Day 118: Surfer Girl

The west coast has the sunshine
And the girls all get so tanned
I dig a french bikini on hawaii island
Dolls by a palm tree in the sand

--Beach Boys

Hey dudes and dudettes, welcome to Tropical Island Surf! Where theres sun, sand, boards, perfect waves, and me :)



There are many nice beaches in Second Life. Many have waves and surfing. But theres one very cool thing about Tropical Island: free surfboards you can use :)

And not just any boards...these are the cool surfboards from Heather Goodliff and Sebastian Saramago. They are most realistic surfing in SL, with animations for paddling out and hopping on the boards once youve caught a wave. Its nice to have a chance to try them out for free :)

You cant take these boards with you, but they work just great in Tropical Island.



Theres even a pretty pink one just for me :)

Grab a board and paddle out! If you are stuck on land, just press "e" and "s" to work your way back to the water.



And here comes the perfect wave :)

When you spot a wave, just paddle like mad towards land and you'll start surfing! :)



Wheeeeeee! :)



And when you need a break from surfing, you can lounge around the beach, go fishing, or even hang out at this little island. Best of all, you can chat with all the friendly folks who hang out here as well :)

If you have ever dreamed of surfing, or if you are a RL surfer, come to Tropical Island Surf and try surfing in SL! :) Click on Search, select the Places tab, and enter "tropical island" as the keywords. The SLURL is Quan Li (200,130,22).



Im not really a big fan of bikini's (SL or RL). OK, its silly, I know... I *AM* a bit shy about it, even in SL.

But the next Miss Second Life event is going to be the Swimwear/Sexy competition. So, I need some swimwear!

Ive made a set of Yellow Polka-dot Bikini's before. I like them, and use them when Im not a mermaid in water :) But I need something a bit fancier for the Miss SL Swimwear event.

So its back to the drawing software :)

Since I started using Paths in Photoshop, its opened up a whole new world for me! I can fiddle and tweak the shape on a piece of clothing until the lines curve nicely and the seams all match up.

With that in mind, I created a new bikini top that has nice curves and a pretty flower pattern. Since Im most uncomfortable about the bikini bottom, I made a lace wrap/skirt that goes over the bikini bottom. You can see through it, but it does add a bit of cover. I actually got the idea from the Victoria Secret Swimwear catalog, so Im not making this up :)

I used the lace transparency trick that Virrginia so kindly told me about: color the flexi prim panels with solid grey, then just make 1 face of it transparent. This almost eliminates the display problems with transparent flexi panels, particularly if you are careful about spacing the panels.



This outfit has a real bikini bottom underneath the lace skirt. The bikini bottom was surprisingly difficult to make!

You see, the texture map for the lower body has some interesting stretch areas. So its relatively easy to make really skimpy bikinis, or ones that look like a pair of shorts. But its tricky to make something in between. For the in-between bikinis, you need to shape them around the stretch areas. Otherwise, the edges of the bikini becomes fuzzy.

It did take actually several hours to get the seams lined up and the bottom shaped nicely. Now I have a pair of bikini's I can wear for the Miss SL Swimwear Event :)



Just enjoying a beautiful sunset at the beach...I just want to sit here forever!