Wizard of neko refinement: eko Merlin

Posted by Alpha Auer

Quite surprisingly, given the immense quality of his design output, eko Merlin is from a non-visual background. An electronic music producer in Real Life, eko describes his venture into Second Life object design as follows:

"When i started to play with prims, someone asked me to build a belt. I had a wonderful time working on this and since I enjoyed the process so much I proceeded to make several others , trying to push the details a bit more each time and aiming for better and better texturing. So, Second Life® is my first experience in object design and I love it.

"My first inspiration in Second Life was urban/neko/punk, but I didn't even know enough to call what I did by these labels. I was just stunned by the level of detail that I saw on some of the neko items, especially the things made with tiny prims. So, I suppose my first inspiration was not a style but the detailed building practice concealed within the style itself.

I have not yet designed too many items, since it takes me a very long time to complete a project, with the amount of detailing that I like to put into my work. However, I can see that my output can already be divided into two broad categories: Possible and Not Possible in Real Life. I am really not someone who can stick to one style only. It is just like music. I need change and diversity."

And indeed, along with all of his highly NPIRL objects, eko is also the designer of my much beloved Builder's Belt, a highly possible in Real Life item and as such really not at all suitable content for this blog. But besides this cherished item I do seem to have bought most of what eko has on display in his shop.


This headset has a lid, which when popped open reveals the brain inside. All components are color changeable and furthermore the object has a menu driven play list of tunes.


The Mechanics Belt: And what is so NPIRL about this you might ask? Well... What do all of these gauges measure exactly? My virtual blood pressure? hhh...


The crazy steampunk watch would need a machinima, which alas, I have not yet ever attempted in Second Life: The arms of this watch move completely randomly - backwards and forwards, unsynchronized and at great speed...


The first generation of the neko-backpack TV held a static image. I still loved it...


The new version will playback a slideshow of your choice.

eko is very much my kind of content creator: Unselfconscious, subtle and very very refined. One for whom the journey of creativity itself is what is paramount - over and above whatever the results of it may turn out to be. His creations do not scream out their self-importance in a bellowing voice but wait to be discovered, in all of their splendid detail, in a quiet corner of the metaverse - a wonderful neko shopping island named Blitzed.


Blitzed Island. whether it is truly NPIRL, I am not sure - however, truly lovely it most certainly is.

All in all, a truly delightful person is eko Merlin:

"Second Life is the most wonderful thing I know... The creativity is amazing - the scripting, in combination with objects, the fact that people can think, build and insert scripts, and thus get their creations to work, to do things... I find the whole thing so crazy... I see such clever creations (especially HUD's I love them), like a software in the software.

I think with all the things we are hearing now, several grids are in the process of being created and then in time will surely be integrated... We are just at the beginning of the story. We are the pioneers, our kids will see things unimaginable and I will be proud in 20 years time to say "I was there when it all started, I was in Second Life..."

You can teleport to eko Merlin's shop at Blitzed directly from here. You can also see larger, close-up images of his objects here.

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.