Day 88: Vanity in New Orleans and Satin/Silk Textures

Welcome to Jackson Square, New Orleans in Second Life! Nelson Kelley showed me this really cool sim a couple days ago (thanks Nelson!).

The Big Easy was rebuilt in Second Life as a charity effort to provide aid to hurricane victims. Its a pretty amazing reproduction of the city...well, since Ive never been there, it looks pretty amazing! :)



Theres the St. Louis Cathedral. The insides are even more spectacular, complete with altar, pew, flowers, and poseballs, ready for a wedding! A true cathedral in every sense.



And of course, the world famous Cafe du Monde, the original (well, reproduced in SL :P). Ive actually been to one of their stores (not in New Orleans). They serve these really cool fried dough thingies with powdered sugar, and really good coffee. Anyone know if its still there after the hurricane?



And of course, Bourbon Street. I have no idea why its so famous. But if Ive heard of it, its gotta be pretty popular.



The Big Easy sim is setup as a charity effort. There is a Hurricane Memorial Wall for the devastation and heroic efforts during the disaster. Take a moment to remember. And if you can spare a few $L, think about donating to the worthy cause. Hey, its only a couple hours of camping! :)



And...ooohhh...the spoooky St. Louis Cemetary. You gotta Force Sun to Midnight for this one :)

There were so many things to check out that I took nearly 100 pix for this entry alone! BTW, the secret to great SL photos is to take lots of them :) Try every pose, angle, and Force Sun setting!

There are also events and parties hosted here, along with a sand castle competition, party boat, jazz club, and bicycle shop (and I saw some people riding bicycles through town!) Theres even a grand piano on the party boat for Caterin to play! :)

If you havent been to New Orleans in the Big Easy sim, you dont want to miss this. Click on the Search button on the bottom of your screen, select the Places tab, and enter "orleans" as the keyword (this didnt work though when I wrote this). Here is the SLURL: Big Easy (125,199,25).

Today's gown is based on a series of beautiful drawings I came across while surfing Deviantart.com.


The Seven Deadly Sins: VANITY by `blackeri on deviantART

The series is called the Seven Deadly Sins. There is one drawing for each of the deadly sins (Vanity, Envy, Lust, Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony, and Wrath). OK, Vanity should be Pride, but its a woman :) To see the whole series, click on "blackeri" above for the artist's portfolio.



When I saw this, I knew I was going down for Vanity! Um...count the number of pictures in this blog without some part of me in it :) Actually, Wrath has the coolest dress, but I dont usually carry a whip. Plus I definitely have a couple mirrors in my purse :P

Most of the contestants in the Miss Second Life Formal Wear round wore this style of gown. The skirts used heavy shading to simulate folds.

To make a satin/silk wrinkle texture, create a new square document (512x512 pixels is best for SL). Select the Gradient Tool, and set the Mode to Difference. Choose White as foreground, and Black as background. Now, draw overlapping strokes back and forth over the canvas.

Here is a great Satin/Silk Texture Tutorial that explains this technique in detail.

Once I have a black and white texture that I like, I set the Layer Mode of the black and white texture to Multiply. Then I put a new layer with the color I want above the black and white texture (in this case, that luscious grape color :) ).

This gown uses a double skirt based on the Small Town Girl skirt. The bottom part uses scaled up version of the skirt pleats. Also, I increased the Flexible Path Tension setting to 8 to 10 (higher tension in the back). This makes the bottom part poof outward.



Hold my hands, my beloved blue poseball. Do you think we will be married in this cathedral one day?

Um...blue poseball, why are you running out? :P