Short Skirt, Long Jacket

2/23/13

Song by Cake

The song, it is all because of the song.  I love its energy and the fact that he wants a woman with brains, refreshing change in pop music.  So I was thinking modern lab as a theme, and then I scored these Mad Scientist Lab stuff and came across a Dieselpunk picture that inspired me, so there it is.

My crazy ideas are never easy to pull off.  Do you know how many Long Jackets I had to buy before finding the right one?    Do not even let me think about the number of short skirts I looked at.  If I could streamline that part of the process I could be way more efficient. 

Once again Renae had the perfect one in her inventory.  Brat!  She came and helped me do choreo for a while one night which was fun and really inspires me to work towards group numbers.

The other challenge to this act and was the most daunting part of it all was the cars.  I wanted to trade in my MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron.  Well I found these fab cars from Gorgon Motors.  I love them...but…despite saying they were Mod, one of them was not and I could not do the hide object script that I wanted to learn how to use on this act.

I spent an hour at the theater practicing dragging the Rumba Roadster to the stage in the right place.  I contacted the creator told him what I was up to and included some pics.  Since he is not inworld much it took a while but he said that the car was mod, it is just the scripts that were not.  Well, sorry hon, if you cannot erase the scripts out of it and add new ones, well the car itself is no mod.  Another builder friend of mine suggested that sometimes MP has older versions of items that sellers forget to update. 

Oh well precision Roadster placing was the order of the day and I had a lightning ball that I used to mask the switch.  I am not sure if it actually worked for the audience, but things came together in my viewer for the actual performance.

Sexual Healing

2/9/13

Song by Marvin Gaye and covered by Sarah Connor w/ intro of "Zelda's Lullabye"

Dedicated to my very loving and smexy RL partner.

And a big thanks to Susie for letting me have the song, which according to my partner is the only song that would have worked (being a Marvin G. fan provides a strong bias).

I have spent many hours watching my partner play and replay all of the Zelda Games.  Every time the Great Fairy comes in we laugh and joke about what a hussy she is and how she is always flirting with Link in an overly friendly way.  So that is the inspiration for this act.

This is the most of a set that I built from "scratch."  Aside from the rupees, throne, mer eddies, and mesh Triforce symbol I had to find and texture all the sculpts and every thing else.  Which was really a first for me, I am used to finding something close and modding it.  I am looking forward to more building from "scratch." 

The upside to this is that most things were full perm except for the throne and eddies so I got to use a Rez Box for the first time, under the very helpful advice of Sexy Q.

I loved my Navi followers!  Luckily I could put them in the rez box because they were hard to catch and unable to tp through floors and walls. Once I forgot and left a pile of them pounding their little bodies on the ceiling of the studio while I worked on the roof platform, and then the next time I logged in and went to the studio, they swarmed me.  At first I thought I was being griefed.

Yes, The Great Fairy was tall, wingless and wore knee high boots. :-)

Thanks to Magika for having a hair that was similar enough and I think way better.

In case you forgot what she was like (or if you have never had to use her healing powers):

Game screenshots….

Curse of the Crystal Skull

 1/26/13

Song by Dr. Steel (the song has been deleted from youtube)

Dedicated to Belle, who was undoubtedly the muse for this one!

My beloved audition act.  I had not performed it for the GB audience before now and I am so glad I waited.  I got the Spot On Mover and could use the full set the way I wanted to in the very beginning.  Without the mover I just slid along and I could not really start up on the crates like I wanted to. 

The inspiration was the core part of the set, the Pirate's Playground from Epic Toys.  It was a gift in the Skull and Bones hunt last year.  Belle had rented a tropical skybox thing that was 1/4 of a sim but low prim and a pretty good price.  Anyway we made a fantastic pirate build on it for most of the month she had it.  Playing on the playground one day with Renae and Ender converged with remembering the vision for a pirate act using the Dr. Steel song.

Not sure why I am smiling, definitely no smiler hud in this act, it is dark, serious.

"It's pulling me down, pulling me in

Pulling me down pulling me in"

The ship wheel stripper pole was kind of a pain, to many no copy/no mod things involved in this set.  I guess I can fix it one day with mod/copy items.  I am afraid to lose it.

The finale is another Epic Toy, the treasure chest that eats you.  I remember the first time I found out what it did, and I was new enough I really did not know where I was.  Te He he he, the innocence of Noob-dom. 

