Who knew? Two new! ...and an oops...

Busy week... Confirming two new styles in the 36-color dDx range, and flashing a beard I actually put together four weeks ago and haven't blogged yet...

The first is Emma - a short, spunky ladies do with long feathery layers and a very short back... the second is something new - sculpted long dreads - well... chin length - longer will follow - called Sawyer.



Both live now...

in addition, here's the Grant beard - out for a month but not blogged to date - still out in the base 8 dDx colors... I'll address this shortly... I hope... :X


Until next time,

Kalli

Rolling out Rowan...

Earlier this week I finally got my act together and launched an extended range of colors for the dDx hairstyles... starting initially by retinting Ursula into the new 36-color range, and I also finally made a new men's whole-head style called Rowan:


Definitely a new direction for me... I've not made a slightly longer men's do before and it came together remarkably quickly... so no bad thing. However, with any long men's do, it works equally well as a short women's do. While Lewis Luminos was the first to blog it... yes he beat me by three days, but, dear reader, I've been having issues logging into Blogger... Karla Scorbal posted it in her blog on a girl less than 24 hours later. Furthermore, Faery Sola has assured me that it works wonders of fey types, and has offered me the 25 prims required to throw up the vendor in her store - Studio Sidhe. As such, I went back and reworked the vendor front for the new location, to better fit in with the client base.... ;)


I always knew this one would be a Unisex do... hence the gender non-specific style name... but let's be honest, since Marshall twelve months ago... there's been a dearth of short, straight men's hair from me...

Either way... equal ops hair for the win... now available in 36 new and improved colors. I love them and am currently wearing Auburn, Chestnut, and even Berry... as well as the light and Platinum blondes, Celtic Agouti... Natural White... dot dot dot...

OK... shutting up. If you want to see how they wear, just pick up a demo box of Rowan or Ursula... each has the full gamut in there!

Until next time,

Kalli

Going underground

Hi all... Rl has, over the last couple of months, conspired to keep me tied up and not working in SL... Still, I have a release to announce - This is Ursula:


Another -dDx- release... this one features some new sculpts that I've been working on in software that's new to me... and its going well - so I'm not going to complain. Available in the usual 8 dDx colors - although there is something nagging at the back of my mind to add more... If you have any ideas, do get in touch! ;)

Still new hair - out now - come get some!

Until next time,

Kalli

BEARD!

A little while ago I was skimming the Internet for mentions of -dD-, something I do a lot for my sins, when a Japanese blog was drawn to my attention... I hit the google translate button (as Japanese is not a language I can converse in... although I *can* order two lagers and a packet of crisps) and all the text that appeared on the page was that one immortal word... sadly they were featuring a mustache.

Anyway... When I saw it I knew I had to use it as an opener... but its been a long time in coming. The first dDx beard, and the first beard release since Kerry some five months ago is now live. This is Ulysses...


Out now, and just 40L a color... with the fattie of eight colors yours for just 150L... can't say fairer than that...

Until next time,

Kalli

Public Service Announcement

Excuse the delay - Hunt runs April 2nd through April 30th. Apologies for not posting before now, but RL has been as RL does. I only got back inworld a few moments ago...

Anyway... Nethead 5e in Rainbow... free instore as part of the excellent Crazy Arse Hair Hunt. Be a part of it... Spread the word... Spread the love... and go get yourself some fantastically original hair from some of the best avant garde makers in SL... oh... and this Discord Designs lot, whoever they are...

Until Next time,

Kalli

This all started a few weeks ago...

As you may or may not know, Savoir Hair recently moved... so I was in there setting up a couple of freebs when I ran into Treebee Withnail. She has this store called The U-Neek and makes items unlike anyone else in SL, including hair. She announces to me that she's organisaing a hair hunt and would I like in?

Needless to say I thought about it, and eventually, 48 hours later I said OK.... and I got to work.

Now, this is for "The Crazy Arse Hair Hunt"... and the conditions were that we as designers... all forty of us... were banned from making regular hair in regular colors... So I decided to bypass my normal hair textures, and even the sculpts and go for something whacky. I've created the hunt gift, but I've added a few colorways and launched them just a little early. Introducing the Nethead 5e:



As you can see, it's a mass of cables, rather than hair... ended with either blunt cut wires, or RJ45 ends... It's been fun to build,. if a little daunting.

Out now... and right next to the entrance... and the Wild Released hair boards. Just so you know, if you've not grabbed a HUD and picked up Katherine yet, the style goes away FOR GOOD on the 19th of April... You've got 3 weeks... NOW GO! ;)

Until next time,

Kalli

Latest announcements...

Good grief... I'm actually remembering to blog!

I mentioned an as yet unnamed high pony a couple of posts ago... well... it decided to go with Elise.


It's live now... along with Heather... and a couple of limited Heather colors in the subscribeo...


Until next time,

Kalli

More new-textured goodness...

Coming soon, on the heels of Katherine, the Wild:Released stamp rally prize, is Heather...


