The Snake of the Nile moves in her arms.

Moving into animation for Second Life Bellydancers.

And then there are thing I haven't quite gotten to yet.

Like the Robotic Steampunk Exotic Dancer.
The Gear Stripper.
I made her a bunch of animations.
And some clothes and a sausage curl hairdo....
I just need to get the time to focus on this one.

Crazy Tiki Fun.

Tiki Statues, Tiki Burlesque Glasses, Tiki Monoliths....we're tiki crazy!!!!!

The Big Show....The irkmade Mark3 Bubblin Burlesque Dance HUD and glasses.

Way back, deep in this blog I mentioned about how I wanted to make interaction between performer and audience. After building a dance HUD and plumbing the depths of how the animation system worked, I produced 27 original animations and made the HUD to flirt and dance inside a similar glass to those I have made before. I redid the basic glass animation to be a bathe. I made a sponge muff to use with a series of the animations as well as with the basic bathe. It took a lot of late nights, and a lot of crashing and burning before it worked the way I hoped it would, but the word of mouth is spreading and the people who buy it seem to like it.

Repurposed Moon.

I am all about making good design have legs. But Ears???
I decided that I liked the idea of the moon on the ears of lovely ladies and maybe men.
But I also wanted to draw people to my lot with freebies. So I gave the gold version away and had the Silver and Lemon Platinum versions for sale.

Absinthe and Mermaids

One thing I did make happen was a way for folks to be the green fairy.
It was a maya animation like the original martini glass but this time
I was able to get a little more subtlety into the movement and timing and
edit it without fear of losing frames to an arcane process, or not being able to look at what I wanted to with and arcane camera.
I also gave out free simple flexie-prim fairy wings
The Absinthe glass with Green Fairy Animation has sold well and consistently.

I have yet to make the mermaid bubble animations. mostly because of the problematic nature of the maya rig I use currently and how the root rotations get fouled in translation sometimes.

Marzipan Tearoom in Haven, Sterling Grove.

Even if Art Direction might lead you to a certain era...it is that eras buildings and how they interact with everything that still exists from before that era, that really counts.

This is what we were building up to. A Victorian Iron and Glass roof. With a main dome with an interior platform and two separate socializing and lounging spaces.


We wanted to create a feeling of time and place but still be fanciful and make the existing structure feel even more solid and rooted into its foundation.

The original Roof was utilitarian and didn't add to the roof line or plus up the over all feeling of time and place. It kept the virtual rain out.... :)

I built the peacock to use one Nurb, and one texture, and thus one primative in Second Life.

Here you can see Hap and the Peacock that is everpresent in Victorian and Art Nouveau design.






Here is a detail of the final ramp from the minor public dome to the main Peacock stained glass dome.



There were many iterations, as well as consultations and approvals, all accompanied by production of scale models, mockups, and reference.

Mister Moon and the Allure of the Vintage

I remember and revel in my fascination with the Moon.
Its only a paper....Buffalo Gals canya.....Blue......
The Cop on the Beat, the Man in the....

and me.


I love the image of a pretty girl set upon a cartoon moon.
So I made this and animated 4 poses/animations so people could use
it as a way to lounge or take some fun photos.

Here is the way Mavis has made use of our moon man.

Big Daddy Lindybucks and the Charleston

I am a swing dancer...For the last ten years or so, doin' the Lindy Hop.
In 1999 and 2000, I swear I was out 5 to 7 nights a week.
Sometimes 3 venues in a day.
The Charleston didn't used to be my thing, but then I started using it
to entertain myself and others....

Then I discovered how fun it was to entertain people with it in Second Life.
So I made a Maya FK skeleton and made some animations...and put them in a HUD.
Now people can get half way to a Big Apple.

In Caledon they made a Musical.
Caledon the Musical. And they used a few of my animations in there for a chorus line.
They even had my absinthe glass in there....but that as they say....is later on down the road a piece.

Cats and Trees and Easter Island.

In the early days of wrestling with Maya to get some semblance of exports out. I did just simpler stuff with parametric textures like the Moai Polynesian Idol that has become one of my trademark items in Second Life. Mr. Moai that is.




I fiddled with textures loosely and finally started to get the knack after I did my first serious animated object using the Puppet Master system. This Cat Head in a Pumpkin was a lot of fun to make. I will remake it again someday and raise the bar again.




Christmas came soon after and saw the Mechanical Retro Fantasy Tree constructed.

You can also see in the last picture that I added some features to Mr Moai. two style of eyes, closed and red. But that is a later addition.

Tiny Bubbles....in the wine....

I was planning on making the glasses seemed more like regular stemware at first but was at a loss of how to do it. I finally figured some simple but effective glass solutions and made some more realistic champagne and martini glasses.
It was at this point when I started planning what would later become the premiere lounge product known as the Mark3 Bubblin Burlesque Dance HUD(headsUpdisplayAnimation system). I kept seeing lots of dance items that would offer two person interaction, but it wasn't set up for one person to direct personalized attention to a patron/audience member...while still staying in the performance space. This was a challenge.

First Collaboration

In the previous post I talked about Betty from Liverpool. Betty is a programmer lady whom I met in Second Life who helped me with a scripted object. A Typing Override. As you type to each other in Secodn Life your hands start making a roungh typing animation...kinda looks like playing the bongo drums. My first animation was an idea to make this look better so I made a typewriting animation that looked similare to using and old Underwood or Corona, including carriage return. This still continues to sell, and I continue to shunt 50% of gross sales of the item to Betty.

The actual object/override script and animation holder is worn on the thigh at garter level and looks like a vintage St Louis Police issued "Press Badge". Modified in its texture to say Second life instead of St. Louis.

First Success

As I started marketing my animations and associated products I started making these cards/posters for use on their boxes and in Web Sales sites

My original idea for the first thing to change in second life had been made previously but I hadn't found a way to sell it as an animation override. That was to come later with some collaboration with a programmer from Liverpool named Betty.

But back to the Bubblin' Burleque Martini Glass.
When I came into SL I wanted to make things that did not generally exist or allows people to do things they can't really imagine themselves doing in Real Life.
Hence....swirling around in a Maya built martini glass, with a 30 second animation made in something fairly primative called QAvimator. Its free and arcane, but it pumps out Biovision Hierarchy animation files cleaner than the current Maya exporter. Second Life animation is a bit hobbled by the fact of its birth as adjunct to Poser which uses an arcane skeleton system that isn't really compatable with any other animation system. So I had to eventually rig up my Own Maya skeleton and then find a more solid one for use in Maya with a workable IK system.

irkmade blog

here 'tis. come here to see the irkmade design world as it continues to unfold.