Today, out of sheer desperation to visit somewhere that wasn’t snow and reindeer, I visited Backdrop City, an area comprised of backdrops, free to use, with a 4 hour return on rezzed objects…
… there are a lot of backdrops here. As someone who owns quite a large collection of them, myself, I was surprised I hadn’t seen any of them before! And none of the ones I have are here. Not sure what that means, but it’s interesting… I guess it shows there are a lot of them out there…
… there’s a good variety of interior and exterior backdrops…
… and with the ability to rez props, I’m sure anyone could make some pretty cool images here, without having to own land to rez backdrops on…
… there were several other avi’s using the amenities while I was here…
… although one of them clearly had no comprehension of the concept that when another avi is standing in front of a backdrop, they probably would prefer you not to wander around between them and the backdrop… but, hey, we’ve all met that avi, haven’t we…
… considering I came here out of desperation, and with almost no expectation, I was pleasantly surprised. I think it’s lovely that people create these type of free, public facilities…
… this was, by far, the biggest backdrop… wrapped around the sim.
For my first exploration in 2021, I visited Tempura Island. Near the landing area is a gorgeous, autumnal forest that filled my heart with the joy of being alive, and able to experience this kind of beauty…
… this is a very beautiful place, a particularly lush, baroque type of beauty…
… there is a palace that manages to be both classical, and slightly brutalist, with vaguely nouveau embellishment…
… it has gorgeous, intimate spaces, lavishly decorated in nouveau/deco style…
… and stunning, huge spaces, in a kind of byzantine/baroque style…
… it’s all very beautiful…
… filled with light that embellishes all the golden tones…
I visited the Lost Unicorn Gallery, this morning. As it was March when I last visited, all the work was new. As always, the standard of work here was extremely high…
… I particularly loved this one, would even have bought it, had it been for sale…
… all the work here is fantasy art, but really good work, not the usual, cliched ‘fantasy’ art you usually see in SL…
… there’s lots of wonderful imagery here…
… not all soft-edged fantasy, either… this one has, for me, a bit of a ‘The Dark is Rising’ feel…
… and this one makes me think of Sir Frederick Leighton’s absolutely gorgeous ‘Flaming June’…
… I don’t think I’ve ever visited an SL gallery that has so much work that I like…
… it’s just as well none of it is for sale, or I’d blow far too many Lindens here!
… it’s a wonderful utilisation of a small space to create an interactive adventure in…
… I stopped for some tea with the anti-social hatter…
… before making my way to this portal…
… to be zapped to a maze. The maze is quite good, if you don’t cheat by camming, you can actually get lost in it, but there’s lot’s to see, so it’s all good fun. You have to read the note on the floor, when you first arrive, and pay attention to all the notes, which read out in local chat. I don’t normally do these formal ‘quest’ adventures, and just try to figure my own way through them, but I got totally lost in the ‘quest’, later, because I wasn’t paying attention to the hints…
… you find the ‘drink me’ in the centre of the maze…
… which takes you here…
… where you have to find the Mad Hatter’s bedroom by following the clues. I needed a rest, because it actually wasn’t easy for me to find the clues. The ‘drink me’ in here is a red herring, it doesn’t do anything…
… you find the Mad Hatter’s dressing room, then have to find his bedroom…
… there are hidden passages…
… I finally found his bedroom, then you have to figure out how to get out…
… when you do, you are TP’d back to the landing point. I enjoyed this adventure, something I don’t normally do. Jayden Mercury has done a lovely job, here (:
This morning, I got up, and stumbled sleepily downstairs, to wish my animal family a lovely xmas day. My little, manic kitty-in-a-balloon, my lazy pink bunnies, and my always somnolent sphinx cat. We had all agreed not to give gifts, so there were none to open, just the warm glow of our love for each other. Later I would wish the bunnies in my yard the same…
… I put on something more practical, and went to spend a happy few hours changing the exhibit in my gallery…
… the current exhibit is called ‘Time and Stone’…
… consisting of some of the images I took on my recent visit to ‘Endless 58-58N‘…
… I have always been fascinated by standing stones, they call to my soul, somehow…
… I installed some in the gallery, because they are so beautiful…
… I really enjoyed my xmas morning, and I hope you enjoyed yours, too (:
… I’m normally not that attracted to abstract sculpture…
… but I think this is stunning. It makes me think of the work of the incredible artist Moebius (Jean Giraud). I find this work gives off an aura of peace and tranquility, but also, hope.
