Showing posts with label Luskwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luskwood. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The RFL Luskwood Bennefit Concert and RFL Cross-Country Race

The Clothing Fair was not the only event for Relay for Life on Saturday, March 20th. There were others, among them a concert and a race. That afternoon, there was a benefit concert in Luskwood, and there was a cross-sim snail race.

At 12 Noon SL time, Luskwood held a concert for charity, to take in donations for the Relay. The event was held at the stage near the Great Tree.

From noon to 2:00 PM, come join us to listen to the awesome musical stylings of Frogg Marlowe and Jaycatt Nico for an hour, followed by the excellent voice of Alessandra Eberlain and her wide variety of songs for another hour. And, of course, don't forget to donate!

For the first hour, Jaycatt & Frogg performed for the audience. Jaycatt played the piano, while Frogg sang and strummed his guitar. At 1 PM, Alessandra took to the stage, her voice filling the airwaves. Lomgren Smalls and Daaneth Kivioq, whom helped organize the event were there, as was one of the Luskwood founders, Michi Lumnin.

“Thank you Daaneth, Lomgren, for putting this all together. ... My Grandfather died of lung cancer.” “Lom did all the work.” “Please help us fight against Evil! Please donate to the Kiosk in front of the stage! CANCER CAN BE BEATEN!!!”

At 2 PM SL time was the start of the Relay for Life Giant Racing Snail Cross-Country Race. The giant snail races are held regularly in Second Life every week by RacerX Gullwing. Usually, the snails are decorated to whatever the rider wants, and are held on a course. This time, the shells had to have large RFL signs on the sides, and the race would be held though a long stretch of road on the mainland, through over forty sims.

Thirty-six racers took part in the race. It took only a few minutes for lag to break up the line of snails, and the track went through towns, forrest, went over bridges, looked at by more then a few curious onlookers, went by places such as the Berlin’s Museum of Art, and more. After about forty minutes, Tindallia Soothsayer was the first to reach the end of the course, “thanks to lag and the last turn.” She had somehow avoided a bout of lag that slowed everyone else, and beat the next snail by over a minute. Following the race, a replay was shown in another sim for the racers and others.

The next RFL snail race will take part through sixty sims.

Bixyl Shuftan

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Interview with Lomgrem Smalls

If you’ve ever been at Luskwood (or the Cutlass Club), you may have noticed a resident so small, it’s hard to find him without looking for his nametag. This would be Lomgren Smalls. Having long been known for his six-inch high avie, and to a lesser extend occasional custom work on micro (and mega) avatars, he has made a little real-life news recently. I recently had a chance to talk with him.

Bixyl Shuftan: Where did you first hear about Second Life?

Lomgren Smalls: Well, I had heard about it several years ago, back when I hadn't even thought of joining. Probably a good three, four years, maybe more than that. I think it was probably during 2006, because that was my first year being at the El Goonish Shive forums at Keenspot (El Goonish Shive is an online comic).

Bixyl Shuftan: So what got you to take a look?

Lomgren Smalls: Well, I joined the Trillian Astra alpha back in early Jan 2007, or maybe Dec 2006. Trillian Astra is ... an IM client aggregator of sorts. It allows you to connect to multiple IM Networks. AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, etc. One of the first people to add me as a friend on the Astra network was a furry on here already, and finally convinced me to go ahead and try Second Life.

Thus, my born date is late January 2007 ... but when I tried it ... it was so laggy that my avatar never loaded. So I gave up on it again. I finally decided to try again on March 3rd, 2007. Made it in, things loaded, and from there, met new friends, etc, and haven't left.

Bixyl Shuftan: Sounds like things went well once you started.

Lomgren Smalls: *chuckles* As well as can be expected with SL.

Bixyl Shuftan: When did you first start building, and how did it lead to your work on avatars?

Lomgren Smalls: Heh. I started building and learning right from the start. My very first stop was Luskwood, on the recommendation of my friend from Trillian Astra. After a couple of days, I visited the Ivory Tower of Prims to learn about building. I remember thinking at the time that it'd be cool if I could build, but I never expected to be able to do this well at the time. I was building silly, simple little things at first for practice, like tables, chairs, the usual. And then I got it into my head to build something steampunk. So, me being the crazy kitty I am, I started on it as a major project, building in Perry. This actually took only a week for me to do, even back then ... and my first actual month in SL hadn't quite finished yet. Here's a pic, just check the date

Bixyl Shuftan: Thanks.

Lomgren Smalls: The picture was after it had been refined a bit and I was trying to package it for possible sale. But the last part of the original that I have was built and finished on Apr 1, 2007. I have tweaked it since then.

Bixyl Shuftan: Looks good

Lomgren Smalls: So, I was building from the very beginning. It took me about 6 months in SL to learn enough to make the original base of this av. But the main thing about me and building ... I love a challenge, and seeing just what I can do.

Bixyl Shuftan: Yes, looking at you, it's obvious someone did quite a bit of work on how small one could make an avatar. How did this begin?

Lomgren Smalls: Well, back to the El Goonish Shive forums, it was there that my online persona became a 6 inch tall male anthrofeline, if you want to describe it formally. So, naturally, one of the things I wanted to try and do in SL was make myself, well, myself. One of the first things I got was the original NorthStar micro, with help, as a kit. It was actually twice my current height, about a foot tall. But I customized it and eventually learned enough to make it move. I then took what I learned with that and made my own. Including my own animation and such to get it to work.

Bixyl Shuftan: How long did it take before it was fully ready?

Lomgren Smalls: Well, probably 20 hours at least, but I keep tweaking it and such. That was figuring out the scripting and figuring out how to shrink the head and tail down properly. The rest was me using the NorthStar micro as a pattern and trying to figure out how to improve upon it.

