I posted this image and text to my Flickr page but thought it would be good to share it here as well.
My first memory of Star Trek was watching it on our old twelve inch (yes!) screen black and white television. I was off school and poorly enough to be confined to bed, and the TV had been set up in my room. I can even recall the episode, from The Original Series, “The Doomsday Machine”. After this we watched TOS as a family, Mum was especially fond of Capt. Kirk but it was the arrival of “The Next Generation” that got my attention. In the years since, through DS9, Voyager, Enterprise and the other iterations of the Star Trek canon, I have always felt the TNG cast/crew to have achieved a special “chemistry” surpassing even the trinity of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. So when I finally picked up the courage to watch Picard season three, as the cast slowly assembled, Picard, Riker, Worf, Crusher; Troi, Geordie, Data. By the last episode there were only one character missing – and there she was, NCC1701-D and her unmistakeable computer voice. (Not going to get too nerdy here, but the voice is that of Majel Roddenberry, nee Hudec, aka Barrett, who played many roles but for me was unforgettable as Deanna Troi’s overbearing but ultimately heroic Lwaxan Troi). I have watched the clip of the crew returning to the bridge time and time again and when a search on Market Place revealed a version of that same bridge, I had to have it. It is labelled “Galaxy Class Bridge” (<a href="https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/JRF-Build-Galaxy-Class-Bridge/25096823" rel="noreferrer nofollow">marketplace.secondlife.com/p/JRF-Build-Galaxy-Class-Bridg...</a>) but the dedication plate on the wall says “USS Enterprise”.
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Whimberley is an attractive place. A whole region, rated moderate, it is beautifully crafted and serene. Ideal for couples, there are many places to stop and enjoy the setting, with vistas of water and woodland, secluded cabins and carefully realised landscapes. But if you wish to see it, it may already be too late, Whimberly will "go dark" on September 8th. The region is owned by Ethan and Staubi Reilig, with the actual landscaping falling to Staubi. In her parting announcement she explains that in the last two years she has made no changes and done no new building in the region, nor do the couple live in the region any more. She goes on to explain that it was made to provide backgrounds for her personal Blog, but since she no longer decorates, nor writes her blog, then the region is redundant. To me this highlights a recurring issue if you enjoy building and landscaping. What to do when it is "finished"? Initially it's a lot of fun just being in the space you have made, sharing it with others. Encouraging photography opens new insights into how people see and use the space but in time even the most magical places can lose their lustre. Even so it can be hard to let go, either clearing the space to free resources for something new, or simply moving on. I have been there, even with my modest projects, the point where it has to go, so today I visited Whimberly, to see what I might learn and to make some last images. It sounds awful, but I honestly could not remember if I had visited before. A place like this must surely have come to my attention in the seven years it has been open, and it was only when I walked down a rustic avenue of pine trees that a sense of the familiar arose. Whimberly has a Flickr Group and you will see from the earliest pictures that mush has changed over time. The current build is mature, well observed and subtle. From my perspective it is fascinating to see familiar assets used in new ways. The fact that it is a Homestead region and limited to 5000 prims is even more of a tribute to clever and economical design, No more words, I'll let you browse through my impressions. ...She's Wearing Different Clothes Again...Who would have thought that going back to work in First Life after eight months on furlough would be so disruptive? But, as it says in the title, Tanji's on the road again, this time looking at one of the many seasonal Winter Wonderland themed locations that appear all over the grid at this time of year. I’m sure a lot of you will be familiar with the Calas Galadhon group of sims. For a long time the park has been a beacon of quality in terms of landscape and design and the parks owner-curators Ty Tenk and Truck Meredith should be praised for their contribution to life on the grid. I may have said this before, but they are members of a group of SL residents that I admire tremendously, people who build and host sims that they then make available to the public. Without the generosity of these people there would be no “Tanji’s Travels”. In his Profile Ty describes Christmas as his “favorite holiday sim” and this year’s offering is a treasure. "A Christmas Dream" begins with a fantastic confection of candy canes, ice bridges and illuminated archways. This leads you across the sky to the portal to the sim itself, but TAKE YOUR TIME and look around you, there are lots of witty little details to get you in the right mood for what is to come… Once you are at ground level theirs is no alternative but to take your time. This is a “no fly” sim, so you have to walk everywhere, which gives you plenty of opportunity to admire the Winter midnight scene around you. The location is centred on the Winter Pavilion, a lavishly decorated space with a central ballroom and two side rooms for more intimate gatherings. There also a comprehensive programme of seasonal performances posted here. In front of the pavilion is a very respectably