The Alien Factory

Posted by Bettina Tizzy

Once in a blue moon (heh!) I just grind my heels in the ground and quit blogging for a bit. When I do, I get downright stubborn about it and nothing can compel me to post a thing on this blog for days or even weeks. It's my way of staying sane, I guess.

I was in this mode just about a month ago when, on a whim, I whipped up a little machinima to share the fun of a new avatar-generating gizmo that Madcow Cosmos had come up with, with a little help from his friends Tezcatlipoca Bisiani (scripts) and Lorin Tone (sounds). I happened upon my vid just now as I was browsing through friends' works and thought "what the heck," so I'm posting it here for posterity. Y'all have probably seen it already and that's okay. You can just watch it again! Oh, and you can get your own alien avatar for free here, at Alien Isles of course.



And if alien avatars aren't your thing, you can head on over to the Museum of Robots where Madcow and his pals have created a variation on the same theme: Yep, you guessed it, a Robot Factory and also free. Teleport directly from here.

I've also been meaning to tell you that Madcow's got a new blog, too. So there you have it. You've been war..told.

Madcap Madcow Cosmos *finally* opens a store + freebies, too

See also:
* Divine Madcow Cosmos' divinations
* Madcow's Cosmos' "Heterotroph" at the Garden
* It's a Madcow (Cosmos) Madhouse!
* Catastrophe! Spacejunk falls from the sky!
* Dear Colgate-Palmolive
* Madcow Cosmos gets orbital
* No red noses here
* Madcow Cosmos silly-wonderful Prey Unit - a photographic challenge

Prolific. Genius. Prim hog. Brilliant. Funny. I have described Madcow Cosmos in these ways and more, but never, ever have I been able to call him a merchant. I can do this today, as Madcow has finally established an outlet where we can pick up copies of his insanely cool avatars and stuff: The Primordial Soup and Sandwich, teleport directly from here.

I spent some time last night in a sandbox with Madcow, previewing his newest line of avatars and Oh.My.Goodness. While all are - as I have come to expect - hilarious, some of them are truly the stuff of my childhood nightmares, and would make worthy under-the-bed monsters. It all got me to thinking about Halloween... NPIRL's #1 holiday and the one day when we observe that rite: PARTY time (note to self: better start thinking about venues 'n stuff).


Madcow greeted me personally at his new store. It was a bit... intimidating :)

Freebies: There are two ways to secure freebie avatars: touch the "specials of the day" on the counter, or take a look in the dumpster.

Roald Dahl feast at Relay for Life

Combine two of our best loved stories for children (and grown-ups, too!) by Roald Dahl with some of Second Life's® most accomplished content creators, and you have magic.

Orchestrated by PatriciaAnne Daviau, two stories unfold: James and the Giant Peach, with little boy James, trees and a big juicy peach by brilliant 3D modeler Colin Fizgig, fantastical insects by Madcow Cosmos, Cloud Insoo's perfect seagulls, and LittleToe Bartlett's fanciful textures...




... and a Willy Wonka factory by Tezcatlipoca Bisiani, complete with a candy cane forest by PatriciaAnne Daviau, strange plants by Tezcatlipoca and robotic creatures by Bryn Oh.





There is so much to see and do this weekend at the Second Life® Relay for Life (RFL) event. More than 80 teams have come together to create an experience with the goal of raising $125,000 US.

Teleport directly from here.

Garden freebies to die for... and yes, you have to go to heaven or hell for 'em

UPDATE - June 24, 2008: The Garden of NPIRL Delights has closed. Thanks to everyone who created it and to those who visited it, and special thanks to RightasRain Rimbaud and his team at Rezzable Productions for sponsoring it.

The Garden of NPIRL Delights will end on June 23rd, and several of the very gifted content creators have decided that their work should not disappear. Just look at what they are giving away! Hurry hurry!


DB Bailey's Purgatorio (Take everything home!) - slurl
Photograph by Ka Rasmuson


Eladrienne Laval & Kheph777 Enoch's Tower of Industrial Judgement (Steampunk Bosch Wings) - slurl
Photograph by Alpha Auer


Tezcatlipoca Bisiani's Laberinto de Mictlan (You get the prize - the puzzle box and the postcard!) - slurl


Bryn Oh's Steamgarden (Several items from her build! If you put the structure on your land, send her an IM and she will come and place the beetle and the carousel on it) - slurl


four Yip's Elevator Angels (everything! - touch the panels at the entrance to choose) - slurl
Photograph by Azwaldo Villota


Alpha Auer's The NPIRL Garden of Delights Public Baths- (Her monochromatic and health-inducing jellyfish!) slurl


Madcow Cosmos' Heterotroph (avatars) - slurl


Yoa Ogee's Happy Humans! (avatars) - slurl


Yeti Bing's Perfect Universal Companionship (avatar) - slurl
This video by Crap Mariner


Gore Suntzu's "Tame a Thorn" sculpture : (This beauty could be yours!) - slurl

Divine Madcow Cosmos' divinations

Madcow Cosmos is industrious, yes. He uses prims with wild abandon, yes. Since he upgraded his computer a few weeks ago, this Canadian chef-by-day - creator-by-night's work has soared. His texture work! His elegant touches using glow!

