Inspiration

As some may know, my store belongs to the "Sixty Linden Weekends" sales group. It is not obligated for us to submit news every week, but truth being said, it's good practice trying to do so, because it keeps you on your feet, and chances you'll neglect your store, lower. However, coming up with new things every week, at times, is challenging. I wish that books and scripts hadn't such a long creation process: there's a lot of beta testing, reviewing, documenting and proof reading involved. I just can't come up with one of them new every week, as a rule (and some of my scripts are in "update for improvements" stage, which adds to my slow process.)

When it comes to creating furniture, I don't hide where my "sources of inspiration" come from. I like walking, and so I walk by many stores. I see things I like, and when I'm back home, if it coincides that I remember about them and Blender is open, I start sketching something like what I've seen. In the end, I most likely make something that has nothing to do with the piece I saw in RL. Other times, there are more resemblances. Other times, it's just something that came in my mind by no apparent reason, perhaps I saw it long ago and I don't remember, or who knows. Or something I happen to have at home. But the source of inspiration is there: the real world, constantly around.

Am I more or less original because of this? More or less exclusive? Honestly, I don't care. I care in modeling my own pieces, in being aware of any potential copyright/license issue, and in trying to make the final result, my own thing.

For example, I will not model a "Hello Kitty" to then sell it. My full permission kits include only textures I've made from scratch and my own photographs: I know they aren't great textures, but I am sure that I can distribute them with all the guarantees for people that come to my store. (I keep all the originals and all the stages of the creation process, which are also documented. In case of need, I can prove that my work is mine.) Sorry: I digress.

Nowadays, I want to make a chaise lounge, Victorian style: we have one at home with some modeling poses, but I want to do my own, and my own set of poses. Since I don't have any Victorian style furniture store at home, what do I do? I look for images in Google, to have a reference.

I know that my final model isn't going to be an "oh my god, this is a complete revolution within the Victorian style, totally new in its genre!" Most likely, people will look at it, and will be able to tell "ah yes, a Victorian chaise lounge." The part I can assure is, all the vertexes will be placed by me in Blender, using my current set of skills.

Will be my chaise more original than others? I highly doubt so.

I bring this up because at times, it seems that if you don't design something that doesn't exist yet in the real world or any virtual world, you're "copying from the first designer that made this completely original thing, never existing before."

I'm very concerned about stolen content, but I dislike when situations/conversations border the stupid line. (And for the record, I'm no fan of witch hunts nor of "vigilante" groups. They end up being used for drama and harassing legitimate creators. We have problems enough with stolen content as to rip our eyes off among ourselves. No, thanks.)

I happened to heard recently such a conversation. It was between someone that likes Anthonys Republic's work, and Anthonys himself. This person was very enthusiastic talking about how they loved his work, and truth being said, I know his work too, and I've always liked it. Bummer that some pieces required a lot of prims (now with mesh, things are a lot better in that respect), but it's good quality and detail. Some of my scripts have samples using his sculpts, and when people ask me about where to get them, I always send them to his store (normally, to the exact Marketplace page with that item).

Now, one thing is to acknowledge that his work is good (it is), and a different one, to say that his designs are "his" as in "never, ever, seen before, no inspiration taken from any existent source". That's what this person said, and what itched me. This person told him that it was a pity that so many other full perm creators weren't original and had copied "his designs".

I happen to know several of those designs: for instance, Katy Dirkle and McChris Flannagan have their own Victorian style chaise lounge. Have they copied them from Anthonys? Honestly, I don't think so. They're clearly their own models, and they're clearly inspired in the Victorian style... same as Anthonys' work.

Because, really, one doesn't expect that I'm buying that this real life piece, and this design from Anthonys, don't look alike at all, right?

I haven't had to spend much time to find that link: just type "victorian chaise lounge" in Google images.

I am not the one having an issue in Anthonys, or Katy, or any other creator, having their inspiration sources. They abide by the rules. I have an issue in people walking to the extreme path of assuming that there was ever only one Victorian style, and those were Anthonys' models. It shows illiteracy, being a fan-boy, or both, and it only helps to spreading rumors that start by "he copied... she copied...", and those, we know, they never end well.

So here I am, thinking about making my own chaise, and wondering if I'd be pointed as having copied some other SL creator's completely original Victorian designs :-|

My memories, my life

Like many other girls, I used to write a diary since I'm a teenager. Why did I do it? I can't tell exactly. Those weren't happy memories, why would I want to keep them? Perhaps I realized that without memories, others could lie to me about the past. Perhaps I wanted to understand myself in those confusing years, by trying to put my thoughts into words. Perhaps I just wanted to trust someone to talk about life and a world that started to show scary, and all I found were those empty pages.

Whichever the reason was, isn't relevant. I have several diaries plenty of scattered memories, and they are important to me. I don't want to dwell in the past, but I want to understand why things happen, and so I've reviewed them at times. I've stopped feeling the anger, but I've never wanted to forget. Reviewing my life as I grow has helped me understanding where my mistakes were, what I should avoid, and why I behave at times in a very nervous and unreasonable way. It has also helped me understand why others behaved the way they did, and forgive them, when that was the right thing to do.

Time goes by, and paper sheets are substituted by Internet. Not completely: I still write down on paper. As I tell stories, or think loud voice (loud typing?), I feel the same need of keeping all those memories, my memories, in a place where it's easy for me to review them. One can say that it's a compulsion of mine, and I don't care. Or that I'm a control freak. I don't care either. They are my memories, they belong to me. I need to be able always to review my behaviour, my principles. I need to be able to see where's danger. It doesn't matter why.

Blogs are easy for that purpose: everything is linked, and you can always add an archives section. But that doesn't happen in other places. Twitter (which I don't use), Facebook (same) or... The SL feeds. Many of them have a clumsy navigation system: all you can do is "load more". Once you've written enough, this can take ages, if it loads at all. Your past gets, thus, buried.

I've been thinking for a while about doing a manual task of archiving my sillyness in the feeds. Perhaps it's stupid, but it is my sillyness, and I want to be able to review it. The SL feeds started to contain a part of the memories of my life, so the "control freak", if you want to say, also wanted to keep them handy.

This weekend I was updating the store web as well as the marketplace listing. It has driven me mad to wipe all the items to retire, update the corresponding store web entries, update with items I hadn't uploaded yet, redone pages, documentation, rearranged links, reviewed licenses... and in the middle of all that madness, I've seen my "perfect chance". The SL feed was collaborating this morning, and I've been able to load up to my first entry. From there, I've compiled the archive of entries and pictures that, one way or another, are relevant to me. Since the last year I didn't use the feed much, I've made an unique entry for it, and then the rest, I'm archiving them by the month.

They will be accessible from this page, which now is also at the top of the blog: welcome to my feed, welcome to a part of my life. (But don't believe everything you read! At times I like to bait!)

PS: Don't expect anyway much seriousness in my feed. At times I make fun of what I consider stupid. Also, often I share links of things that make me smile or laugh. And I don't want to lose those either :-)

My first day without you

A couple of weeks ago, I was reviewing notecards while sitting at home, in a night WL, and a little story started to shape in my mind. I like how SL makes it easy to create short stories. I wish I had more time for it. Anyway, and although I am aware, it's not a great one, I retouched a bit the snapshots I was taking, and added the text in them.

So here it is, the graphic story, "My first day without you".

Click here for the story, published in The Night Corner