Re-Opened and in full swing!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Orkney/69/58/22

Maverick Designs is up and running again at full tilt.  I have already had a lot more traffic with buildings and furniture than I had with texture work.  There are several low cost promo items (the 0 to 10L range) and I have a wicked set of free t-shirts in the store for men and women.  Each shirt comes on 3 layers for effectively being tucked or un tucked.

Free Maverick Designs T-Shirt for men

Free Maverick Designs T-Shirt for women

People ask what sort of buildings and furniture I create.  Honestly it runs a pretty wide course.  I really enjoy medieval fantasy settings and things that are dark and gruesome, but I also love Victorian and Steampunk.  I have plans at the moment to produce a line of urban buildings and then move in to some sci fi settings.

marketplace my ass

ok if you own and operate a stinking marketplace and renters need to belong to specific group to place their products then you had better fucking make that obvious before they lay down the money for the stall then cant get a hold of an admin to add them to the group.

A fly inthe ointment

Ok, I haven’t posted much of anything in ages. Had a bad mental spot with the whole being unemployed thing, wasn’t even in SL for the most part for about a month or so. Now here I am back on the grid working my tail off and building at a furious pace to re open my shop (if you search for Orkney you will find the shop, Maverick Designs).

So I am wandering around the grid and I walk by a shop selling a really shitty Roman Legionnaire armor. I stop to look. Why, you may ask, do I stop to look at shitty armor? Normally I would not. But this guy has a cloak on the armor. This cloak is made from the SPQR banner I created specifically for the SL Rome SIM. I didn’t sell it to anyone else, nor give it to anyone else. This chud has at least two locations selling the item too.
So ok flattery right, the texture is so nice he felt compelled to swipe it. But WTF?! I am totally annoyed.

I know that texture theft happens all of the time and for the most part I don’t worry about it. My stuff is really distinctive and many people do buy it. I have also given a few sets away. This particular piece is EXTREMELY distinctive, was created for one purpose and one purpose alone. I wanted to contribute to the SL Rome SIM. Now, MikeD who owns the SIM did pay me a bit for the texture, he is a nice guy. But INSANE BLACKBURN did not pay for the use of this texture and I urge anyone who comes across his goods to not purchase them. If at all possible, dissuade others from doing so as well.

Here is a screen shot of me finding this guys shop. I included an image of the original SPQR Banner for comparison. Even the casual observer can see that these are the same texture. I asked him to stop using it or to pay me for the use of it. If he doesn’t respond or if he responds in the negative then I will take it up with LL and see what happens. I haven’t had to bring up any DCMA issues before.

AND I turn 33 on Tuesday! Woo hoo for making it this far right?

Cheers!

EDIT: ok the owner of SL Roman Empire did not recognize the name of the schmo when I first asked.  He did give the banner texture over to the guy for use in an official SL Rome uniform.  However, I don’t think the he knew the guy was re-selling the outfit elsewhere.  The whole situation still stinks to high heaven and I cannot recommend patrons to his shop, but the upside is that I wont be filing a DCMA Notification against the schmuck.

ok

the restrained life viewer freaking rocks!

more to come.

RL news

i got laid off.

sucks to be me.

blah

Am I just a contrary soul or do other people feel compelled not to do something just because others desire it of them? Maybe my huge fear of commitment plays a key role in how I treat people who pressure me to do things.

So I left Deadly, as my previous post states. People seem to think it is because I was pissed off. Well initially I was sort of tweaked but mostly it was frustration with how things are done. It was a case of he said she said an no one seemed to know what was going on. This is not fun for me. In fact among the top 5 things to annoy me that is probably number two or three. On top of that it really felt as if I were the only person doing any serious research into how to achieve the look and feel the SIM owner wanted. Another of my pet peeves. If you are part of a group project, then you need to be part of the group, not rely on one person to do the research, the building, the texture work, the ass kissing and the implementation all by themselves.

