From sim to shining sim

Second Life has made me feel really good about myself lately. I’ve spent a lot of time watching the horrific scenes from Haiti and wanting to do something to help. You can read a little more about how I found a way to pitch in on the Avatar Weekly website.

Just to update that article, the skybox on Scribble has now raised in excess of TWO MILLION LINDEN to benefit the earthquake victims of Haiti. That’s nearly $8,000 US dollars – not too shabby when you consider their original goal was to raise a few hundred bucks. They also have a corporate sponsor who’s going to match that, and the skybox will be there through at least Sunday, January 24. I’d love to see it hit the three million Linden mark.

As of the time I’m writing this, 1,275 Linden of that came from the objects I donated to the cause. Yeah, it’s a drop in the bucket, works out to maybe $2.50 in real money. But it’s SOMETHING. And it came from things I created myself. The national flower of Haiti is the hibiscus and I’ve taken some pretty good photos of those, so I picked three, made a frame texture in Photoshop to go with them and put them in a box. I included a full-perm version of the texture I put on the box – it was kind of an experiment, a sailboat silhouetted against an ocean sunset, done entirely in Photoshop with no base images except for the sailboat, and THAT’S pretty much unrecognizable from the original.

Then I got the idea, since I had Haiti’s national flower, to do something with its national bird, the Hispaniolan Trogon. I found various photos online to use as a guide and sketched the bird sitting in a tree, then added a hibiscus. I used Photoshop to color the whole thing, which didn’t turn out badly considering it took me less than two hours from start to finish. I may do up a spiffier version when I have more time and send it out free of charge to everyone who purchased the one at the Haiti fundraiser skybox. In case you were wondering, the idea for that came from OMGWTF Barbecue with the land provided by Radio Signals of Scribble.

Meanwhile I’ve been busy writing and editing for Avatar Weekly along with writing for a new publication called Siren Magazine, and also trying to get my shop made over. My breedable pets menagerie has grown to include pigs and two kinds of bunnies in addition to the chickens and turtles – definitely a few more blog posts in there when I have time! And after more than a year of running around in mostly freebie clothing, I’ve discovered Second Life fashion – AND HOW. Don’t be surprised if a “What Vic is wearing” feature starts appearing here.

Meanwhile, get your butt to Scribble and check out the Haiti fundraiser. There are all kinds of items from all kinds of vendors, and 100% of EVERYTHING sold goes to the American Red Cross for disaster relief.