Designing at last!

UPDATING ... PLEASE BE PATIENT :)





















I think I always knew I would begin designing sooner or later, but at first building anything in SL intimidated me. However I was hooked on designing textures, and inevitably I wanted to have my textures on something I had designed. So, slowly, very very slowly, I began to buy templates and place my textures on them. If you are just beginning to design, don’t be afraid to buy some of the cheaper templates, they will teach you a great deal. Later, as you become more comfortable with layers and the pen tool, they can be altered. And when you develop even more confidence, then you can begin to design your own from scratch.

Coming to grips with alpha layers is essential if you want delicacy and drama. If it isn’t obvious :) I LOVE lace. Alpha lace layers can add delicacy to a flamboyant outfit, and softness to an already delicate design.

Being able to draw my own glitch pants and system skirts has made a significant difference to my designing. Now I can place my textures where I want them to be, instead of having them stretched out of shape … YAY!!!!!!!

However I didn’t start that way. I am indebted to those designers who have made available design templates of excellence with tutorials included, along with generous bloggers (Natalie Zelmanov springs to mind) :), who have made my journey much easier. Oh! and how could I forget Torley. Who doesn’t know Torley? Natalie and Torley have to be two of the most generous bloggers and educators of SL.

Getting back to templates - Really well made templates are not ‘cheap’, but they are worth it if you are serious about designing in SL. If you are already a graphic artist/expert, then you can probably start drawing your own design templates from the word ‘go’. The rest of us though, need a starting point.

I had so many questions when I began. What was it about design-A that was so much more exciting than design-B? How was it that skirt moved more fluidly than others? What exactly constituted a ‘panel’ in a skirt anyway? Now, I’m even playing with sculpties (gulp!). And what a challenge they are. But… nothing ventured … And btw, take note of ‘attachment points’ when you are putting on that favourite item in your inventory. I’ve had some hilarious disasters when attaching something to a point that seemed perfectly sensible to me, only to find that in SL it just didn’t work that way :). (Of course this is for those just beginning. Old hands will be laughing right about now.)

I’m also indebted to the designers whose clothing I have purchased. Looking at their amazing creativity and how they have overcome the limits of SL designing has taught me a great deal.In that respect SL is no different to RL. If you want to learn how to do something well, you have to put in the time, and I’ve still got a long way to go.

For now my designs are not for sale. I’m still learning. But that’s for now. I want to see if I can develop my skills sufficiently to be able to release new items regularly, and produce items of quality, and I’m not there yet. But I do have some original outfits to wear and that’s got to be worth something.

I toyed with the idea of calling my designs TexTal (ie Textures and Talia) but it just doesn't have the pizazz I would like. Care to suggest something?

PS: I think the hardest thing to deal with when building prim skirts is floppy upside down prims :)) esp if it's 2am and you just don't want to give up till you get it right. Oh well... call me OCD but I hate leaving things half finished.

Cya and happy shopping.