Garden of Dreams

A couple of weeks ago, free-falling from 4000 meters, I saw a skybox in the air reading "Garden of Dreams." It was a giant enclosed box with their logo on the side, and after slowing my fall enough that I could briefly cam in, decided to take a look at their creations. Their "Dream Scenes" cost between 1600 $L and 2000 $L and are copyable and modifiable. They are sized anywhere from 40x40 to 55x55 (from what I could see), so you need a moderately-nice chunk of land to place them.

The Dream Scenes have a "bubble rezzer." You rez the bubble, sit in it and it sends you 1000 (this value can be changed) meters into the sky and then rezzes the scene and skybox around where the bubble once was. Many of the scenes feature a bar you can click on for drinks, many, many places to sit and sitting animations, a way to have one bubble store multiple scenes (I don't know if it can rez more than one at a time, as I only bought one). I thought the work that went behind these was worth it, so I dumped a bit of $L into their Lava Lounge, preparing to modify it into a dragon cave for my Seawolf Ancient dragon.

Buying it gives you two options. You can rez the bubble each time and have it rez the scene each time you use it, or you can simply rez a more permanent skybox and send the whole thing into the sky. I rezzed my permanent skybox for a look, and sure enough, it was very spacious and the work to get it "done right" shows. The roof turned out to be too small to suit my dragon well, and since the roof was made of many pieces together that weren't linked I didn't want to spend all that time getting it just right and make it work. I'm lazy.

Then I zoomed out and decided to play around. I unlinked all the pieces, then deleted the outside box. Turns out only half the space in the box is being used! One of the photos in this story shows where the "top" prim of the box is in relation to the "room" of the Dream Scene. Reminds me of a bag of potato chips - half the bag is just air. Still, the roof was high up and not many would NEED all that "air" space in the box. Even if they did, the Dream Scenes are copy and mod, and are easily built to anyone's specifications.

I'm going to give this a solid 4 Dragon Hoards out of 5. The effort shows, I think the price is right, and there is enough of a selection that if you don't fine the one you want, an existing one can likely be modded with a few hours work into the one you want to keep.

The Garden of Dreams can be found at the Garden Of Dreams sim.

Xymbers Slade

Toy's Art Gallery

A grand re-opening of Toys Art Gallery was held July 17 and 18 at its location on Grojnowski (33, 19, 1001). The show is titled “Mirages of Art”. I wasn’t able to attend the reception, but I went over early to check out the new gallery.

Toysoldier Thor is the multi-talented artist, builder, and designer who created the work. The gallery, which is said to have taken 5 weeks to design and build, is a unique, circular structure with a colorful walkway that winds around the 5 levels of gallery space. The top floor opens onto the Starfield Patio. Throughout the gallery, subdued lighting highlights the art work.

Unlike real-life galleries where touching is forbidden, Toy encourages residents to touch his art. He has created a notecard for each piece that explains his creative thought process, often provides the Second Life location of the photo, and shares other helpful or creative information. For example, his “Farm Falls Frost” was taken on the Alirium sim, located at Alirium (204,119, 22). He stated, “This is a place I strongly recommend my fellow SL'er must visit and explore. I wanted to express a peaceful abandonment of a home long since vacated and the view from a window of this home as the land around it overgrows. The arrival of winter is hinted with the frost on the few remaining panes of glass as well as no leaves left on the trees.”

In contrast to this pastoral scene, one of his other works is “Stormy Streets”, an urban street scape from the sim Sin City – Hard Rock Park. He added layers of additional color and elements to the Second Life photo, including some elements taken from real-life. The result is a vibrant scene, with symbolism and danger lurking everywhere in this city.

One of my favorites, shown in the second photo, is “Black Mamba Floral Delights”. Toy created this as a collage from photos he had taken of the many flowers found on the Black Mamba sim and which he enhanced with Photoshop.

The last photo shows another of my favorites, “Morning Meadow Hunt.” Toy found his inspiration for this work of art at the Gulf of Loon. On his notecard, Toy wrote, “I ended up bumping into this amazing Crane (at least that’s what I think he is) that was hiding in the cattails actually hunting for fish - and even caught one right in front of me. I had to capture his morning meadows hunt onto digital canvas! After several photos of different angles and a lot of photo manipulation to set the tone of the day, this is what I came up with.”

