Les oreils très NPIRL...

Posted by Alpha Auer ;-)

Today, dear aficionado of all things great and small that are NPIRL, we shall be considering ears that could not possibly happen in Real Life. And who better than me, a full fledged, card carrying neko, to lead you down this intricate lane of Second Life® body parts?
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aoimizuno Meili's output is certainly no stranger to this blog. Not only were her NPIRL eyes featured in a post dedicated to eyes alone, but we have also looked at a small selection of her truly magnificent avatar attachments here. So, here are some wonderful lightbulb neko ears (above) and the octopus ears (below). Both can be seen in-world at her shop LPP, to where you can teleport directly from here.
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Again, a big favorite of mine, on whom I have posted only recently, Thomus Keen has such a magnificent pair of mechanical steampunk neko ears that I truly could not resist in adding them in here as well: These have the most naturalistic cat ear twitch that you can possibly imagine and furthermore come with a texture menu which lets you choose between various industrial textures - the badlands texture shown here being my favorite. These beauties can be admired at Keen's wonder shop Steam Powered Nuts, to where you can teleport directly from here.
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Jamie Clementine's Hybrid Elite ears are not neko ears in the absolute truest sense of the word, being much too large and too rounded to be true cat ears - thus, a true hybrid indeed. Umm? Rabbit, donkey and just a sprinkling of feline maybe? Wonderful! And you can get them by teleporting directly from here.
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Sinthoras Braveheart is a delightful person who basically got fed up with paying exorbitant prices for all of his neko needs (I know just how he feels) and proceeded to create his own. These great puffy neko ears with earrings come in many different colors. And as for the price? Well, you will just have to find out by clicking right here.
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And finally, let it never be said that, while we are on the subject of ears, the NPIRL blog is going to refrain from making mention of the inherent attribute of the Second Life appearance palette which will let you create your own completely impossible in Real Life ears with just a few dab handed flips of its sliders. Here I have just conjured my very own Dr. Spock elf ears which I have suplemented with a freebie elven ear attachment by Terry Toland, available from here.
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Les yeux très NPIRL....

I have to own up to this with considerable shame, but it took me an awfully long time to discover the charms of Second Life® eyes. In my newbie days I put on a plain dark brown pair and gave the matter no further thought whatsoever until way beyond my first rezday anniversary. They were simply too small of a visual component to make much of a difference to the overall Gestalt of the avatar; you could not even really see them unless you fully zoomed into a face... And who zooms into people's faces like that to begin with, would have been my justifications, I suppose.

I am not sure at what point it began to dawn on me that I was seriously missing out on something here. I think it must have been when I saw my first pair of neko cat's eyes. Quite a few neko designers have these, I want to show my very favorite ones in the image below. What differentiates them from human eyes is the shape of the pupil, which, cat-like, is elongated.



Shaoshan Llanfair's Star Eyes (top and second row) come in many colors. In addition to the sine qua non elongated pupil the sclera is dark, setting off a delicate starburst surronding the pupil and the iris. BastChild Lotus' Evocative Neko Eyes (bottom) are set against an almost black sclera and come in many hues, my preferred one being the orange since it comes very close to the cat's eye gaze. Second row from the bottom is my favorite: These eyes created by Philo Sion react to Second Life light. Sadly, your personal time of day settings will not affect them, however if you use the default Second Life day cycle you will see that these eyes expand as the environment dims, becoming fully dilated at night and then contract when daylight returns, precisely the way feline eyes do as well. This is achieved through tiny prims which become attached to your eyeballs and are somewhat tricky to adjust - but well worth the final effort I find.
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Another collection by Philo Scion is the one of the haunting Mythic Eyes (top), huge irises which make for a vulnerable avatar face if ever I saw one. A wonderful huge iris eye called Merged has also been created by AlterEgoTrip Svenska (bottom).
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eko Merlin is a man on whom I shall be writing quite a bit more before too long. For now, I would like to just whet your appetitie by showing you two of his highly NPIRL eyes: Bio-X above and Black Magician below.
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Aoimizuno Meili's intricate avatar objects were featured on this blog only a few days ago and now I want to add her Doll's Eyes to the material that I talked about then. These are indeed so lovely that Bett has already blogged them here previously. Two of these eyes remind me of a world atlas globe, superimposed with a radar scanner (maybe?) while the third one is more of a huge iris eye, textured with a lovely blue blur.
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And of course a mini post of NPIRL eyes in Second Life would certainly not be complete without showing four Yip's eye collection, two of which are inspired by Magritte's paintings and the third a gorgeous floral fantasy.
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You can find Shaoshan Llanfair's Star Eyes at Night Sky (teleport directly from here and BastChild Lotus' Evocative Neko Eyes can be seen at Lapointe and BastChild (teleport directly from here. Philo Sion's Light Responsive Neko Eyes as well as her Mythic Eyes can be found at her store Hybird (teleport directly from here. I have not been able to locate an in-world vendor for AlterEgoTrip Svenska, however her eyes can be obtained on her page at shop.onrez. eko Merlin's store Blitzed can be reached by teleporting directly from here. four Yip's eyes can be obtained from her little store reachable directly from here.

You can view large sizes of all the eye photos on my Flickr feed here.

Electric Lady: aoimizuno Meili...

Exquisite craftsmanship. Humor. Intelligence. Imagination. On top of which the person behind all this is quite obviously a darling, as will become apparent from the following:

When I contacted aoimizuno Meili about her work last week I received the below email from her. I was so touched by the charm and the modesty of her short response that I will simply quote it in its entirety. I really think that she conveys the spirit that lies behind these enchanting neko avatar attachments in a way that I never ever could no matter how long I blubbered on about all of their wonders.

So, here it is:

I thank you so much that you are interested in my stuff and it is a great surprise that you have found me, who lives just on the edge of a corner in Second Life®.



I'm not too concerned about business in this world and it is a great pleasure for me to create objects and share with other people which is just an idea in myself.



My aim is to create "originality", things that have never been seen before and which would be easily definable for people as that this "would have been made by LPP".



Most of my inspiration comes from within and quite suddenly without my paying any particular attention to the process: Before sleep in bed, during lunch time or a coffee break...Therefore I am usually in a "blank" state like white paper ;) before I get started. Before I used to try to make something come up from my brain but I have given up on that. Primarily because what I do is not for business but really just for fun. The creating of an object is really quite wonderful because in its own way it can link people in this world just like "prim work" links the objects themselves.

Sorry for my broken English however I really hope that you can understand what I mean..."

* You can teleport to aoimizuno Meili's wonderful shop LPP, directly from here.
* For further close up inspection you can also see huge shots of her objects on my Flickr.
:-)

Look at me

Squishies and thanks to NPIRLer and clothing/avatar designer 3star Tyne for tipping me off to aoimizuno Meili's nifty chain of shops: Le Petit Prince or LLP. It was there that I discovered aoimizuno's LPP Doll Eyes. Teleport directly from here.

This pair of eyes features compass roses and comes in two shades, yellow and grey (as shown)...


Click to see large

...whereas this pair puts the world in your eyes.


Click to see large

I'm not much of a shopper these days, but the month-long Creators Stamp Rally (CSR2008) promotion that involves many of the stores where my Lindens end up anyway is fun. Even if you aren't into shopping, I promise you all sorts of good finds.