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!
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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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