The Library

The Castle is finished now.
It's listed on SLexchange and I guess soon I will pack it up to give me prims again in Southend.

I added some suits of armour to the front entrance and furnished the library too.

Castle March

I am nearly done! I was sighing with happiness before, now some more photos of the doings and decos of the castle. I have one last thing to make. I want to make a comfy chair for the secret library.

The Great Hall
Complete with a new fireplace, a trophy and candles, scattered rugs and new 4 pose sofas.

The Staircase
To the landing with Indian themed paintings and featuring the freebie lamp I have given away hundreds of on SLExchange.

The Master Bedroom
The bed is from Steelhead and if I was at home now, instead of dancing at Oxbridge I would insert the name of the builder here.


Guest Room
Bed and a bay window in one of the castle's turrets.

The Lounge
Another bay window and from here if you knew where to look, you would see the entrance to the secret room.

The Bathroom
I love the buckets......simple things make me happy :)


The Landing

I enjoyed this a lot. Now.. let me go build that arm chair....
hooroo!

Furnishing a Castle

Happy sighs of business.
When I might spend a night in a blue funk, instead I start to throw prims around and cheer myself up. I am a frightfully shallow person, so easily distracted!
Tonight I spent some time trying to decorate the castle to take photos for its Slexchange listing. That means I need furniture. That means building some and modding some.
And tadah!
A room full of fun for me at least!
I had to run down stairs and do some deleting though as I was down to... 7 prims... ouch!

The Station

A little while ago, Grandma Bates asked if I would like to build with her. Of course!
She has a couple of ideas and one was for a post office. I liked that idea and as I searched Google Images, I came across some pictures of Australian post offices and railway stations.
And so off we go :)

I have been building the structure and today Grandma came and brainstormed some of the scripted fun things we can add... like a fan, cigars smoking, letters fluttering in the wind...lots of fun to come.

Today I spent time making a couple of textures. The ticket windows and the new door are my favourites.

I still need some windows for my walls... but that's fine I need something for tomorrow's fun :)

Easter Egg Hunt

You know what?
I hate treasure hunts. Once when I was little, the Easter bunny left eggs in our back yard and I looked for weeks.. months.... and I couldn't be convinced by anyone that all the eggs had been collected. How could you be sure? How could anyone really know how many eggs the Easter Bunny left?

Add to this the fact that my brain seems to work on some different wave length to your average treasure hider.. because I find it impossibly hard to find anything before my brain seizes and forces me to retreat before I become abusive in mixed company.

So when lovely Star Fairymeadow announced to me that she had hidden an Easter egg in her shop, I heaved the saddest of sighs. I hate to disappoint Star as she is one of SL's sweetest people. And I would absolutely love to win one of her dresses. But Star, I type, I hate treasure hunts.... Star tells me that it is easy to find. More sighing. Then I get a call form RL. I tell Star I will write it down and come back. Fully planning to be saved from the treasure hunt for good ;)

Problem is that Star's dresses are too nice. And I couldn't resist... and I did go hunt.. and it was easy.. and now I am dressed in .... .... ...Pink!

The hunt started elsewhere, but if you want to pick it up at Stars, here is the SURL
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Winterfell%20Absinthe/46/153/22
Thanks Star!

A blogging fo Jo.. building in SL

Jo hasn't been in SL, though she reads this blog apparently. She was a little impatient today as she said there was nothing new. She also wanted me to explain how the water works in Steelhead.

Well I don't think I have a satisfactory answer for the waters of Steelhead but I thought I would just offer a glimpse of the way SL is assembled.
(Waves at Jo... Hi Jo!)
Right!
Everything in SL is made by the people in it. There is no great god of SL that plonks the buildings, trees and shapes the earth in it. The Lindens keep the power turned on, but we decorate the landscape.
Everything in sl is made from a prim

Behold! The humble prim!

A prim can be manipulated. It can be three basic shapes as shown next or the intriguing ring shape called a torus or the baffling sculptured prim. These basic shapes can be manipulated with twists and tapers and dimples. Making these distortions then reflect what it is you are wanting to reproduce is the challenge and fun of it!

Every prim rezzed begins as plain wood coloured. A pattern can then be placed on them with a texture and the texture can be tinted with a colour.
Different faces of the object can be textured with different textures.

At the moment I am building a castle. I have a brown castle texture that I used for Castle Shapinsay but it wasn't fun building two so much the same so I went to TRU and bought a new castle set.
I have tried a few wall papers inside and I am not happy so it looks like I am off to TRU to find something extra.
Jo... in sl.. you can make your own textures and upload them for a couple of cents or you can go to a business in sl and buy them. Soemtimes you can even find them set out as freebies.

First photo is from outside.

Next shows with the draw bridge shut.

And then through the front door with a little Audrey within.

Jo, the doors open and shut by placing a command (script/program) inside the appropriate prim. That's how the actions in sl are achieved.
A simple rotation script looks like...
default
{
state_entry()
{
llTargetOmega(<0,0,1>,PI,1.0);
}

}
But the door script had about 200 lines in it.

There's so much fun to be had tinkering with colour shape and movement in SL building...
or...
you can just play dress ups...

Definitely girl next door, Jo....see? freckles.. piggy tails...

Jo also has a notion that I am some kind of femme fatale.....but I swear not!

Flooding at Steelhead

I arrived in world to hear cries of calamity.
Steelhead was awash.


The seas flooded in and crashing on our door steps. Nature unsettled, things washed ashore and others set adrift!

Kind Tensia lent me a boat to sail.

It sank though, then vanished before I had nearly enough fun!

Thank goodness I have built the lighthouse high on rocks, only the cushions on my outdoors chair were ensoggened.