Madcow likes to work against a theme. This time: the entire Tarot deck... major arcana, minor arcana, the works. While he is loosely basing himself on the Rider-Waite deck, he has realized his own metaphorical interpretations and, while he is just about halfway through (there are 78 cards), multi-sim gallery owner Alexander Vargas couldn't wait. He has generously provided Madcow with two sims to exhibit the 40-some completed pieces, and to complement them, he has added a notecard to each one explaining the significance of that card.

Even more exciting... Alexander is awaiting delivery of yet another sim, by which time Madcow will have more cards completed... and... when the full deck is ready, Madcow is looking for ways to do scripted Tarot spreads and readings.

Molly Montale - who believes that this is "the most impressive prim work in Second Life®" - has just finished photographing a number of these pieces, and I liked her work so much that I prefer her captures to my own. Thank you, Molly!


The High Priestess


The Three of Swords


The Ten of Swords


The Knight of Pentacles


The Fool

Teleport directly from here.

See also:
* Madcow's Cosmos' "Heterotroph" at the Garden
* It's a Madcow (Cosmos) Madhouse!
* Catastrophe! Spacejunk falls from the sky!
* Dear Colgate-Palmolive
* Madcow Cosmos gets orbital
* No red noses here
* Madcow Cosmos silly-wonderful Prey Unit - a photographic challenge

Inside the mind of Crap Mariner: At the Garden

Crap Mariner cracks me up. As GoSpeed Racer said recently, "He is a true comic genius with a flare for the bizarre, the weird, and the obscure. Crap can tell a story with as little as one picture."

Crap has his own installation at the Garden of NPIRL Delights, but he has devoted more time to exploring the Garden and seeing what others had done there than anyone else I know. Here are just a few of the many, many videos that Crap has created. I suggest you pull up a chair, and take a tour through his stream for a glimpse into this man's head, and the Garden, too!

Madcow Cosmos' "Heterotroph" at the Garden

Visible from almost any point in the Garden of NPIRL Delights, Madcow Cosmos' "Heterotroph" is, in his words, "A vision of hell based on the act of consumption. Nothing is returned, nothing created; only violence and consumption rule the day. A heterotroph is an organism that feeds off of another, or its byproducts (so both herbivores and carnivores), as opposed to an autotroph which produces its own energy from the environment (photosynthesis for example)."



In Real Life, Madcow is a chef in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Initially drawn by the simple-to-use creation tools, Second Life® fulfilled his life-long desire to make three dimensional virtual art.


Nebulosus Severine's jewel-like "CM Pauluh" can also be seen in this photograph

While he hasn't had any formal training in 3D rendering software, or other artistic background aside from the culinary, he enjoys working with art of almost any nature on an amateur level.



Madcow says that the inspiration for much of his art comes from "an overactive imagination and a love of science, fantasy, and myths."



When not "hopelessly distracted building," Madcow enjoys helping others build and "petting the cats that are walking across (my) keyboard." He invites you to enjoy his work by climbing on it, photographing it, or "performing any act upon it that won't get you banned (and arguably a few that might)."

One of the sections of the piece gives out a freebie avatar. Teleport directly from here.

An object that is really an event: The Garden of NPIRL Delights promotional triptych

The triptych created by the Rezzable Productions team to promote their joint effort with us, the Not Possible in Real Life group, is simply without equal in the promotional category.


Click to see large (pretty crazy stuff here)

The 4-sim, 2-month build festival - Garden of NPIRL Delights - is getting underway, but there is still LOTS of room for more builders. FOUR sims, people! If you own or manage a sandbox, would you consider rezzing this 24-prim baby there? It will autoadjust depending on the stage of the festival, so you may leave it rezzed.

What do I mean when I call it an event? Check this out...



The freebies alone... a pair of wings, a halo, and a lightning bolt that you can zap... um... others with, are top retail quality.



