Blog

Latex vs. Lace

24-06-2008

In my last post I said so: I have (had) some time on my hands now to clean the house design some new items and since I've been playing with the idea of starting up some kind of premium label, I figured it was time to see what I could come up with. I worked with lace once before (on the Stellar corset) and thought it might be a good idea to pick up lace again! You can see the first result here. I've created two sets and a corset which hopefully go on sale this week! Keep your eyes out for the Fashcon / group message! Finally ready too is Expo! The corset in the third picture is worn by a new face... Maybe some of you already know this lady. She will be modeling more outfits in the future next to Ellen and Tillie. This pretty lady is none other then Latexia! [update] At this moment (today) i'll be hanging the new items in the shop... I'm hoping to send a notice to the group today and will send a Fashcon notice tomorrow night!

The new outfits are available from: In-World Main Store and SL Marketplace

Latex fashion blog posts

18-06-2008

Just a quick post here to let you know that German SL-style (in german) took the time to write an article about my current items! I really love the pictures and what Betty Tracer wrote about me. Second, Linnda Scofield did an interview with me on Dutch secondlife Style (in Dutch). Check out these blogs for more cool tips on virtual fashion

I have some time off upcoming days, so I hope to spend some time designing new items. If all goes as planned, the new items will be released somewhere next week! items like 'Expo' which a lot of people have been asking about...

Designing clothing in SL: start

17-06-2008

When I'm thinking about what to tell here about making your own clothing textures, a lot of things come to mind... Let me first give you some global information about how I start a design (and in a next item how finish it). After that I'll cover more detailed stuff. If you want to know something specific, let me know! When you start making clothing for second life there are numerous different things you need to know, or they are at least handy to know. Here are a few...

Are you going to wear it yourself, or are you going to sell it? Or both? If you wear it yourself and there are some mistakes in it, no problem... If you are going to sell it, people in most cases will not tolerate mistakes (depending on the price too...). They may not complain, but will never return to your store for new items...
What will you make? The better you know this the better you can work on a collection of items that work together (so you can mix and match!) and if you want to sell it people will know that to expect from you. You can always change if your choice isn't working out for you.

How do I make a typical design from scratch? It is in most cases done in three steps:

(have a good idea in your head and) sketch it on paper
draw the design (in lines), this is the base for your design
fill in the lines, add all the details, save and upload it

Sketching on paper

All my designs are mostly hand drawn. this means I draw the lines myself (doh...). It is also possible to use a picture from a piece of clothing or fabric and 'paste' it onto your avatar (photo sourcing), this can sometimes look spectacular, and sometimes like crap :) On the left you see Ellen wearing a never sold design (the only design) in which I used a picture of a blouse / shirt. (the original picture is from my rl gf who posed for the picture in one of my white shirts). The rest is hand drawn... A little note to that is that some of the details on my items are (part of) photo's: small parts of belts and zippers. When you have all these kind of figured out you can start without even touching your computer... The best way to get your ideas into shape is by drawing them on paper. You can easily correct things or start over... and more important: complicated software won't break your concentration. When I started I've made that mistake so many times... ended up with no work done, forgot what I actually wanted to make in the first place and completely frustrated... I know it can be hard to draw a human figure before you draw your design on it. So what you can do is put your avatar on a poser, against a white background and make a good frontal snapshot (and one of the back too) and print both images on a piece of paper. This way you only need to draw your idea over it. Then there are some limitations in designing clothing for an avatar, most of them you need to find out while designing as I did in my first designs (which took me weeks and a lot of L$ while uploading the textures). Lines and textures sometimes just don't look the same on an avatar as when you were drawing them in your texture. Textures get wrapped around the avatar body en there are places where the texture is stretched (a lot). (how this works can be seen in this blog of SL Natalia) Typical area's that cause a lot of problems are the side of the boobs / under the armpits. Boobs in general (the bigger, the more stretch, the more blurred the detail will look...) and between the legs of an avatar... So basically don't put (too much) detail in those places. On other places a straight line can show strange twists and the only thing to change that is to redraw your design. Next item, more stuff about the use of programs and how I finish a design!

Luna: new latex body, stockings, gloves and corset

09-06-2008

It has been a bit busy last days so I'm writing this message with a bit of a delay. The Luna set was finished, and sales started that night. I can say now that Luna is a big hit, and I really love it! Luna is a body with- and without garter bottom, stockings, gloves and a corset. The body itself comes in two flavors: a normal one, and one with a naughty open front. The complete set comes in three color combinations: white / pink, black / pink, and black. The body and corset have a matching print on it.

That's it for me now, briefly! More to come, soon...

The new outfits are available from: In-World Main Store and SL Marketplace

Latex updates for this week

31-05-2008

Yesh! New updates are ready and in shop... The wait is over, Ava 4.0 is for sale! I know, some of you had to wait a *long* time for it and finally: here it is! In the picture you see Ellen (yup, different skin, different hair) wear it in combination over the Cat 2 20% sheer catsuit. To finish the outfit Ellen put on a pair of black latex gloves and stockings. The new items since last post here are:

You can click on one of the items to get all the information for that item! Right now I'm adding all the items to Onrez and SLexchange, so the links to the items on these website will be available very soon! To get a quick overview of these items, here are the vendor posters.

Next to the latex updates, I've also been rebuilding the shop and studio. Both were built sloppy and the shop was completely filled up. I needed to free some prims and create some space to be able to hang all new items in shop in future. Curious? See you there!!

The new outfits are available from: In-World Main Store and SL Marketplace

Sketching on paper

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