Toysoldier’s other works are equally varied and complex. Some of them, like “Magi’s Realm,” depict the mystical side of SL. Other of his works, such as “Barren Harvest” and “Floral Fox” include images from his real life that he brings into Second Life. Toys Art Gallery brings such a wonderful variety of colorful, unique art to SL that you will want to visit it often.

Grey Lupindo

Goddess Apparel

The fashions of the twenties are the basic foundation of many of today's dresses explained Athene Forder in the first floor of Goddess Apparel's Roaring 20’s Chicago location.

"If you look at the ball gowns of today, the slender style came to fruition in the twenties," stated Forder as she sits in a high-back chair, dressed in an elegant silk gown of her own creation, "It was a time of pushing limits. Men found that women would no longer be forced into the subservient mold of the past. Women had tasted the power of the vote and had learned that they could make changes in other areas of their lives as well."

Perhaps the more men pushed to control women, the more styles limits were pushed, was Forder's comment. Women's hair was cut shorter, as well as their skirt lengths. The best dressmakers of that time were women, but men held the pocketbooks prior to the twenties.

The most popular dress of the era was the flapper.

"Well, my guess would be because of it's flair," Forder declared. "It flaunted the staid, lady-like moray of expected female behavior. The style for a woman always included some type of hat. The twenties headdress kept that tradition, but once more pushed the limits, using pearls, beads, and feathers instead of, or in addition to a regular hat."

As for fabrics, Forder stated that cottons were still used, but mostly for the poor. Though the small detailed patterns of these cotton fabrics are a twenty's earmark. Satins tended to replace the heavy silks and beaded fabrics became popular. Though satins were originally from Asia, fabric manufacturers began duplicating the fabrics the best they could to fullfill the growing demands.

"An unusual fact about fashions during the twenties was the flat-chested look," she added. "Many of the women would actually bind themselves to fit the style."

At Goddess Apparel, Forder is making creative decisions. She has styled what she is proud to add her signature to since June of 2008. Her work began with a commission two years ago. Today, she has a portfolio of 79 different gowns. She also has men's jerseys, shirts and jeans. She works two hours a night and six over the weekend.

After a great deal of research about the flapper style, she created "Marika." Her goal was a dress that would allow the wearer to select the amount of fringe she wanted. By using actual photos of styles she loved, she'd then go to her drawing board and attempt to recreate them. She tries to keep a balance of soft pastels, bright jewel tones and dark, muted colors in her gowns. Marika comes in black, lilac, red wine, sapphire and teal.

"I was looking for a sexy style in the flapper tradition. I shortened the length for that bit of edge and then went wild with the fringe," she confessed. "It moves with you as you walk."

"Since then, I've been adding more and more period dresses to the gowns in the Goddess Apparel line," she said. "It wasn't until I looked through my line, with Chicago in mind, that I realized how many of them fit the style of the 1920's, especially the ball gowns."

"Zelda" is her second flapper dress. Instead of a feather, it has a little hat and veil and a more traditional cut to the top. The gown is made out of sequined material and comes in nine different metallic based colors," she informed me.

Forder selected a variety of colors that she could give a metallic sheen to. She named the dress after Zelda Fitzgerald, stating that Zelda was the icon of the day. It was her husband that wrote the Great Gatsby. I note that the gown she is wearing during our interview is named Lady Gatsby. It is available in a number of pastels with two exceptions: one is blood red and then she added black to a cream for a dramatic effect. She said that sales of this dress have been doing very well. Both have the shimmer of satin as you move and the skirt sits nicely without adjusting a sit script.

Forder created an alternative dress. She liked the lines so much and the jewels on the back straps, that she made a little cocktail dress from it, "Siren was actually designed as a challenge to myself," she confesses. "I wanted to try my hand at a split skirt... so I split more than the skirt. Siren is done first in silks, but it has a second set inside that is done in see-through chiffons...all held together with silver clasps."

Some of her gowns are adoptable to different time periods. She stated that most of the slender gowns may be considered a modern ball gown that fits nicely into the 1920's. Some of her older Victorian gowns have slender skirts to allow it to fit more eras. The outfits on the second floor of her Chicago location she considers to be more universal in look than the twenties, but would pass in Chicago.

We move on to the playful Leto, which is one of her early creations. She enjoyed adding the feathers. "I was trying to create a design that might catch the eye of the singer Katia Keres. The high cut skirt is surrounded by the feathered flexi. I tried to keep it feathered, so when I changed the colors, I kept as much of the white base of the feather there. This would keep them from all blending into one mess, preserving the outlines." With the more formal style skirt, she created a salsa version with the feathers which lead to the Leto Edge.