proportioned skating pond, which has proved enormously popular with visitors to the sim. Don’t worry if you do not have skates or a suitable AO; at the western end of the pond there are poseballs for skating and an ice skate giver for Calas Galadhon Announcement Group members. This is a good location to set a Landmark for the sim as well, unless you want to make your way through that fabulous candy-cane causeway on each visit. Also at this location is the Balloon Tour which I would recommend to everyone, - you will see things you certainly would miss without the benefit of an elevated viewpoint. You might like to look out for the Nativity scene located in a cave behind the pavilion, or the Christmas Turkeys and reindeer “on the hoof”. I spent quite a while just walking around the sim, - keep your eyes open for amusing little “vignettes” of wildlife or seasonal items. A Christmas Dream is not the only seasonally-themed sim on the grid, but certainly one of the best executed; here's another slideshow of some of the highlights I mentioned And finally, the different clothes thing? Winter clothes of course!! Visit "A Christmas Dream" HERE
...Moving ExperiencesIn my last post I was enthusing about the new build on my little 64m plot. The Scottish fishing village really caught my imagination, and that of many of my friends. What I didn't mention was the catastrophic "prim-overflow" I had during the build. It was one of those "mouse-click moments" that as soon as you've done it you know you are in trouble. In my case it was a clumsy un-linking that led to a rain of random items being returned to inventory from all over the parcel. Looking back of course it was my own fault - who else? I'd been working very close to the limit on primage anyway. So, after looking at the build, my medium term plans and all the other assets spread across the Grid, I decided, - time for a move. Finding a suitable site wasn't all that hard, though the current moratorium on new sims is putting pressure on the secondary market. Fortunately the estate I was renting from, Estia, had a corner 128m x 128m with 5000 prims available. I hate moving in FL, but it is a lot easier in SL! Since the reason behind this was a shortage of prims for the current builds, I decided to port everything across pretty much as is - I am fond of my Beach house and as has been said, if it ain't broke then don't fix it! So here I am a week later, the New Improved Beach House and a whole lot of primage to play with. Hope to share more travels with you next week!
...So I've Been Building SomethingI've really enjoyed looking at locations for this Blog, and there's one I visited a couple of weeks ago that made a particular impression. Souls of Dreams is a beautiful sim, but not so different from some of the others I've talked about recently, so I decided to keep it for another day. The significant aspect of the sim is it's small dock area, which reminded me quite strongly of some of the images of my home town at the turn of the twentieth century. Grangemouth was important as it was the Eastern terminus of the Forth and Clyde Canal, a late-eighteenth century sea canal linking the East and West coasts of Scotland. The canal can be seen in the above image, with a lock controlling access to the dock. The thing is I'd been looking for a project, and some sort of "model" of the old port seemed worthwhile particularly since the area had been completely redeveloped in the 1970's. I began working from the lock gates, as they seemed a defining element, but it soon became clear that sourcing building was going to be an issue... Some aspects of the scene were easier to suggest, I was particularly pleased with this barge and steam tender. I even devised an off-sim extension for the canal to give some impression of distance. Most of my builds tend to start from a concept rather than a firm design, and as the project grew I was aware of a degree of "mission drift". While the prototype location was still suggested by the scene, it was actually beginning to look more and more like one of the many fishing villages on the Fife coast, so I decided deliberately to emphasise this. That meant the end of the location -specific canal, but since it was eating prims, that freed resources for a bit more fun elsewhere on the build. Populating the harbour space had also been a challenge, there are some impressive period boats out there, but the limitations of primage and building on a 64m x 64m sky platform precluded them. The little trawler however, seemed perfect and set the tenor of the scene very well, though it was a bit of a prim-hog, which eventually led to it's reluctant removal! The canal section had provided some sense of the extended space around the harbour, and with that gone, there was a need for some "backfill" to replace that. This came in the form some simple block building that certainly had a suitable colour palette for the scene, and don't look out of place, especially if you don't look too closely... This is the third build on my 64m x 64m home parcel, The other two are the Beach House at ground level and my little country estate, which you can learn more about on the My Own Spaces page. Both of those builds are permanent so there was always going to be a limit on the prims available for this build. There was never going to be a lot of fine details, but I still feel the "broad brush" approach here has worked, and the addition of some few items of clutter and ambient sound also help - the clock actually chimes. The build is on my plot so if you really would like to see it, drop me a Notecard in-world. Finally a slideshow of an early morning walk-through of the scene as it is now. Thanks for looking!