Baby, Its Cold Outside

12/25/12

Song performed by Glee Cast's Kurt and Blaine

This song has always been one of my few favorite Holiday songs and last year when I saw Glee's version, I died.  Having the two gay boys do it was like a dream come true.  I would have loved to do it as a duet, but it was not in the cards this time, not sure about the rules of having a friend perform with you.

So I knew what song I wanted to do and I asked my RL partner what concept I should go with, the answer, without hesitation was "Yetis in an igloo."  Well believe it or not yetis are not on Marketplace or any of the furry stores that I know of (which is not too many).  But I did find this statue of Bumble, the Abominable Snowman from the old stop action animation holiday tv show, so I ran with it and was able to make a matching costume.  I had to off a polar bear, but it worked, quite awesomely, I think.

Renae helped me with choreo, I loved having the two of us together on it.  She just slapped on an outfit that she had, leave it to her to have the perfect thing at the perfect time.

**Heat Miser Alert**

And the finale was tossing fur coats from Curio Obscura's Pile O' Stuff.  It was just the right touch!

Constant Craving

12/15/12

Song by k.d.lang

The song was on my list, and I was thinking about the holidays and how I am not really inspired by x-mas music, but I am inspired by chocolate and the rich luscious voice of k.d..  Then *POW* it happened.  It does not matter what time of the year it is but the craving is made worse by the abundance of chocolates and other sweets at this time of the year.

I can say it was one of the more challenging sets to make and costumes to pick out.  I was not pleased with many of my choices except for the final picks.  I spent a lot of time and money acquiring what I was mostly satisfied with in the end.  

The choreo and chocolate fountain made me the happiest though!

What a delightfully Oooey, Gooey mess!

Love the Anti-Depressant Heels fro Grimm Bros.

One On One

12/1/12

Song by TheBird and the Bee covering Hall and Oates

Cherry needed someone to fill in and I jumped on it with this act that I had in my back pocket.  It is the first act I ever really put together.  I was just learning how to choreograph with my Barre HUD.  

It is also another little dose of the 80's with the intent of having a retro outfit.  The tank top was from the Born This Way Hunt from my first year in SL.

This is the outfit that I accidentally boxed up some of the parts of.  The red bloomers and knee socks were in a freebie outfit that otherwise was not worth the cut.  So when I performed this in my one woman show (for my friends) I was actually nekkid on the bottom half and had to scrounge around for a while to find some knee socks and a decent pair of undies that would work.

My friends got a lot more crack than the GB audience did.  Another level of meaning to "Friends with Benefits"

In the upper center of the pic is my pet hawk "Accipitrix."  She was thrilled to be on stage and to get to stalk the congress of pigeons below. 

Misty Mountain Hop

11/17/12

Song by Zepparella - Cover of Led Zeppelin of course

This act was to be my callback number, but I did not have to do it, my first audition number was enough for them to create a place for me on the troop in addition to the spaces that were filled by two other people.  I was excited to perform it since The Hobbit was going to be released in a few weeks.  It started with the song, and when I did a little research I found out that it was inspired by Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit.  So I drug out my Rosy Cotton avi that I had tucked away and realized that it was not good enough for GB.  So I shrunk my shape, grew my feet and ears and tried real hard to match my head hair and feet hair, but it was a bit of a stretch.  I also had to come up with an underlayer that would be Hobbit-ish and not too revealing, since I do not think a Hobbit would be into performing burlesque.  Some medieval small clothes with a little mod-ding gave just enough of a tease to work.

Important lesson learned:  I knew I was on last and I wanted to hang out in the theater wearing some swanky mesh gown  that I just got on the Runway Perfect Hunt until a few numbers before my act.  I was envious of the OG's who do that all the time.  When it came time to change, I got Ruthed, big time!  I had to relog while on stage, and she played a second intro song and we were going to call it.  Folks said I looked ok, but when I saw the pictures, I really looked like the bastard love child of Bilbo and myself.  I was wearing parts of the dress and the costume, which were totally different.  I was mortified.  I will NEVER come into the theater and expect to change from, or into, mesh with 70 people on the sim. Cherry and the crew were super supportive and understanding, which was helpful.  I had to have that experience, and just get it over with.

I got to do the number without any problems at the "Best Of" Show that we opened with in January, and some kind soul nominated my costume for a Dance Queen Award.  I did not make the final cut, but that made me prep the first picture for a poster and I did my first work in Photoshop.