One gown demands my attention and I'm entranced with its detail. The Psyche is an elegant wedding gown. Without the train, the gown is perfect for bridesmaids. And, yes, she has veils available so you don't have to visit another store looking for one.

Forder is updating her main store to include multi-dress vendors that will have a note card of the included outfit parts. Some accessories are sold separately beside the appropriate dress.

She has conducted fashion shows in the past and hopes to do them again. Forder is also working on expanding her stores a little. Her main store, located in Newport Keyes, now has a dance area.

Netera Landar

Tiny Empires

About a month or so ago, I was pointed at the in-game game known as Tiny Empires. It's a simple turn-based hud game where you, in the role of lord and liege, need to gain land and gold (usually for a lord and liege that you're sworn to). The more gold and land you gain, the higher in rank you achieve.

You start as a Wanderer, and can advance all the way up to Queen or King of your own kingdom. As of this writing, I was a few acres of land shy of Prince; I've got a LONG way to go before I make King --- I have a gold amount in the hundreds of thousands; most of the Queens of the kingdom I am in are well into the millions and -make- millions per turn.

The first thing that I saw upon playing is that in order for you to get subjects of your own (or to swear yourself to a liege), you need to find a player who also has the hud attached --- all subjects and lieges in the game are other residents of Second Life. Then you stand near them and when a turn passes, the opportunity comes up to become their liege or subject (depending on rank). This can be good if you're social and hang out in a lot of social areas (where there might be many people playing at once, but if you're a social recluse like myself, you might have trouble finding a liege or subjects. Fortunately, there is a Tiny Empires Recruiters group you can join in order to look for other players.

The game has a trial period, after which you'll have to pay 800 $L to get the full version. For another 600 $L after that, you can upgrade to the Federation version, which offers a LOT more options (The Alchemist, a Festival every now and then, the ability to form Alliances with other players, and the Path to Royalty among them). You'd need to upgrade to the full version first before buying the Federation version, however.

During the game, the hud often will pose a "vote", or an event will happen that gives you gold (a "gold windfall"). So far there aren't any events that I've seen that drain gold (except if you bet wrong on someone during a festival). If your vote is in the majority, the Emperor will give you an amount of gold (and sometimes a kitten, I guess he's a cat person). Gold gained seems to be in proportion to the amount of land you hold; the more land you have, the richer you get.

Sometimes the Trader will show up (again, price of his item is based on land), and other times the Alchemist will show up ("The moon shimmers with a red glow") so if you somehow earned an item known as a Gold Bar, you can trade it to the Alchemist for a potion of some kind. Some potions grant gold windfalls, others protect you from "sabotage" (where another player damages your land and you lose up to about six or seven acres, and it can rebound against you!), and still other potions could get you more land the next time your Liege grants a land tract to all of their subjects under them.


After playing it for a month, I've found it's addicting enough for me to keep playing because I ended up in a group with a lot of nice people in it --- you can meet a lot of new friends this way. There are not a lot of events or variations of the vote, so you'll see a lot (and I mean a LOT) of the same stuff. It's also exponential --- the more you buy land, the more expensive the next acre of land is and the more expensive other things are as well. At the time I write this, an acre of land costs me 537,000 gold and the next one will be even more expensive. I think this game has the serious potential for improvement if the Emperor (Ultralite Soleil, the man behind it all) finds time to code in more features into the hud.

One thing made me think. What's to stop someone from making a lot of alts and using those as subjects and allies, padding someone's gold and land stash? I asked Ultralite Soleil this, and he basically said "Nothing's stopping people from doing that, but it ruins the spirit of the game." I like his honesty about that; rather than fight a losing battle against billions of alts, admit it's a problem and that if people want to do it that way, then fine. :)

I'm going to give the game Four Dragon Hoards out of five. It's fun enough to keep playing even if it is a bit on the repeating side. You can find it at the Kitster sim (149,42,53) and the $L cost is well worth it. There is also Tiny Empires 3000, which is essentially Tiny Empires in a space theme instead of medieval one.

Xymbers Slade

Monarch Motorcars - Drive One Home Today!

In an impressive showroom with glistening white and black tiles, an inviting red carpet and the latest luxury motorcars, you will find Yorba Naidoo. Dressed in his best business suit, he will introduce you to everything your heart desires in a quality automobile.

