Ever wondered all houses built with wooden sidings have the planks laid horizontally? Never mind the RL fact that horizontal slats keep the rain out (thanks, Gabe!), in SL it's because it's much easier to line up textures with horizontal lines than textures with vertical lines. I'm currently remaking all of Gabe's walls, having been driven to distraction by the problem of aligning vertical stripes. Why oh why oh why didn't I just use horizontal lines from the start? Moron!
In other news, I bought a copy of Prim Docker for aligning my prims. I haven't had time to RTFM yet - I think I need to do that before I do anything else.
I will be selling copies of this house when it's done, on RJ's advice. Of course, this means having to master one of those rezzing gadgets...
I will say one thing though - his bathroom looks f-ing excellent. Just like a RL seaside home bathroom (except for the SexGen shower, ahem...)!
gabe semyorka: mak - did you ever smell moth balls?
Makara Yorimasa: Yes, baby, why?
gabe semyorka: how did you pry their little legs apart?
I record this terrible joke for posterity...
Lovely Gabe wants a bathroom in his house, so I have offered to build an extension. When I realized I couldn't get hold of the textures used by the original builder, and that in order to build the extension, I would have to kick Gabe out of his house while I ripped out walls and moved stuff around, I bought a copy of his house, rezzed it on some spare land, and set about cannibalizing it to make the extension. It's a very sweet country-style cottage, with nice layout, but it's a bit pokey, and because it was designed to be low-prim, the creator (Sandy Clymer) had to sacrifice prettiness for prims.
Happily, Gabe agreed to let me tweak the textures and clean up the design a bit during the rebuild. I put in a simple white wooden staircase (replacing the one-prim ramp), added an extra wing at the back of the house for the upstairs bathroom and a downstairs family den, and changed the roof tiles to a dark slate pattern which is classic New England, but which ties in his house to the colour scheme of my modern house, giving Safe Harbor a little more unity.
I ripped out the old fireplace, which was just a one-prim illustration, and installed a new one, complete with crackling, smoking flames, glowing logs and a chimney with smoke coming out of it. I'm also tarting up the interior walls, giving him smart Cape Cod-style whitewashed oak woodwork and wainscoting, and plaster walls in pale sky blue, pale lavender and a rich cornflower blue. "Real" windows with shutters will be installed, and curtains will be hung on the inside. Other plans (apart from the bathroom and den): a new kitchen with a working fridge and washing machine, a proper dining room, a new front door and a working doorbell, and a small back yard leading off from the den, where Gabe can hang his washing on the line and store logs for his log fire.
I thought I'd write a little bit about my av before I launch into all the building stuff. I started off with the generic noob body, the Harajuku version, and free hair from Calla, which as you will see, I kept for quite a long time. Within a couple of weeks, I equipped myself with a working cock (I bought the Xcite pack with cock, ass and nipples), which kept me going for a while. The first time I tried out my cock, I spent about 20 minutes wanking. It was brilliant! My clothes were all freebies, and I spent most of my time hanging around the one friend I had made who soon dumped me because I kept hanging around with her (to be fair, I was practically stalking her, although we weren't shagging; I was just chronically new and clueless).
After a month or so, I bought a skin (Eric, from Cryogen, which I still use), and started to hang out at Whitesands, a mixed beach, and two gay beaches, Boots Beach and Hot 'n' Hung, getting as much action as I could. The novelty of having virtual sex with men soon wore off, and I slowly realized I actually preferred it to having SL sex with women, partly because I felt that I wasn't being unfaithful to my RL girlfriend if I was sleeping with men rather than women (crap, really!), but partly because I enjoyed the freedom of doing whatever (and whoever) I liked.
Around this time I started wearing neko ears and a tail, although I am definitely not submissive by nature (which is what neko guys are supposed to be, from what I can make out). I still hadn't been fucked: even the roughest manliest men I went with wanted me to do them, rather than the other way around, despite my ultra-boyish appearance. If anyone can explain this to me, please get in touch...
So here's my first long term manifestation: me as I appeared at Boots Beach during late 2006. My neck's a bit long and I look too young here, but it's pretty good... I wanted to look Eurasian and younger than I am, since that's what I look like in RL, but to be a cuter version of my RL self. I like to think of my av as Morpheus' "residual self-image" (The Matrix).I met Simon Lufbery and Gabe Semyorka at around this time. I had an instant rapport with Simon, who was an aficionado of the hardcore end of the SL gay sex scene, because he sings the sort of choral music in RL that I love, and because he's an educated, funny, sexy, charming, interesting man. I started to spend more and more time with him just because I liked his company so much, and eventually, I asked him to be my partner and be exclusive to me. Happily, he agreed. I became closer to Gabe, possibly the sweetest person I have ever met in my life, when his relationship with his partner broke down and he was having trouble with his SL landlord. I really felt sorry for the poor guy, and was happy to spend hours listening to his problems just because he was so damned nice. More about Simon and Gabe in another post...
So here's me in early 2007, with different hair, standing on the roof of my low-grade copy of a Fade Languish house in Henmaris (I still own this plot of First Land, and I intend to put a shop on it eventually). Since then, I've changed my hair again (see my profile pic) and added some more Xcite attachments (ears, lips, shoulders, animated neko ears and tail), but I still have the same skin and the same build.BTW, people often ask me about my eyes - they're just the basic noob Harajuku eyes set to a massive 85 points, manga-style. I have tried other eyes, but none of them have pupils large enough to cope with my "big-eyed" look, so I've stuck with these.
As for my clothes, I am a regular shopper at The Block (esp. Form), The Laundry, Gritty Kitty, and any place selling wiggy Asian-style clothes. I sometimes buy womens' clothes and adapt them, and I have a number of costumes for fun: an angel, with scripted wings, a black desert arab outfit with cape and headgear, a Persian prince outfit in white, and various period outfits for visiting sims like Caledon. I'm not this clothes-obsessed in RL, BTW - SL has released my inner fop ;-)
