This past week I had several SL-related things I wanted to either finish or get a good start on at least, so I just wrote out a list and started chugging away at it. I enjoyed seeing the list shrink each day, and even though I’ve added a few more things, the list this week is much shorter than last week’s list.

One of the big items I got to cross off the list was getting my latest series of eyes up ready to sell in world at Exile, on OnRez, and on SLX. I’m calling this series my watercolor series because of the way the colors blend together. With the bright color combinations and swirls within each eye, these are definitely more for people who aren’t looking for realistic eyes, but at the same time, I’ve added some shadow to these that make them feel a little more three-dimensional to me. I’m really happy with the progress I’ve made in making them.

I have a few eyes for my next series waiting in the wings. Those will be called my Helena series after the friend who first requested that I do some eyes with smaller irises, and in addition to being a bit smaller, they will feature darker colors and stronger shading. As long as I have fun creating the eyes, I’ll just keep releasing them in case anyone else likes them too. I’m thinking a little more about other things I’d like to make as well under the Shine name.

Image Conscious, an exhibition of photography and art in support of One.org began this weekend and will run through Aug. 29 at Wolf Hartnell‘s Wetherbee Shopping District. Four of my SL photos, including the one above this paragraph, are on display in the park area there. Watch out for the cute little hopping bunnies and maybe feed them a carrot or two or three while you look around and shop.

Remember that Retrology Flickr contest I mentioned a couple of posts ago? I won 2nd place in the fashion category! It’s the first time I’ve won a prize of any kind with one of my SL photos, so I’m really excited about it. I was doubly happy that my friend Drew was there with me during the announcement of the winners yesterday as you can see in the photo above of us standing in front of the fashion category winners. Kavar surprised me this morning with a post on the Exile blog about it and once again beat me to blogging something. I think he did that when I started selling eyes too. Yay for excited friends!

Below is a bigger view of my photo “Skulls in Pink”, and I believe you can still see the finalists on display at Retrology as well as at the Retrology blog. Thank you to all the judges, and congratulations to the other winners! I’m really honored to be grouped with them. Check out the presentation speech from Jhuzen Ketsugo as well for a little look into the sim’s history.

Hello out there! I’ve been buried under a sea of sculpted prims, and I am just now starting to think of something other than sculpties. I’ve tried so many different programs and techniques over the last few days in making sculpties, and it still really just comes down to trial and error for me. My sculpties aren’t impressive or anything, but I have created a couple that I’ll use in some upcoming projects, and I continue to have fun figuring it all out. As usual, Kavar is to blame for this sculptie mania, and I’m kind of excited about one project that I’m going to try with them even though at this moment in time I don’t quite believe him when he says I can do it. I’ll be attempting to create a sculptie to use as a photo prop with some static poses in it, so back to the animation and pose drawing board as well as this new sculptie stuff. I’m trying very hard to focus on having fun with the process and playing with different things rather than demanding some perfect end product from myself, and I think that’s just a lesson I need to learn in everything really.

In other news, I’m also going to be donating a set of eyes to Hair Fair 2008 as one of their prizes. Like I did for the Ivy Falls hunt that went on last month, I’m doing a special color in both human eyes and cat eyes that won’t be sold. Whoever ends up with that prize will have a set of unique eyes that no one else in SL will have, so I want to make them special. I’ll post some shots of them and mention this again when it’s closer to the hair fair start date of August 22.

The photo with this post was one of my entries for the Retrology Photo Contest that is part of the celebration of the 1st anniversary of the Retrology sim. This one wasn’t chosen as one of the top 50, but it was one of my favorites anyway. To see all of the top 50, including the two of mine that were selected, visit the park in Retrology. On Sunday at 12pm SLT, the final winners of the photo contest will be announced. Also check out all the shops while you’re visiting Retrology. Many of them are giving away some fabulous freebies as part of the celebration activities.

Some of my SL photos will also be on display at Wolf Hartnell‘s Wetherbee Shopping District as part of Image Conscious, an exhibition of photography and art in support of One.org. That will run from Aug. 9 through Aug. 29, and I’m hoping to have a new photo series to share there, but I’m still working on it. Where can I sign up for a few more hours in my days please?

This was a very basic attempt at playing with Fraps and Windows Movie Maker, and when I say basic, I mean the most basic you can possibly imagine. It’s about 90 seconds of me talking while the camera zooms across a bit of Ivy Falls and through my castle there. I must need to download updates for Windows Movie Maker or something because it crashed approximately a million times during the trimming of the video, but here’s my first attempt. I’d been meaning to play with Crazy Talk, but now that there’s that “enable lip sync” option under Advanced Menu – Character to move your lips when you talk in voice chat, I just did that instead.