Packard was America's Rolls Royce, beginning in the 1900's. Naidoo fell in love with the line after attending a car show as a child. "It was all about quality and that's what I have tried to be inspired by ... or as much as 32 prims per car will allow me," he joked.

He joined Second Life two years ago, wandering around the many communities until he met Monica Weir of Weir's Way Commerce. She took him under her wing and taught him how to build. JonyBlade Codesmith, with The Guided Tour Company, does his scripts.

"Quality is in the eye of the beholder. I would say, once I had built these models in the early fall of this year, I felt like I had accomplished something I could be proud of and they started selling well," he explained, while adjusting his tie. He admits that patience isn't one of his strongest traits, but you wouldn't know it when you see the exceptional detail of his models.

Beginning with a picture of the actual automobile, he will start the building process and change the car as he goes along. The first model in his line was The Black Monarch Imperial Limousine V12. It's a sleek ride that's the cat's meow. "It took one month of hard work," stated Naidoo, "It's the flagship of the Monarch DVG Brand. "Some parts, like a real life car maker, only have to be made once. Otherwise I rebuild to suit."

Monarch Motorcars' main showroom, located on the sim Mobilis has been in business for two months. A second location has been established in Chicago. It's straight down the street from the jazz club. His line features a handsome variety of roadsters to limousines, for the working man to the collector. You'll be sitting pretty when you pull up to your favorite club. The line includes a Monarch Imperial Cabriolet Limousine, a Wedding Town Car, 500HS Roadster, Town and Country Station Wagon, even a taxi cab for the working man.

The motorcars are precisely designed, textured and scripted to enhance your driving experience here in Chicago. Getting married and looking for that special car to drive to your honeymoon? Then check out the luxurious Monarch Imperial with a rich white and beige interior, a texture change option "Just Married" sign and the Wedding March as an option. Seats three, all four doors open and the wheels spin when you drive.

The Monarch Snow Tracker and Police Cruiser are his newer models. One look at the fine craftsmanship of the luxury or practical working car and you'll know you made the right choice in selecting a Monarch.

"Building cars is my passion and seeing other people enjoy them is a huge thrill," he said with smile.

By Netera Landar

Ready to Mezmerize! A Preview of SL8B

The place is massive!! The magic is there . The builds are magnificent. The sims are named appropriately: Stupendous, Mesmerize, Stunning, Pizzazz to name a few. Each one is filled with builds that you will absolutely love. I spent some time talking to some of the builders about their creations.

I met Master Kaos and Cherub Spectre, builders of Octoverville's display. Miss Cherub told me, “We are sponsoring the SL8B MegaHunt. Octoberville was the creators of the 1st scavenger hunt in SL, so this build is based around that and includes the SL8B MegaHunt. This sign behind me portrays how anyone can 'make it' in Second Life, as we were only a couple weeks old when we built our first Octoberville and it was featured in the Second Opinion, the LL Newsletter, which you can see the archived version on that prim back there. Torley Linden was very nice to dig that up for me.” Be sure to stop over there and visit the exhibit in Magnificent and look in all the sims for hunt items

I ran into a tiny, Morton Wheels, standing in front of his motor shop in the Impressive sim. Maymay Matova, another of the builders said this is “A place where you get an impression of biker life in Second Life. Sit beside our campfire and don´t forget to grab our free SL8B biker boots and cap! Check our landmarks to biker sims, grab your bike, ride on the streets and feel like easy rider. Isn´t this like magic? ” Morton morphed from a tiny to his biker self. You can find their pictures on the poster in the front of the exhibit in case they are not around when you visit. There will be lots of entertainment listed in the events both sl8b arranged or on the parcels.

Next I met Dagoth Graves in front of his Entertainment place. “ I will be having a few Draco live performers here doing small shows throughout the SL8 event, Bruce Scrabblebat, Jody Mubble (Y-Factor), StevenJaimz Hunniton, CelticMaidenWarrior Lancaster and a few others,” he told me. Look for his place in Impresssive.

There are so many wonderful places and freebies. I took a lovely pod tour which informed me about some of the exhibitors and what was going on in that area. Look for it. It will open on Monday as you know and I warn you to come low prim and as unscripted as you can. Have a wonderful time! I will be reporting on more goings on as the week progresses. Look for me in the sims. I will be a greeter and wearing a snail avatar and I will look for you too!

