Life, and a few zany side projects here and there.

You can also check out episode 1's interview with Kriss Lehmann, the man behind a vast amount of SL's lush digital foliage. Given how many people are in as much awe of Draxtor's work as that of his interview subjects, I can't wait to see what's coming in episode 3!

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

 

Comments

[Gordon Twine]

"...I can't wait to see what's coming in episode 3!"

The Drax Files: World Makers Preview: Eshi Otawara!

[Iggy]

Jo has the good fortune of living in a wonderful first-life city, too. Her work is excellent and inspiring, though while seeing the RL shots of her biking and shopping, I kept saying "I wish my city still looked that way."

It makes me wonder...just wonder. How can those of us who enjoy these virtual realms bring our passion out-world, to renew first-life settings so often blighted by ugly commercial strips and other car-dependent living arrangements?

All around me, I see spaces that James Howard Kunstler calls "places not worth caring about." Then I see Jo's vision of Berlin and the reality of her daily life and remember "we could do better."

[Wolf Baginski]

Jo makes a mention of her next project, which is still a long way off, but which overlaps with some of my particular interests.

London, 1940, in the Blitz. A living city which, every night, went to war.

The overlap with my interests is the uniforms. There are a very few good ones, such as an RAF officer, but I have never found a well-made example of British battledress, the uniform of the British soldiers who fought in Europe. And then there were the uniforms of a half-dozen or so countries occupied by the Germans.

And there was that army of volunteers: the Home Guard, ARP, the National Fire Service, and others. There were ambulance drivers, bring the casualties to hospital through the un-lit streets, not daring to show a light which might attract a bomber.

London was a city of uniforms, with a grim common purpose. And those uniforms, you can expect Jo to be picky about getting the details correct, and she's the boss, but make some good ones, and you have one customer right here.