I mentioned a week or so ago that I’d surprised myself by writing a script for a project Kavar was working on. It worked like he wanted, but when he added it to his item, we saw that it was going to need some tweaking to work efficiently in so many linked prims. I did some digging around in the SL Forums and the LSL Wiki, and it became obvious that creating a sender script and receiver script that talked via llMessageLinked was going to be the way to go. For some reason, however, I couldn’t get things to work quite as I’d expected them to work. Everything compiled successfully, but I was missing something. Finally I just started completely from scratch again, and this time I didn’t miss whatever I’d been overlooking in the original scripts because it all just suddenly worked.

Kavar was at his rl job as I was working on the scripts, and after several IMs where I had been going on about how frustrating it was to not see the problem that was obviously there, I got to send this very excited “OMG I think it’s actually working” message. Around then it was time for me to go to bed, but Kavar promised he’d check out the scripts I’d sent him to see if they worked for him like we’d discussed. When I woke up a few hours later, my first message to him was something like “Hi! So is it working?” Of course he couldn’t just tell me. He told me I had to sign in to SL to see for myself, so I did, and it all worked! Interestingly, during all that time playing with the script, I came up with a neat lighting script that might end up being fun for some future photo ideas I have, and I still have no idea how I just happened on that.

All of this has reminded me that I have a lot more fun learning something when I have a goal already in mind. The scripting classes were a nice introduction, but it was all kind of academic until I had a problem I wanted to solve with a script. I learned more getting these scripts ready for Kavar than I learned in any of the classes because I was much more engaged when it had a purpose beyond just being information I wanted in case I ever tried scripting. Luckily, Kavar has several other things in mind, so I think I’ll continue dabbling in scripting for a while to see if I can figure out anything else useful for him. And when his project using the scripts goes live, then you’ll definitely hear more about that here because I’m so excited!

I have this habit of starting off down some particular path full of promise only to hit a bump in the road that really only exists in my own mind yet still throws me completely off track. Being turned around and about isn’t so bad a thing really if it takes you on to bigger and better things than you’d even imagined, but usually I get lost in my own head with negative thoughts and fears and worries. Most, if not all, of us probably go through the same kinds of things, and if you’re like me, when you start finding your way out of the dark again, you notice the world leaving you little bread crumbs back to where you left off. Maybe you just see quotes and songs that suddenly hit you right in the heart or your friends decide you’ve been lost a little too long and bonk you on the head until you find the path again.

Being alive in any life for me is all about the process, the learning. It’s accepting and even finding joy in the fact that we will never know it all but we can certainly do our best to try anyway. That’s what the following quote means to me.

“It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.” – Carlos Castaneda

Find the things you’re good at. Find the things you might not be so good at. Just keep doing the things that bring you joy because when you’re happy, the people who care about you are happy. Step out into the unknown and see what it feels like, and then when it starts feeling comfortable, step farther out. That’s what I’m working on, tearing down the barriers that I keep building for myself.

Remember when I wrote about taking a look at scripting in SL? I took a few classes and played with some freebie scripts. It all seemed to be making sense, but then I kind of forgot about it. I had this block in my head about how I’d ever do anything useful with it, and I got a little stuck. Then Kavar mentioned a project where he wanted a specific kind of script, and I thought to myself that maybe I could help. I wrote my first script from scratch, and even though it was simple and I wasn’t sure it was even what he wanted exactly, I was proud of myself for taking the time to figure it out rather than assuming I couldn’t do it.

Then it turned out that it was actually a good fit for what Kavar wanted, so I got some scripting practice and helped out a friend at the same time. Such an amazing happy feeling, and all it took was me changing my mind and moving forward. So simple in theory but not always the easiest thing to actually do.

“If you’ve had enough of all your trying,
Just give up the state of mind you’re in.

If you want to be somebody else,
If you’re tired of fighting battles with yourself,
If you want to be somebody else
Change your mind.

Have you ever danced in the rain
Or thanked the sun just for shining?
Just for shining.
Or the sea?
Oh no. Take it all in.
The world’s a show,
And yeah, you look much better,
Look much better when you glow.

What ya say we both go and seize the day?
‘Cause what’s your hurry? What’s your hurry anyway?”
- From the song “Change Your Mind” by Sister Hazel

I finally added my latest set of eyes to OnRez, SL Exchange, and my display at Exile in Ivy Falls. As I mentioned before, all 21 pairs of Shine eyes are available at OnRez and SLX, and the latest 10 pairs of eyes, including 4 pairs of cat eyes, are available at Exile. It feels really good to be able to mark all of that off my list.

