Otherworldly

For the last two weeks, I have been taking on a new project in Second Life (building our own “castle” with Jammin’s sets seems to have sparked a desire to be more creative), namely texturing a mesh template. It all started when Leto announced a sale on some of their mesh resources and I couldn’t resist picking up the Tudor 006 semi-exclusive fitmesh template, even though I didn’t have a clue if I would manage to use it at all. But I wanted to give it a try, since I’ve been wanting to create clothing inspired by our Westeros heraldry for myself for quite a while. After a lot of cursing and a rough introduction to Photoshop, I’ve finally managed to put something together that I am happy to wear. Anyone who says that creators that use templates have it easy, you just need to slap on a texture, need to try doing it themselves. Sure, you can slap on a texture, but it won’t look good. I have a lot left to learn before I could get anywhere close to some of the excellent template users out there.

This particular template is fairly complicated and you need to work across four different .psd files to create textures for all the faces; the sleeves, the bodice, the back of the skirt and the front of the skirt. On the one hand, it makes it easier to create a multi-coloured outfit than if you had to introduce different colour/pattern fields on a single face. On the other hand, continuous patterns would have to be matched across several files to come out right, something which I have yet to attempt.

The Leto resources do make it possible for a novice like myself to figure out the basics, since the layered psd files are clearly structured and you can start off by simply replacing some of the example textures. And if you’re more adventurous, you do get .obj file itself, in case you want to alter any of the baked highlights. But you also get the fullperm mesh in-world in three fitmesh sizes, so if you just want to apply new textures you don’t need to upload any mesh.

I paired the gown with the Ezrah crown and necklace by Aisling for the Secret Affair. The crown is an elaborate arrangement of roses and chains and the necklace features a beautiful drape of chains down your back.

I am once again wearing Ninniach from DeeTalez, with eyes by PXL and the Shriya hair by Wasabi Pills.