The festival is open to all builders and building begins tomorrow. The sims will open to the public on May 14th. We are very interested in discovering unknown builders, in helping intermediate builders along (there will be tutorials and all sorts of events once the festival opens to the public), and group collaborations, too.

Several of the grid's most talented creators made this explosive (literally) promo for the festival... It really is more of an event than an object. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you would like a copy of it.

Credits:
Hieronymus Bosch: Painting
Ordinal Malaprop: All scripting and building
Spiral Walcher: Flowers and lightning bolt
Kaelie Candour: Wings
Madcow Cosmos: Devils
Vint Falken: Several textures
RightasRain Rimbaud: Project Director

It's a Madcow (Cosmos) Madhouse!

For one week only and until March 15th, Callipygian Christensen is hosting a sim-wide exhibition of Madcow Cosmos' work. A full sim! Even so, we'll probably never see a complete retrospective of his work. For one thing, Madcow doesn't skimp on prims, ever, and... he can whip up a 1200 prim creation in a day or two... no problem!



As Madcow put it, "Included (in this show) are some of my favorite high prim beauties," as well as a number of pieces that have never been exhibited before. "I'm happy to get them out of my inventory and breathing fresh air."

The centerpiece sculpture will be changed a few times during the week, and Madcow will be present for two "Meet the artist" sessions:
+ Monday, March 10 at 1pm SLT for the Euro crowd
+ Friday, March 14 at 7pm SLT

Both sessions will be followed by fireworks. Teleport directly from here.

Catastrophe! - Space junk falls from the sky and wipes out the dinosaurs!

I was sipping my tea and struggling in-world with Second Life's crise du jour, when RightasRain Rimbaud's panicky IM came in. "There've been multiple UFO sightings! The dinosaurs are restless!" Of course, I set my cup down and made a mad dash for Rezzable to see what was up.

Indeed, chunks of UFO's were falling from the sky and demolishing Madcow Cosmos' dinosaurs. Oh dear.

I regret to inform you that all efforts to save them, heroic ones at that - in particular by one Kool-Aid pitcher that attempted to extinguish the flames by hurling himself at them - were for naught.

Dear Colgate-Palmolive...

Oh, the ruckus that ensued over your promotion in Second Life! I for one would like to congratulate you for taking the leap and having a presence here. The typists behind all these pixelated people need to brush, too. However, I would like to suggest that you consider taking a more... erm... "virtual worlds" approach. Let's not forget that Second Life is about entertaining its Residents, too.

I happened upon Madcow Cosmos today while he was working away in a sandbox and was delighted with his new-to-me avatar. He calls it the "Brush your teeth Fairy." I immediately thought of you! I suspect that people would respond more... um... enthusiastically to this fairy than any corporate booth.



However, when I took the liberty of dropping a snapshot of it to your marketing company representative, the only responses I got were two "lols." Oh well. Catch ya next time. :P

Madcow Cosmos gets orbital

My appreciation of Madcow Cosmos' retrotech and always whimsical creations keeps growing and growing, but took a leap forward when I laid eyes on his newest: a baroque planetary - and orbiting - Lovecraft-ish system he's called Worlds of Industry.



Incidentally, Madcow whips out wildly imaginative avatars, creatures, and steampunk things at a blistering speed, all the while maintaining lively conversations via IM. His builds are rarely textured, and are hardly ever under 1,000 prims a piece... so I was shocked when I rezzed this baby and discovered it was only 569 prims. A frugal Madcow! I've lived to see the day... heh.

No red noses here: Madcow Cosmos' sleigh and four skinny reindeer

Real Life architect and publisher KK Jewell allowed me to rez this whopping 1,600 prim wonder by Madcow Cosmos above the Christmas tree at her arcspace Island. Teleport directly from here. Thank you, KK!

Madcow - surely the greatest prim hog on the grid - is a constant source of joy in my Second Life, and I've come to look forward to anything this Real Life chef sends my way, despite the fact that I practically have to ask permission to rez his things even in a sandbox, given their prim load. Many thanks to Jurin Juran and her Blackwater Gallery for introducing me to this good-humored and clever artist.

Madcow Cosmos' silly-wonderful Prey Unit - a photographic challenge

Madcow Cosmos says that he builds things "mostly to push them out of my mind." He pushed this line-up - he calls it Prey Unit - out in a couple of days, and has offered to give anyone a copy for free if they can get a good, accurate and detailed photograph of the entire build.



I tried.



And tried.



And finally gave up.



Jurin Juran rezzed it over two sims at at her spacious Blackwater Gallery. Have a go at it here.

1/22/08 Update: Alornia Kamachi nearly blew her computer to produce this shot. What do you think?