What's new in and around Hugo's design? Chats the latest news here or grab the RSS feed to be sure you are on top of all development!
Making second life clothing
23-05-2008
Something different for a change. Why only use the blog to announce new releases? There is more to write about! Take for example questions that are asked me from time to time....
A recurring question is 'how do you make clothing?' or 'is it easy to make your own clothing on second life?' In upcomming posts I will show you how I do what I do. I hope this will make you, my readers, happy... (both of you haha).
The things I am going to cover will not be complete tutorials, if you want to know something about a detail I seem to have skipped, just send me an email or comment on the post!
My way to do things is not THE way to do it, there are a lot of techniques to design and make clothing for second life.
As always, you need the proper tools to create your own magic. I use a pen and paper, avipainter, adobe illustrator and adobe photoshop. Next to that, there is a package of body-part templates provided on the second life website which you can use to fit your clothing images on.
Avpainter is a very handy program which gives you an avatar in a window on which you can paint. very simple. I don't use this program all the time, only when I want to make a design which is completely new. (yes this means that a lot of clothing is created using something 'old' as a base for something new... this saves -a lot- of time.) When you are working on a design, you can also load it into avpainter to see if it works. uploading a texture to SL costs 10 L$ and it takes a lot of uploads to get everything right.... so avpainter can save you some money! It can be bought through slexchange.com
Adobe Illustrator. When a design is drawn in Avipainter, it is imported into illustrator and used as a template to draw the clean lines in. If you have another programm in which you can draw lines quickly, you can use that!
Adobe photoshop. I use it to finish my designs, change colors, ad details like paterns, shades... I really can't think of designing clothing without photoshop. Some people use an alternative like paintshop pro or Gimp. As a websdesigner in rl I use photoshop every day.. There is little it can't do and I cannot imagine desinging stuff without it...
Next to these tools you need a good deal of creative energy, patience and time. Designing clothing for you avatar is hard, especially in the beginning, so my advice is: 'start simple' (with a T-shirt for example) and work your way up to a detailed outfit consisting of more pieces of clothing...
One of the best websites for detailed tutorials... no, the best website for tutorials is SL Natalia's blog. She has covered everything you can possibly think of in relation to designing (clothing) in second life...
In upcoming posts I will cover how I start/make/finish a design...
There is one more question which is asked me a lot... it is: 'How do you make these realistic latex shines?' I'm sorry but this will remain my secret ;)
Fashcon and new items
19-05-2008
It has been a busy week! Not only did a number of new items end up in the shop, I sent out the first group-notice in the Hugo's design group. I also sent out my first Fashcon notice. For those of you who don't know what Fashcon is, look at the website. In short it is a large network for fashion addicts and designers. Designers can post an update once a week. This is for all kind of fashion, so not only fetish stuff like most of my items... New notices are on the way!
I have been working on my website some more recently. All is working the way I want it to, now all I need is to make the fashion section look good... you can browse my items by outfit type. All items have full information included and a link to SLexchange and Onrez so you can buy them there if you like. Only thing that still needs to be enabled is the 'related items'. More about that in an upcoming post.
New items that actually have been released in the store are:
the luxon corset, black / red
the luxon corset, black / white
the luxon corset, black / red - Cat black combination
the luxon corset, black / white - Cat black combination
Cat 2 black 70 percent sheer catsuit with and without seams
Cat 2 black 20 percent sheer catsuit with and without seams
Shirt - Funk in six colors
Next to these items I was able to add three new items yesterday too ( a notice will be sent out today or tomorrow)
Solar corset - white
Cat white, white latex catsuit
Solar white / Cat white combination
One item I didn't manage to get into the shop is the purple version of the Solar corset. That will probably happen tonight. Here are all Vendor posters so you can see the items a bit better... The Solar white etc... pictures will follow later...
Almost in the shop!
07-05-2008
A lot has happened since I last wrote my last entry here. You may have noticed that the picture under 'latest fashion post in Flickr' is missing... This is because Flickr set my fashion account to 'restricted' which means that you need to be logged into the Flickr website to see the pictures. This is the second time my items / pictures are sencored... and in all honesty, again it is my mistake. I applied the filters too loosely. Again the only thing which got me kind of pissed is the fact that you don't get a warning before something like this happens. I would have gladly (re)set the filters myself, keeping my account open for everyone... I'll keep posting my designs there, only for my contacts to see...
Then some good news: Yesterday Sunshine Kukulcan surprised me with a blogpost about my Second Life shop! How cool!!
And I'm saying it for some time now, new items are on the way. I just want everything to be spot on when I start releasing all new items. New will also be notices send out with new releases. I'll be sending notices through my ow update group (let me know if you want to be on it, just send me an IM or click the 'add to group' box in my main shop! Next to my own update group, notices will be sent through the Fashcon.com network!
Soo... what will be the new latex items for the upcomming weeks? here are some.... you'll find new color versions of the basic catsuit 'Cat'. I'm starting off with a red and white one. There also will be new color versions the Solar corset (and yes you guessed right, I'll start off with a red and white one). Next to that there will be a new catsuit: 'Cat 2' this is a new sheer catsuit with- and without seams. I'm starting those with sheer black and white ones and a translucent one. Other colors will follow. There is a new corset which I called 'Solar 2' for now... not sure about that name yet. Ava 4 (see previous post) will finally come (combined with a pair of chaps, possibly the kinkiest release so far.. hehe). And there will be more shirts and outfits.. here are some first look pictures (sometimes combining the unfinished sets):
New items and pictures
28-04-2008
Yey! I finally managed to finish a picture / photo which I had sitting on my desktop for a very long time. I had an idea for a multi-mirror shot and Zaza Moo was my model. Constructing the image appeared to be somewhat difficult and right now my rl company is doing really well, so little time is left for projects as these. You can always come to me for model shots, but right now I am not taking on new projects other than the ones I initiate myself. (If you want model shots, you can contact Tillie Ariantho. She is a very talented model and photographer.)
As for my second job... *grin* IM messages have been sent to me, asking me when new stuff is finally going to be available. It is coming, and I hope I can get all that I want to make in store soon. There are many items which are (almost) finished (see the picture of Ellen for example, wearing Ava 4.0 over a brand new 10 percent sheer catsuit (Cat 2) with seams).
My head is filled with new ideas and the base of all latex outfits has been recreated and somewhat perfected this weekend. Now all I need is time and creative energy to make all the new sets... and more important, get them into the shop!
Real Life
15-04-2008
looking at my site I noticed it has been a while since I posted something here. As my friends in-world already know, rl has consumed me almost completely at the moment. I still have images for my photo Flickr stream waiting for me to edit them and post them... And I still have a list of clothing items I want to put in store. I hope to get to those things soon! And for the photo's. I won't take on projects anymore. The time that people have to wait until I finish something is simply too long.
Then there is Second Life itself... The grid and the in-world services that seem to be very unreliable. Somehow it amazes me that so many people still come back to second life (me included). For some SL offers the possibility be creative (like me) or even make dreams come true. On the other hand... If lets say my newspaper had some pages missing almost every day, I would stop my subscription within a week, even if there would be no other newspaper available.
Don't worry that I'll stop designing... I'm just getting really fed up with the fact that Linden labs seems to be unable to provide a stable grid and services for weeks now.