...Black KiteIt crossed my mind the other day that so far all the locations I have shared with you are quite literal and naturalistic, and indeed this is how my own builds appear. This week the opportunity arose to share something rather different...Black Kite. The first thing you notice on arrival is...there is no land. You stand in a shallow sea that extends to the horizon in every direction. There are no places to explore, no hidden pathways, you can see everything from your arrival, but don't be misled, Black Kite makes up for this by being one of the most serene locations in SL. As I hinted in my introduction, Black Kite is not a conventionally natural space, instead it offers an unforced but enchanting surrealism. The local Windlight is a key part of this, but also the use of space and a very sparing use of particular props,; the corkscrew trees, oversized bottles and the distant sounds of geese are just a few elements. Although I have been here before, my specific reason for visiting the sim this week was the 8f8 Gacha store that occupies a place within the sim. Even this is refreshingly unconventional, and great fun just to wander round. Black Kite is a wonderful space to visit and may even be good for your soul, but there are two things you should remember. This is a residential sim, it really is someone's very imaginative home, and you are only ever going to be a guest. Be respectful, read the Covenant as asked. Find one of the many couches around the sim, sit and enjoy being her, take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but ripples... Visit Black Kite There is also a Black Kite Flickr Group HERE And finally, a Black Kite slideshow for you to enjoy...
CherishvilleIn my First Life for a little over thirteen years I lived and worked in the city of Oxford. Well known for its university, the city also boats a number of world-class museums, art galleries and public collections, one of which is the Ashmolean Museum, the oldest public museum in Britain. The "Ashmo" has a fine collection of nineteenth century art and one of my abiding favourites is Camille Pissarro's "Tuileries Gardens, Rainy Weather". It doesn't look much on the screen (you can see it HERE) but in reality it is one of the most effective evocations of a rainy day I have ever seen. Cherishville has the same quality, but this time in an SL sim. I came across Cherishville entirely by chance, browsing through Flickr. To my regret I can't even remember who posted the picture that got my attention. On my first visit I arrived in my usual printed jeans and tie-top, to be confronted by the most convincing combination of weather effects and WindlightI I have ever seen! I HAD to find an umbrella in my Inventory before I could go on! Subsequent visits were better prepared. The sim is a delight of cleverly selected buildings and the most extraordinary attention to detail. Topographically the impression is of an island on a lake, bisected by a deep channel and surrounded by mountains. After exploring the waterside townscape, I made my way through a beautifully presented autumnal wood to a large and welcoming house on the South side of the sim. Cherishville offers so many opportunities for reflection, for photography or simply experiencing the place that I cannot recommend it enough. However, my understanign is that it is only accessible for a limited time so please get your raincoat on and go visit... Visit Cherishville I so enjoyed this location that I've included all the pictures I took in this week's slideshow!