Below is a little preview of some of the eyes in this batch. The colors are a little lighter and brighter overall this time, and I did some combinations like purple/green and pink/grey that you probably won’t see naturally occurring in real life.

I’ve been a bad blogger. I was too slow, and Kavar posted about my big news before I did. He’s always stealing my thunder. Well, not really. I’m just teasing of course, but I do have some exciting news. Shine, my eyes shop, now has a little home within Kavar’s store Exile in addition to my OnRez and SL Exchange areas.

Setting up a space with Exile for my eyes is something Kavar mentioned from the very beginning when he began telling me I should think about selling them, and as usual, I had to have some time to warm up to the idea. Honestly, by now, I should just assume he’s going to get his way and not put up a fuss, but we’ll just keep that between us for now. He doesn’t need to know that. *wink*

In addition to the eyes I have up for sale now, I’m working on a couple of additional sets that include both human eyes and cat eyes. Here’s a little teaser image of my first pair of cat eyes. These aren’t up for sale yet, but they will be soon along with some other colors. I’m having such a blast with these, and thank you so much to everyone who has been wishing me luck and to those who have been buying the eyes and letting me know that you’re enjoying them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly convey how truly overjoyed I am with this whole experience.

The photo to the right of this paragraph was my 1000th upload to Flickr. These kinds of milestones seem like nice times to reflect, so I spent some time this morning looking through most of my photos on Flickr. I’ve been a member of Flickr for 10 months, and I’ve been in SL for about 16 months, so there’s a huge chunk of my SL experience documented there. I’ve seen and done so many wonderful things during these months, and I want to thank each of you who have been a part of those memories. Special thanks go to Kavar and Kere for being in that 1000th photo with me and for being amazing friends in general.

Another little milestone to celebrate is that my eyes are being sold at SL Exchange as well as OnRez now. I know both of those are working because I’ve had my first sale in each shop already. There aren’t even words to describe how excited I get about each sale. Me selling something I made in SL? It seems so odd still. I might even be trying my hand at making some other things that aren’t ready for public viewing yet. I’m finding the whole creation process a bit addicting.

Another new thing I’ve experienced today is transforming into my tiny polar bear avatar and flying in a tiny purple bi-plane courtesy of Wolf. Any reports of a tiny polar bear surprising Mr. Kere Delcon by flying into his home’s bathroom have, however, not been substantiated at this time. There are some indications I might have more tiny adventures this weekend, so I’ll keep you posted if I do. I definitely need more flight practice.

In the comments on my last post about “the way of the awesome”, Chestnut added that we shouldn’t diminish what we do. I absolutely see that as part of the way of the awesome. If you’re like me, then that might be such a habit that you don’t even realize how much that’s holding you back. All I can tell you is that for me, making the decision that I’m just not allowed to say certain things to myself like “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t” was exactly what I needed to get moving. That inadvertent negativity was weighing me down.

Part of the beauty of the way of the awesome is that we each get to define awesome for ourselves, and even if we define it in the same way, we don’t have to take the same path. Awesome also isn’t static, and you’re allowed to change your mind, change directions, change whatever you want. Why would you let someone else’s definition set your course? This is your life, so live it the way you want.

I’ve decided that part of my journey is making more of an effort to write about what I’m doing in SL. It’s been much too easy for me to dismiss things I wanted to write about as not interesting enough for the blog or as too much self-promotion. Well, honestly, it’s my blog, and if I can’t talk about myself here, then where else am I going to do it? It’s just another way I’ve been diminishing anything that has value to me, and that’s going to stop, which is why I’m calling myself out on the carpet for it now.

Today, one of my acts on the path of awesome was setting up shop at OnRez. I’ve placed a few of my eyes for sale there, and I’m going to be putting those up at SL Exchange as well at some point. You might notice that those are called “eyes by Shine” in the titles and wonder what’s up with that. I decided that Shine is going to be the name of my little eye shop, so I went ahead and added that now. I’m going to keep making eyes until I stop having fun doing it, so I suspect I’ll also be adding more in the future. You might even find some of them for sale in world at some point, and of course, you’ll hear more about that here if that happens.

It’s a lot of fun to think of someone buying and enjoying a pair of eyes that I created, but truly, the most amazing part of all of this is that I came to this point. What else is ahead of me? I have some ideas, but beyond that, I don’t know. Let’s find out together, and I want to hear all about your path to awesome too.