Now - funny story behind this. Alice Hoyer has been asking me for a 'just got out of bed and sluched my hair up off my shoulders' style for the longest time... possibly eight months or so - but all previous attempts (and there have been some) with my previous bank of textures all looked naff. So... now that I had the new ones available I had to give it a go... and I must say I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Alice certainly was, and agreed to model for the vendor shots in the new black.

Either way, coming out later this week!

Until next time,

Kalli

Born to be wild... and the beginnings of a new product line

Felicitations on this fine antemeridian of a Friday...

I'm going to come clean and let slip some details of the new development I've been so cagey about now that the time has come for me to start publicising.

Back in January, my good friend, and sometimes accomplice Faery Sola approached me with an intriguing offer - a stamp rally, involving a number of stores that do a really nice collection of out of the ordinary clothes, gowns, accessories, poses, skins and all the rest of the sort of thing to need to function in-world as an avatar who doesn't sit in the middle of the road. Anyway. As it happened this coincided with a long thought out plan I had (initially thought of it in October 2009) to give the brand a boot and hopefully draw in new people. How? Basically I look at my textures and realise they were OK in 2007/2008, but things have moved on drastically.

Why has it taken me five months? Well... I tell people this repeatedly, but they simply don't believe me... When it comes to 2D digital artwork, I suck. What I know about Photoshop is writable with a wedge-tipped sharpie on the back of a postage stamp; so there's been a bit of a learning curve at my end... including a month set aside to create JUST THE ALPHA MASKS...as I had to do it by hand... well.

If you look at the pic that follows, you'll see something rather unusual for SL (hey... this is me... what do you expect?) Rather than go for the conventional "dodge shine" in horizontal stripes across the base prims, I've decided to pick out the highlights in the hair to give some depth and variety... basically it shines verticaly rather that horizontally (and on a more technical note, my alphas are at the top of the textures rather than the bottoms... ;) Its been a ride, but they're working for me... even if it took nearly a month, over 200 uploads and a lot of swearing, crying and teethgnashing just to get a workable alpha(!)

The new textures themselves are only, for now, available in limited colors - 8 in fact; but of the shades I sell instore, there's no denying they're the eight most popular so I hope not to disappoint too many of you.

So... what are we looking at? For Faery's event, I'm unleashing Katherine as a prize... score enough stamps and you can claim all eight colors for free.


When the event kicks off on the 20th, there'll be two more new styles under the new dDx banner to choose from... a messy low slung bun, tentatively called Heather, and a simple ponytail which has yet to name itself. In short, look out for some new stuff next weekend!

Until next time,

Kalli

It said a lot that Savoir Hair blogged this release first...

Oops...

Confirming that Monique is out now... and there's been some movements re: some new stuff... I want to say more but that'd ruin the surprise!

Until next time,

Kalli

I'm going to hell for this one...

Announcing that yes, I have been getting off my sorry arse and have been creating again... albeit slowly... hey... progress is progress.

I have something in the bag that I *will* get done soon that you're going to want to see (although the NDA is still in effect there)... but in the meantime, I'd thought you'd probably like a heads up on a release coming out towards the end of the week. Braids... New ones. The first since Hair Fair '09, in fact...

This is Monique...



I'm posting this now as I've got a lot to say about it, and with the rush of a release I may forget... so... here goes.

This thing is, without question, the largest, most complex style I've created to date (in terms of primcount)... I knew it was unfeasible using my current methods to create anything really long and wild on a single attach point, as the 255 prim restriction saw to that. As such, I've overshot - intentionally - and yes I know some people will accuse me of lagging teh grid to hades, but... mea culpa. Monique attaches to skull and mouth - as would a hair and beard combo of mine. The result is, as you can see, some seriously long braids with dandy flexi ends.

Is it resizable automatically? Its not... sorry... but it does colorchange the beads into any one of 16 million colors, or whathaveyou. It's intentionaly non- autoresize as each prim of these things requiers a listener script to be maintained in each element. The server load of the sheer number of scripts would probably flatten most sims given time... so I've left them out. The hair is, however, rigged as fully moddable without having to fanny about dropping and collecting and so forth to get it to work.

Due to the amount of work involved, and the having to create what is effectively two elaborate styles to form one, I'll be pricing acordingly... sorry... In addition, I would ask all those who buy this beast to be gracious with it... No big events please, and be aware that there are more vertices in this thing than most game developers could ever dream of.

I know its wrong... but so many people have asked for long sculpted braids I had to do something.

Out later this week... watch this space...

Until next time,

Kalli

Three weeks late?

Um... well... got me a minute now to add something here about latest developments. I've launched the Hawkeye braided mohican, redrawn my store advertising (with plenty of advice from the irrepressable Alice Hoyer) and have started work on some new hair textures with the intention to create something that actually works low-prim, and looks a little more realistic than my current batch allow me to do.


Also working on a long set of braids that hopefully will be finished shortly - but for the meantime, its a lot of little jobs that are keeping me on my toes and away from the bigger picture - like updating the blog when I throw something out...

Mea culpa...

Until next time,

Kalli