The title is chronologically correct, after Fideaux Boucher’s ‘Statement Sign’ in order object (Something unexpected sign) by Rezago Kokorin, ..or what to expect by Pavig Lok, It’s Puzzling by Dekka Raymaker. Side note, ‘It’s Puzzling’ as a sound script, just click.

Left by Dekka Raymaker on August 29th, 2008

The big “What do you thing you will learn???” sign came first. I saw it and couldn’t resist adding an answer (something unexpected), then Pavig Lok took it to another level with a painted on the ground comment. Nicely detailed, there are shoe prints on the ground. Yesterday I saw that the blank sign had been added. Its been fun to come back and see the additions.

Left by Rezago Kokorin on August 29th, 2008

Rezagos comment prompted mine. My inner typographer was mortified over being challenged to discourse by a bloody big sign IN COMIC SANS! the indignity!!!! And in red! This offense to all things decent could not go unchallenged.

Rezago’s “something unexpected was the perfect response… but not angry or red enough.

The only appropriate reaction as an emo artist offended by such typographical slipshoddery was of course to stomp off and find my red paint (the color of revolution as my uncle says) and scrawl my curmudgeonly response in an impulsively slipshod manner. To capture the moment of indignance in it’s purest form… and undoubtedly one I would come to regret when the time came to spend a day on my hands and knees with a heat gun, scraper, gas mask, and migraine inducing industrial solvents…. not to mention those nice pants I’d already destroyed in the process. Oh well.

The reality of capturing a spontaneous moment in SL can be rather different. IRL you can bang out an intervention like this as quickly as an email, without thinking. Like an email also, as soon as you’ve hit the send button you may come to regret it. To create this spontaneity in SL however requires one to put on hold the rational objective process and capture the vision of the spontaneous act in the minds eye… then it’s off to google to find reference for boot prints and paint tins, color tweaking, scrawling, airbrushing, stenciling… not to mention some arduous prim tweaking.

In short, it’s a fiddly and exacting process trying to reproduce the illusion of a natural happening. It can take a while to make something look like it happened in a minute. At least untill the language of naturalism within the media is understood.

In reality I’m not really as offended by Fideraux Bouchers sign as I’d like to pretend. They’e a better builder than they’re letting on - as evidenced by the way the sign is textured over multiple prims - they can obviously align textures, so while it looks newbie, it isn’t.

I think we’ve all had fun…. Dekka’s particularly is charmingly obscure and cheeky. I think as a whole it’s nice example of playful intervention on the sim.

Left by Pavig Lok on August 29th, 2008

… oh! Just listened to the podcast and Jay asked how the text in my piece was done so I thought I’d give a free plug.

http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html

Artrage is a brilliant natural media program which works well with graphics tablet. There’s a free version, but the full program is only $25 bucks US and well worth it. There are other natural media programs out there, which work kinda like real materials, but Artrage is the most cut down to business and “non computery” of them. It feels just like working with paints and pens.

I highly recommend it for artists. It’s stripped back and intuitive approach lets you concentrate on just working on your image. It gets out of your way by presenting the simple tools you need, while other programs clutter your options with endless possibilities. Sometimes it frustrates with it’s simplicity, but more often you’re too busy painting and drawing with it to notice.

Anyways, it’s a free download for windows and mac, so you can’t go wrong. Enjoy

Left by Pavig Lok on August 31st, 2008