Bixyl Shuftan: I take it your micro was a hit with everyone on first sight?

Lomgren Smalls whispers: Hehe. A lot of people liked it, and I still get questions on "where did you get that?" and "how did you get so small?"

Bixyl Shuftan: *chuckles* What have been some of the more unusual reactions to your micro?

Lomgren Smalls: *chuckles* Well, they've ranged from the innocent to the adult... so... I've seen a lot

Bixyl Shuftan: Those who've read the paper for a while will recall you've also done work on macro avatars, super-large ones.

Lomgren Smalls: Yes, I've done some work on megas before, mainly to see just what was possible. Most people were saying even a 30 meter av was impossible. But, me being a builder, I knew what link limits and root prims were, and how they affected things. So, I was able to design and piece together a statue-style mega avatar that was ... a lot larger than anyone expected was possible.

Bixyl Shuftan: If I recall corectly, you built a mega-vixen about 224 feet tall

Lomgren Smalls: It was actually for Halloween, because I was becoming known as a micro ... and I built the vixen for a friend, and I made a mega version of my own regular av, around 65.5 and 68 meters tall, respectively.

Bixyl Shuftan: Did the work take about as long as your micro?

Lomgren Smalls: The vixen was built over the weekend before Halloween 2007, quite literally. My avatar was finished the Monday before. I recall Halloween being on that Tuesday

Bixyl Shuftan: Yes, I remember seeing her a few days later at Luskwood. Needless to say, she left quite an impression. ;-)

Lomgren Smalls: *grins*

Bixyl Shuftan: How easy is it to move in the megas?

Lomgren Smalls: Not easy. You literally have to fly them around. And hover, making them appear to stand on the ground.

Bixyl Shuftan: Do they lag a lot?

Lomgren Smalls: Not really. They are made of normal prims.

Bixyl Shuftan: So what other work have you done since then?

Lomgren Smalls: I do all sorts of work. I build stuff other than avatars. Everything here on my property, for instance. I've also built stuff for friends, castles ... let's see. I've done commissions, for micros, other avs... one of them was for The Phantom Creeps robot used by Rob Zombie in a few of his videos. So, just in general, a little of everything. Most recently, I've been finishing up some work on a couple of micros that I can actually sell, Relay for Life.

Bixyl Shuftan: What can you tell the readers about those?

Lomgren Smalls: Well, they're going to be based a lot on my current outfit ... because this is my "Relay for Life" outfit. The main difference is that the head actually is built by me, instead of being a shrunken version of the Luskwood Cat. I also have a female version of the av in progress, just needs a little more work.

Bixyl Shuftan: I've seen another micro done by you. About how many macros and micros have you made for others?

Lomgren Smalls: Macros ... let's see ... maybe 2-3, if that. Micros ... closer to 8-10.

Bixyl Shuftan: Changing the subject, you recenly got a real life job through SL. How did you hear about it?

Lomgren Smalls: Well, I had been looking for a better job for a while. And my friends here in SL knew about it. So, through a couple of the online Second Life papers, they learned of an on-SL job fair being held by the state of Missouri. And they told me about it

Bixyl Shuftan: Yes, and your getting the job made a little real-life news as well. The articles stated your micro made quite an impression.

Lomgren Smalls: Yes. I know people probably think I'm crazy for going to a job fair as a micro, but to me, it makes sense. 1: it's who I am. 2: It shows what I am capable of doing. Of course, I was dressed for the occasion, wearing a dark gray tux.

Bixyl Shuftan: Have your new fellow employees spoken much about Second Life, considering how you got the job?

Lomgren Smalls: A bit, yes, as I've talked to them about it. They're happy with me working there, I'm happy working there, my boss/etc are happy with me.

Bixyl Shuftan: Great ... As I recall, you were also on local TV news.

Lomgren Smalls: Yes, a couple of times. Never expected to be on TV at all. *chuckles*

Bixyl Shuftan: Besides the RFL avatars, any future plans that you'd like to share?

Lomgren Smalls: Well, I plan on making non-RFL versions (of the avatar), and hopefully making a version 2.0 of the av someday in the future.



To those who haven’t come across them, articles about Lomgren getting his state government IT job can be found HERE , HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE (short story with video), and HERE (a longer video with Lom in the second half). Lomgren mentioned there were others, but they were mostly taken from the articles above.

Bixyl Shuftan

Friday, April 24, 2009

Weekend Events: RFL Concert in Luskwood and Holocaust Lecture in Lighthouse Learning Island

The following was on a notecard from Luskwood for an event tomorrow, Saturday April 25:

“Join us for a Relay for Life benefit concert featuring the soulful tunes of Jaycatt Nico and Frogg Marlowe! Enjoy their music, dance, just plain have fun, and most of all, give give give!

Saturday, April 25th, 1 PM PDT (SL Time), in Luskwood. Be there!”

Luskwood, Lusk (215, 170, 61)

* * * * *

For Sunday, those who missed Fanny Star speaking earlier this year about the Holocaust will get another chance to listen to her:

“Please join Fanny Star and her daughter Helen aka Explorer Dastardly for a Holocaust Lecture

Host: Lighthouse Learning Island, Virtual Pioneers, and WNYRIC

When: Sunday April 26, 2009

Time: 5:00 PM SLT

Where: Lighthouse Learning Island (216, 115, 23)

Moderator: Orchid Jameson

Fanny will lecture and share her answers to questions of what it was like in a concentration camp for six years ... before it is too late. Emphasis on the worldwide rise in Anti-Semitic attitudes. ... Fanny’s strength, profound love for life, and her enduring faith in human kindness will inspire you.”

Bixyl Shuftan