My interest in Mopire City has become reinvigorated. I realised that all this time, because the place is so huge, my attention has been on the macro aspects of the place, all the wonderful external elements… I haven’t really looked inside, at the micro details… there is a lot to see, there. I went back and started looking more closely, in the area I discovered, the other day. I quickly found a parking building I had never been into, and, on the third floor, I found something interesting. All the vehicles you see in the city are prop vehicles, bland looking, generic urban vehicles, probably not even drivable, but, parked in this building, I found four vastly different beasts; an SUV, a muscle car, and two lovely little, vintage sports cars, all clearly drivable. These totally reinforce my theory about Mopire City being someones private playground. You can rez a vehicle in the city, as long as you get straight into it, and stay in it, but if you get out of it for a few minutes, it is returned to your inventory… that is clearly not what happens for the owners of these vehicles. A new theory began to formulate in my mind…
… I decided to go and have a look in the underground tunnels, a place I don’t actually like going. I remembered I’d seen an entrance, just around the corner from the parking building, in the area I only explored for the first time, the other day. My new theory was reinforced by the nearness of the parking building to the tunnel entrance… now I didn’t so much feel I was in the ‘Twilight Zone’, as much as in ‘Grand Theft Auto’…
… in the tunnels I quickly found various coloured spheres containing mysterious scripts, and some little blue pyramids, with no scripts, that were ‘transfer only’. I suspect that the spheres are lap-counters, or something of that nature, and the pyramids are, perhaps, trophies to be collected? I think these tunnels are a racetrack for the little boys club who must hang out here, in their own private world of cars and guns and a huge, beautiful, empty city. I could be wrong, of course, but the evidence is compelling. These tunnels are a big network, and I don’t actually enjoy being in them, they feel like you could actually get lost, down here…
… so I found the nearest way out. It was nice to be back in the fresh air…
… almost beneath R2. I straight away noticed a very colourful floor on the building beside the overpass, it jumped out because nothing in Mopire City is that colourful. I had to go and see. I jumped off the overpass, made my way to the building, and climbed five floors up, (Mopire City is one of those places where you actually have to physically make your way… if you try to ‘double-click TP’ somewhere, you go straight back to the ‘landing area’) and went inside…
… it was, by far, the most personal/unique interior I have so far seen in Mopire City (this part of the city is actually called ‘R2 Fashion’)…
… I climbed the rest of the way to the roof…
… for the view. Then I jumped off, but only made it 3 floors down, to this area, which still had a pretty nice view…
… the quickest way down, of course…
… was to jump, again…
… I hit the ground in a crouch, sprung up, and set off in search of more Mopire fun.
Continuing my journey through my saved landmarks, I visited ‘The Galleries‘, today…
… back when I collected SL art, The Galleries was always one of my must-visit destinations…
… the place is huge, and it has always had the broadest collection of styles of any gallery I ever visited in SL…
… all of it for sale…
… the collection is so big, you can literally get lost in here…
… there are useful teleport devices scattered through the space, which help to get you around when you get confused…
… it’s so long since I was here, last, that I’m not even sure if the spaces are the same… I suspect they have been changed, somehow, because they feel differently set out, but the huge collection is as excellent as it ever was…
… I’d go as far as to say there is something for everyone, here. There is almost as much work I don’t like, because I have quite particular tastes, as there is work I really like…
… so many styles…
… you can spend a lot of time, here. In fact, I’d say it’s a two or three visit place, really…
… if you want to spend time looking, and you will…
I visited Last Sunset, today. It’s a tiny little island ‘intended for photographers’. It looks promising when you land…
… there’s some static big cats…
… a few cute simians running around doing forward rolls and stuff…
… a bridge that only has a few angles that don’t include buildings…
… and a few places where you can make it look like you are in the wilderness, as long as you keep the buildings out of shot. If you wander too far in search of something else (you can’t fly, so you can’t even hover up to get an idea of your surroundings) you get threatened with eviction in 5 seconds, which I found simply too irritating in a place that is supposed to be a photography sim. Anyway, it closes in a couple of weeks, so if you want to see those cute chimps, that’s how long you’ve got.
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