Meeeaaann Kittiezzz.....

Posted by Alpha Auer... ;-)

Cats are predators. So, I hope that I am speaking on behalf of the whole species when I come right out and say it like I see it: Enough of all of this hello kitty stuff in the metaverse - pleeaaaasse!

We are not cute little kitties - we are big nasty meeeeaaannn old catzzzzzzzz!

And so, ladies and gentlemen, under the horrified gaze of all present company, off we go to carnivore land... teeeee heeeee....
...


The Demonic Cat avatar comes in both light and dark shades. Of course, one gets the dark one!


The Latex Mew comes with nasty little fangs, a spiky tail creepy enough to put the fear of God into the Devil himself and huge huge huge stomp-over-everything-in-sight paw boots. Oh, and of course it wouldn't do to forget mentioning those utterly lovely boxing glove paws, good enough a size to do justice to any little old altercation...
...


The tail as larder: Sorry folks, I ate the fish... And yup! While I was at it, I also ate Tweety. Odious little fluffball!!!... Oh yes, the mice I am saving for later. I do tend to get somewhat peckish just around bedtime...


And speaking of rodents, I simply cannot emphasize this point strongly or often enough: There is no such thing as having too many mice!
...


It shows a sad state of affairs when you cannot be secure even on your own island! This tomcat came flying out of nowhere and put me into this dreadful state. Even my tail is in a cast! Reason? He seemed to be upset about the contents of this very post, said it was giving us Nekos a bad rep! One of those politically correct cats no doubt.

However... R.I.P. old boy...


... took care of his sanctimonious little derriere pronto pronto! Here's where it actually happened... And of course, I did not leave any trace evidence! Watched my share of CSI episodes as diligently as the next person, haven't I?
...

Credits:
Demonic Cat and Latex Mew avatars: June Dion
Neko tails: selena Chastity, Purrrfect Kitties
Mice Boots: Cyia Kanami at Purrrrfect Kitties
Neko arm sling, casts and collar: Akasha Wachmann
Neko Crime Scene: Cinemaniac Voom
(Please click on names for teleport locations)

On ironforged velvety ocelot paws: Here comes Vry Offcourse...

Posted by Alpha Auer

Basically I bought so many skins from Vry Offcourse that in the end the poor thing had no choice but to befriend me. So, now I am very proud to be able to say that I count Vry, whom I consider to be one of the most inspired of NPIRL designers in Second Life® amongst my personal friends.

Like myself, Vry is a graphic designer who says that her real life profession deeply affects how she proceeds in her virtual design work: "large & long projects have trained my mind to think systematically when managing a project". Like every good designer Vry "start(s) each project with research, and then play(s) around with assets, look(s) at styles". But, subsequently, in a manner somewhat uncharacteristic to hard core Real Life design practices, she proceeds to "just have fun, never really knowing what I will end up with."

When I asked Vry what the impetus behind Starfuker, her stunning skin shop in Harajukobox had been she told me that she started to design skins because she could not find the types of skins that she wanted. Although she admits that she initially turned her output into a business with the objective of making an income she adds that "after reality set in, it just became an artistic outlet for me", the inspiration for which comes from many diverse sources but "as far as SL goes...there is nobody more inspiring then my friend ColeMarie Soleil".


The Zebra Skin

Some of Vry Offcourse's skins are inspired by nature and yet others have their foundations in metal. While skins such as the Ocelot skin, the Zebra skin and the bewilderingly complex Reptile skin are examples of the former, the recently added Hybrid skin and my long time favorite the Ironforge skin fall into the latter category. And then, of course, are the oddballs, as would be the case with the Fragile skin:




Fragile: An almost translucent layer of cracked porcelain glaze...




The Ocelot Skin (steampunk attachments: Lucia Cyr)


The Reptile Skin. (dress: Andie Ramona, hair: Hern Worsley)

The Ocelot skin, along with the Reptile skin, for me, are amongst the most uncanny skins that Vry Offcourse has designed. Unlike most zoologically based skins that are out there, Vry has not superimposed a mere feline/reptilian pattern onto a humanoid base layer but has actually blurred out the area surrounding the "human" eyes in such a way that they blend in with the animal pattern, whilst leaving the lips more or less intact, thus creating a bizarre hybrid, half human half feline/reptilian experience both for the user as well as the beholder.


The Iron Forge Skin. (hair: Elke Banting)


The Hybrid Skin. (apparel: four Yip, Phantom Kabuki)

Indeed the whole Hybrid experience seems to be very much on Vry Offcourse's mind: Her latest creation features yet another such experiment - this one between the mechanoid and the humanoid, following up on one of her earlier designs, the Iron Forge skin, which is almost entirely mechanoid, save for the bizarre pink lips that refuse to blend with the metallic remainder, thus creating a very startling design dichotomy.

You can teleport to STARFUKER, Vry Offcourse's shop directly from here. You can see many more photographs of her skins, which I used as one of the main elements of a somewhat bizarre research experiment of my own called the Uncanny Valley 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.
...



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).
...



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.
...



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.
...



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.
...

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.