Skepticism might keep you sane,
but it won’t necessarily keep you alive.
[- Mima Sawsaan, Carnival Row -]
When I was at the Engine Room event today to find my next look for a blog post, I came across that amazing outfit from CHANDRA. When I saw that, I immediately remembered that cool head, which BeSpoke released at the Warehouse Sale this round.
I have no clue why, but I instantly had a “Carnival Row Feeling” – you remember that show on Amazon Prime with Cara Delevingne and Orlando Bloom? When I found a sim called “Tirna-Nog” in Second Life, I just had to go that path for my picture today!
Lately you hear more and more about AI (Artificial Intelligence) used for artwork. I have to admit, I am not yet fully sold about that, if people create pictures only with AI and kinda just put words to get a full picture. Maybe I am too old to be convinced completely, or I do have a weird mind. Iam 46 years old – I guess it was 46 *laughs* – I learned to draw with pencils and colored pencils as a kid and it took me years to learn how to draw myself on a graphic tablet/monitor (… and I am still learning that). Maybe that is the reason why I can not yet allow myself andl my brain to think about art, if everything is just generated by words and no one ever touched it with any kind of pen, pencil, graphic pens or what ever you can hold in your hand to create something. Ok to be fair, a photographer is slightly different, but in the end he caught a situation with his own eye and camera in his hands as well *snickers* I hope you get what I mean 😉
What I found interesting after I forced myself to look more into AI, is that you do not have to create a complete ready made art piece with it, but you can enhance your work with it. That caught my interest. I am always looking for new tips, tricks and twists I can learn and use for my Second Life pictures.
Lately I was kinda depressed with taking pictures in SL. It felt all the same even if I tried to learn new techniques for Photoshop to enhance my pictures as even Second Life has it’s limits – especially with lights and shadows, movement or even sometimes with posing ot what you can get to set up a scenery.
You can add things you miss, you can correct minor issues, you even can enlarge a scenery if you took the wrong size to make the perfect picture… really interesting and as well exciting. If you miss a backdrop or a background you can kinda create parts of that. I tried to make a whole backdrop first as well but the way it does look like, I decided to not do that yet, as it was too far always from the look of a real Second Life environment and I do enjoy that still a lot. So I tried just to fool around with 2 birds – to be precise 2 crows – I wanted to add to my picture. It did take me quite a while, since I just started to play with it. I had to generate one crow like 50 times until I figured out what I had to put in to have it sit, no spread wings and facing the right direction. After a while I realized, that it does even pick up the lights I had put inworld already and since I wanted to change that a little too, I had to start over again after I worked all my lightning and shadows. I did not yet know how to safe the generated birds yet, so I started over new on those again. Then I wanted to darken the background a little bit and… DANG… the generated birds again looked wrong as they pick up parts of the background as well to fit in properly. Ok… deleting the birds again and get everything else right first *chuckles*.
It was the start of a learning process I really want to look into more, even if I do not want to fully work with AI and my avatar only – Second Life is way to pretty for that and so many amazing creators, designers and sim builders did (and do) put a hell lot of work into creating amazing places for us to be there and to create pictures.
Clothing
Outfit: +CHANDRA+ – “Lucca Outfit” (Reborn) – NEW @ Engine Room // March 2024
Accessories
Nails: V/. VoluptasVirtualis – “[Esbaa]” (Maitreya, Bento) – NEW @ Engine Room // March 2024
Head, Body & Tattoo
Head: BeSpoke – “Nature Spirit” – NEW @ The Warehouse Sale // March 2024
Eyes: REPULSE – “Post Mortem Eyes (Blind)” (BoM)
Body: eBODY – “REBORN v1.69.6”
Poses, Props & Tools
Pose (incl. Lantern & Keys): [piXit] – “Clementine Posepack + Props” – NEW @ Engine Room // March 2024