In continuation of the Hern Worsley Special Broadcast...

Posted by Alpha Auer

Once upon a time, on this very blog I said that it would be a very difficult task to make a nice little list of all the designers I consider to be utterly brilliant in Second Life®, but that if someone brandishing a virtual gun pushed me up against a prim wall and wanted me to give only one name I would probably mumble out "Thomus Keen" in my terrified state. In continuation of this hypothetical scenario what would probably happen next would be that I would immediately add "oh and Hern Worsley of course...". And then if the villain were to yell at me "DECIDE woman!" I would probably have no option but to eat the bullett. (By no means are Thomus Keen and Hern Worsley the only two object designers in the metaverse that I have on my secret list of all time ultimate favorites - there are quite a few choice others in their company as well. But, I am sure you are getting my drift here. ;-)

Between myself and my rapacious tribe of alts we have plundered Hern Worsley's shop AVZ many times over. We do not go all too often because a trip out there inevitably results in a complete depletion of all funds, but then in the end we always do go back and make up for time lost in one massive bulk purchase where we basically clean the shop out of every new item rezed since we were last there. Good job one does not carry shopping bags back home in Second Life, I really do not know how we would possibly manage if that were indeed the case.
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So, I had admired Hern Worsley's imagination, creativity, taste and exquisitely delicate craftsmanship of both form and texture (without which, for me, all the rest is utterly for naught I'm afraid) for the longest time when one day, upon logging in I found that I had gotten a most unexpected present - a dragonaut jetpack, accompanied by a message telling me that Hern Worsley had noticed my general love of jetpacks and wanted me to have this latest of his designs. I immediately proceeded to thank him and during the ensuing conversation found out that not only is Hern Worsley a gifted designer but also a very funny man: When he started telling me that the jetpack was quite a utilitarian object in that it proved to be very useful whenever one wanted to spear a deer I immediately reached for the "Add Friend" button, an offer which Hern very graciously accepted. (And a propos of the deer hunt: One does of course have to sidle up backwards to the beast in order to be able to harpoon it - but really, one cannot have everything in this life and a bit of sacrifice for aesthetics is to be expected then and again, I say).
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There are many many wonders at AVZ, particularly an unbelievable selection of hair, some of which has already been blogged by my valiant colleague Bettina Tizzy right here. The store has recently changed location and is now to be found on its own island. And a trip out there just to admire the starkly black, to me very obviously biologically referenced architecture of the giant beetle/building hovering over the sea is a worthwhile experience in itself.

You can teleport to AVZ directly from here. You can see larger sizes of the dragonaut jetpack here on Flickr.

See also the special post on Poetik Velvets, a spectacular work of architecture by Hern Worsley created for Nur Moo here.