A couple of days ago one of the other SIM managers let me know that the SIM was being leveled and that I would have complete building control. Ok, great, keen cool. NOT WHAT I WANTED. Also, that I had to tell them by Thursday (today) if I was going to do it or not. Hello! I told them all that I was at worst not coming back and at best taking a long sabbatical. What part of that doesn’t make sense? I mean I know that SL operates on dog years so a day is really like six weeks, but give me a break. Three days to a week not in the family fold does not a vacation make. Last night one of the other SIM managers tells me that the rebuild will be done by the time I show up again but that it won’t be as well done as if I did it. I call bullshit on that guilt trip. Even if it wasn’t meant to be a guilt trip, that’s a rotten thing to tell someone who has made their feelings clear on the project/subject. If a half dozen people cannot do the research and the building work that I did then there is something seriously wrong.

I am really frustrated with SL right now I s’pose. Or better to say I am frustrated with some of the people. I think I am going to stop being involved in outside projects for a while and just work on adding content to my store. I don’t do even remotely enough marketing for that anyway.

no Deadly no More

I won’t be found in Deadly anymore.  Too much drama and too much bullshite.  It is like wading through 3ft of mud to get anything done.  I regret becoming involved the way I did.  Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against any of the people and in fact admire several of them.  I just don’t think it is a place I need to be any longer.

Not much.

“. . . like butter spread over too much bread.”

Do you ever get the feeling that you are spread too thin in SL? I am devoting as much time as possible to finishing the DogWood Club textures this weekend. I lost a lot of focus with some SIM upheaval in Deadly and being sick. Yesterday was nightmare of last minute problems solving in the RL job causing mondo headache and general mopey behavior due to being brain dead.

I ended up bickering with a friend because neither one of us was all that emotionally secure. Well not quite bickering. I up and logged out so I could go get food, keep my blood sugar up and avoid saying something I shouldn’t due to crankiness induced by hypoglycemia. That didn’t go over well either but I just didn’t have the energy for much else.

The only thing I really don’t like about SL is that sometimes you just want to really hug someone and you can’t. I mean you can have your avatars embrace and all but the lack of physicality with a dear friend can really blow space goats sometimes. Certain SL relationships have taken a major decline due to RL emo issues and that’s ok I think.

Found yet another person selling a wall full of art that wasn’t theirs to sell last night. I just don’t get that. All it takes is one of those artists or entities to prove willful infringement of a copyright and show that the infringer made a profit of some kind and that lame brain can be in debt up to $200k in the blink of an eye.

So not a lot in this post, maybe more later.

why?

Why is it that on SLProfiles 90% of the population put down “textures” in their SL skills resume?  Ok guys, being able to drop a crappy image from the freebie box of crappy images you found does not make you a texture artist, that’s all i am saying.

people are strange

It really blows me away that people think a few hours wandering around the grid can show them all that SL has to offer. No worries that I am going to stop supporting my addiction any time soon. >=)

Been busy in RL work these days so when I get home at night I am fragged for SL creativity. This blows massive space goats as I have got 2 really big projects on my plate right now. I need to start the texture process on DogWood and I need to start the design process for Deadly. Basically we are going ape Roma as much as possible since the worthy designers of that SIM did such an amazing job. The down side being that Deadly is not nearly as moved to recreate historically accurate settings. S’ok it will still rock when it is done.

As I may have mentioned in the recent past, Shadows of Ithilien pretty much fell apart and they are rebuilding. I offered them a mess of free stuff and got ignored. I don’t really care if t hey don’t want my builds, that’s groovy if they want shite builds that all look exactly alike with all of the same texture sets. I can see why one of the admins took his toys and went home. It is frustrating to deal with a crowd of people like that.

So I have to add a young woman to my list of adored people. Phedre Moriarty. She rocks, and we mesh like a couple of cogs in the same clockwork. Getting to know her is an awesome experience. It is one of the rare connections that promises to be a good friendship in either the virtual or real world. She is kinky, smart, funny and fun. We seem to have totally different tastes in online activity but we get on really well. She has me in her picks as being collared and honestly I think that is an extremely shallow representation of the connection we have. At first my interest in her was strictly D/s but now I see what fantastic friend she is as well. If you read this, Phedre, know that you are adored and have a better day then yesterday.

Nothing stunning to share today although later on I may post a product image of the medieval style bench seats I built a bit ago. I just haven’t sat down to create the vendor image yet so they haven’t gone into the store.