Day: November 18, 2019

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: The Davide and Sascha EXMACHINA Full-Body Male Mesh Avatars Are 50% Off!

You might remember that I recently raved about the Sascha special edition of the Davide version 6.0 EXMACHINA male mesh head and body package that I bought for just L$2,900—a real bargain compared to other male mesh head and body combinations.

Well, guess what? I discovered today that EXMACHINA is having a 50% off sale, both in their in-world store (here’s the SLURL) and on their SL Marketplace store:

So both the original Davide full-body avatar and the Sascha special edition of the Davide full-body avatar are only L$1,500 each! Now that I have had mine for a while, and tried out all the options, I can recommend this body very highly. And if you want just the body (no head), that is just L$800! It’s a stupendous deal.

I have no idea how long this half-price sale will last, so don’t wait! Here’s a few pictures of my Sascha avatar:

Even better? The entire outfit I am wearing today—right down to the socks and shoes—is free from the Kauna menswear store (SLURL). This grass green plaid jacket and pants, the sage green dress shirt, and the black socks and Oxford dress shoes are just some of many free wardrobe items you’ll receive when you click on all the vendor panels in the tiny Kauna store! There are literally dozens of high-quality menswear items, mostly formal wear and suits, but other men’s clothing, too! It’s the best deal in menswear on the grid!

Another Fifteen-Minute Second Life Avatar Makeover: Queen Elizabeth I

At the moment I am binge-watching Season 3 of The Crown on Netflix. I love watching the drama, intrigues and scandals of the Royal Family!

And it just so happens that I have a Second Life avatar whose actual legacy name is Elizabeth Queen (yes, I got lucky). Surprisingly, there’s nothing out there, either on the grid or in the SL Marketplace, to make her look like the current reigning Queen Elizabeth II. (Yes, I have actually identified a gap in the vast merchandise machine that is Second Life! Somebody needs to address this immediately!).

So, I decided instead to make her look like her namesake, Queen Elizabeth the First. Here is her before picture:

Not bad, but the look is a bit dated now: a classic system avatar, with system-layers-and-prims clothing. So I decided to do one of my patented 15-minute avatar makeovers (in the past, I have done the same for a nun, a vampire, an elf angel, Mary Poppins—even Santa Claus!)

And here is what Elizabeth Queen looks like now!

This avatar is wearing:

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR: Only L$839!

All pictures are taken in Tudor London at Jo Yardley’s wonderful Time Portal sim.

The Sandbox: A Brief Introduction

Yep, yet another blockchain-based virtual world. This one is called The Sandbox:

Here’s the requisite promotional video:

Basically, you build and animate voxel-based assets, and you can put them up for sale in the store to earn cryptocurrency called Sand (get it?). Their virtual land parcels, 96 by 96 metres square, are called LAND (gee, sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) and the presale starts in eleven days from now, when 166,464 LANDS will go up for sale (with all the expected talk about land scarcity, buy now, supplies are limited, etc. etc. etc.):

The Sandbox looks an awful lot like a cross between Cryptovoxels and Decentraland (there’s no mention of virtual reality support). A potentially interesting twist is their VoxEdit software, which they claim is “the first software that allows you to create your own voxel models, rig them and animate them in no time”. They have an alpha version of VoxEdit available to download for Windows and Mac users.

They also are offering cash rewards to attract game developers for their new platform, from a US$2 million fund called the Game Maker Fund, which will grant amounts from US$5,000-30,000 each to fund up to 100 games:

We are happy to announce the creation of the Game Maker Fund, our exclusive program that will reward the first 100 original game proposals that get accepted. Yes, you read that right: we’re offering free exposure for the games you create in The Sandbox, one of the most anticipated blockchain games of 2019. The Fund will be used to reward and incentivize Game Crafters to submit unique experiences. Don’t worry if you have more than one great idea: there is no limit on the number of proposals that each candidate can submit!

If you want to follow The Sandbox as the project develops (as far as I can tell, they haven’t launched yet), they have accounts on all the standard social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Medium, Telegram, and Discord.

Cryptovoxels’ Burgeoning Art Scene

Were you aware that the blockchain-based virtual world Cryptovoxels has a flourishing art scene?

Commissioned Crypto Art Gallery by Alotta Money
(from a tweet by Conlan Rios)

More and more often, I see announcements about art galleries and installations in Cryptovoxels, both regular art and blockchain art (the production of which is described at length in this article). Good sources of information about openings and events are the official Cryptovoxels Twitter and Discord channels.

The PROOFofARTWORK Gallery by Hans Benzin in Cryptovoxels
(https://www.cryptovoxels.com/play?coords=E@261W,72N)

If you are looking for galleries to explore, I can suggest no better place to start than Listed: Blockchain Art Galleries on Cryptovoxels.com, a directory of approximately forty galleries to visit. Or you can take the new Cryptovoxels Art Tour (CAT), which has an official guide book to approximately 30 art galleries. You can hop directly into each gallery from the guide book!

Limited-Edition Art Gallery by Jonathan the Designer (from the Listed list above)