FrogmoreOne of my close friends with whom I often share Landmarks once asked my how I find new and interesting places to visit. Aside from the odd teleport offer from other friends equally keen to share their discoveries, the best source I find is the Destination Guide. I know this sounds trite, but when you consider the locations listed there belong to people who want you to visit, want to drive up their traffic and share what they have achieved it actually makes a great deal of sense...and it is where I found Frogmore. My first visit was right in the middle of Lockdown and consequently all the more affecting. At that time travel was severely restricted to no more than 5 miles, so the opportunity to "visit" somewhere, even virtually was doubly appealing. (It was about this time I began walking round SL shopping centres just to be "out", but more of that another time.) Frogmore's charm is that it has been inspired by a real location, the county of Cornwall in the far South-West of the UK. The landing point on the sim delivers you to the jetty of a small harbour. A nice touch as it offers a sense of "arrival" - stepping from a boat onto what might easily be a tiny coastal island. Another nice touch is the selection of easels. South-facing coasts seem to hold a particular fascination for artists, the light is considered to be particularly "vivid" and Cornwall has significant centres for the visual arts at Falmouth and Newquay. The sim is a no-fly zone, so from this point you have a choice, stop for an ice-cream or walk over the creek and into the village. Once you are past the watermill and the pavilion, you are on your own though. There are pathways, there are vistas and places to explore, but none of them is marked, it is all there to be discovered. The sim is owned by Tolla Crisp and I bumped into her as I was taking the pictures for this Blog. Tolla takes an active interest in the sim and was busy adding some small details and a few Autumnal touches. It's things like this that keep a sim alive, small changes and as has been said so often before "the Devil is in the detail". Tolla owns and maintains the sim, but the design is the work of Terry Fotherington. Terry describes himself a Scenographer and showcases many of his projects through his Facebook linked above.. I have yet to see any of Terry's other builds, but what I admire about his Frogmore design is the observation and brilliantly inventive use of textures and planting. The beaches look like the beaches round a fishing village, littered with bladder-wrack, thorny bushes and discarded fishing gear. Plantings are restrained and completely convincing. The thing that impresses me most about the sim though is the sense of authenticity. A lot of designers in SL deliberately imbue their objects with a kind of studied shabbiness, "shabby-chic" in spades. What makes Terry Fotherigton's treatment at Frogmore is that the shabbiness looks real. It is the shabbiness of age, of continued use and exposure. As well as offering this amazingly authentic landscape to explore, Frogmore is also the home of the Beehive, a performance venue and dance-club that maintains the unique style of the rest of the Frogmore sim. The Club hosts regular DJ sessions and I would strongly recommend joining the local Group to stay informed of developments and events. For me Frogmore is about being in a landscape, I live my SL in mouselook and the sense of place here is undeniable. Each time I return I have found something new, some new vista, hidden path or little vignette of items. If you do nothing else you should visit Frogmore at least once. Finally another slideshow this time of Frogmore for you to enjoy!
Spoonful of Sugar...OK so I had this idea. I enjoy exploring locations in SL, and often end up handing out Landmarks to my friends and family, so why not go a step further and start a Blog? Brilliant, right? Except I've been agonising over how to start the thing... Inspiration came in the form of something that combine two of my pan-SL passions, well-crafted environments and SHOPPING! The Spoonful of Sugar Festival takes its name from a song in the original Disney production of Mary Poppins. Now those of you with long memories or an eye for trivia may remember that "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down", the "medicine" in this case being "Medecines sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders". This event is a fundraiser for an organisation that provides much-needed international medical intervention, a service which is even more pertinent in the current time of COVID-19. So not only do we have a beautifully crafted desert environment, we also have 5 shopping sims and up to 100% percent of the makers proceeds go to an extremely good cause! A Teleport board at the base sim will take you to each of the five shopping sims, four of which follow the same pattern of a small walled town, somewhere in the North African desert.... Within the walls, the streets are shaded with draped textiles, lined with potted plants and filled with a whimsical menagerie of animals from domestic cats, through stoic camels to amiable-looking lions. The are also lined with shops... Almost 200 (I stopped counting at 180) makers have shops in the towns, ranging from big name fashion houses to individuals, - I found some wonderful craft pottery in one shop which I'd never have known about otherwise. You can read a full lit of retailers HERE Each retail space has been crafted by the makers themselves, but the town spaces are the work of Hatris Panacek of Ex Machina. Hatris is just one of a team of twelve dedicated SL residents who have brought together an extraordinary experience for the rest of us. In addition to the retail sims, there's a Gacha desert for those who like a little risk with their purchases and an extensive program of performances, again featuring many of headliners from SL entertainment community. I've already been back three times to the Festival which runs until the 20th September. Full details of the event can be found HERE Teleport to Spoonful of Sugar Finally a little Slideshow for you to enjoy...
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AuthorI love well-crafted regions, and have spent many years wandering SL, avoiding yards of plywood and looking for the best places to spend my time... Archives
September 2023
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