Gemma Cleanslate

The Bergons: Second Life's Newest Pet Dragon

While out visiting Caledon the other day, one of the residents got into a huuuuuuuuuuuge dragon, larger than even the Seawolves I've written about before (not much bigger, but it WAS bigger). It looked like something out of the Isle of Wyrms (same visual feel at first glance, anyway), and after engaging the avatar's owner in some dialogue and doing an object profile to see who made it, headed to the EQuality and Teagan sims to have myself a look.

What I found were the Bregons, which are small breedables of the same kind of breedable thing that everyone seems to be into these days. I knew there were horses and rabbits out by various makers, it was only logical that the fire-spewing beasts of lore were not far behind. I've never understood the thrill of having breedables, as they're usually physical objects that aren't (in my opinion) animated very well and lag down the sim that they're on. Then again, I fell for the My Little Pony craze earlier, so it's pot calling kettle black. :)

The Bregons are listed as being able to grow from hatchling to breedable. All you need to start is an egg and some "food", both purchasable from the sim the Bregons are sold. After clicking on the egg, it hatches after a given amount of time (I have not experimented with it) into a female or male with a 50/50 chance of either. As long as the "food" is close by, the dragon will continue to grow from hatchling, to baby, to youth, to adult, to breedable. As the Bregons I saw roaming the sim were all the static, moving-in-spurts-poorly-animated variety (Four-legged non-avatars are not SL's specialty, it's the same reason I have yet to see centaurs done well) and I remembered from my early days in SL how much I didn't like what breedable dragons there were at the time, I was not interested in them too much.

The notecard I got for the Bregons says that it takes 12 hours after a dragon hatches (with "food nearby) to become a Baby. Babies come in 135 different random skins, 115 different eye textures, 34 spike textures (with 4 main different shapes), and 60 different wing textures. All generated randomly, therefore the chance to get the same one is very low. I went down the notecard and it looks like there are various "types" of Bregons: A, B, H, and J (with sub-types A+, B+,H+, J+, A++,B++,J++, H++, and 6 queens). What followed was a lengthy list of what happens when you cross one breed with another, which made me think of some kind of genetics chart listing -all- possibilities. Well-thought out, at any rate.

After the baby hatches, it takes 5 days to turn a baby dragon to a youth. Then another 10 days after that, from youth to adult. After that, -75- days to go from Adult to Rideable and Eternal (20% chance; Eternals don't die). The food bowls only last fifteen days, meaning you need to buy more in order to make sure the dragon grows to full size. They stop growing if they run out of food (I don't know if they can die, but I did not test them out on my own as I am not going to spend all that time waiting for them to grow).

With timers like that, I am wondering why one would go through all the patience required to get their very own breedable dragon, when there are already many breedable avatars out there (both the Seawolves and Spider Productions dragon avatars have rezzable saddles, for example). I asked the sim owner (ED Exodus), and he said "The whole point of doing them was for fun really, but I was shocked how huge the breedable market is in SL and how fast it grows. I agree with you that getting an av dragon that you can ride will be much cheaper, but I can say 90% of the people buying Bregons are not looking at them as a rideable dragon... more than just a way to do business and money."

The Bregons also have a "breeder" (which I think is sold separately, as I didn't stick around long enough to check), which naturally requires a male and a female Bregon to be close to each other in-world in order to "breed" and produce a new egg. The Bregons are labeled to be transfer, from eggs to full grown rideables, so that is definitely an unusual way to start up a business breeding different eggs and trying to catch them all, so to speak.

While camming around the sim I came across a Staff of Jewels. Apparently if you have the staff (500L) rezzed, the dragons generate points toward free Bregons products and merchandise. I could see an idea like that being very beneficial to several other businesses. I also came across a series of one-time-use jewels (100L per Jewel) that enable you to change the look and appearance of all Bregons in its radius in various ways (different jewels for wings, spikes, etc). Naturally, a hud of some kind would be easier, but sims ain't going to support themselves on their own! ;)

I'm going to give this a guarded Four Dragon Hoards out of five. This guy obviously put in a LOT of work to make these two sims work into a bustling business (he did say he was surprised by the way the breedables took off in SL). He is obviously Doing Something Right. Breedables in general are not my thing, but if you're into the breedables, then visiting the EQuality and Teagan sims, where these things are sold, might be something to check out.

Xymbers Slade