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queenbrat

Pet peeves

   I don’t want to sound whiney but there are some things in SL that I find very annoying. We all deal with lag, it’s a part of the game. But, lately for me, it has been a lot worse. I’ve talked to many people who have the same problems. SL usually says lag is on our side and not theirs, but when so  many people experience it maybe it should be worked on.

    I find it very annoying when I am in a show and the models refuse to line up despite being told several times to do so. I don’t know if other people find this as annoying as I do or not.  Along these same lines is professional behavior. If I am in a show I do my best to always be on time or early, go to practice on time and pay attention. Most models I know do as well. But, there are some who don’t. To me it brings the show down if some act like unprofessional behavior is acceptable. I approach SL the same way as RL. If  I make a committment, I do my best to carry out what I agree to do to the best of my ability. I do realize that RL interferences happen and have happened to me as well. So occasionally missing something you agreed to do or being late is unavoidable in those cases, RL always comes first. But, I am talking about the models who make this their pattern of behavior. Thank goodness these models are the exception and not the rule. Like I said the majority of models are professional, including the models competing in MRI.  

 

 

queenbrat

random thoughts

QueenBrat at HOB

  I had a very busy weekend. I was in 4 shows this weekend. That makes 5 shows for the week. Since fashion shows and runways are my favorite thing to do, it was awesome.  I had serious lag all weekend though. Really bad. Other people had the same issue so I think it is SL. I sure wish they would do something.

  I have a very busy week coming up. I have 3 shows scheduled for next weekend so I have a lot of rehearsals this week, plus one competition. Plus I’m American and we have Thanksgiving this week. At JCNY they have this very narrow runway they left backstage and whenever I am there I love to practice on it. I made runways to practice on at the house in SL. But, it’s always fun to practice on a new runway.

   The picture above is me modelling at House Of Beningborough. I’m wearing the White Swan gown. This has been such a fun month. The theme is winter elegance. So I got to dress up all month, plus  gowns are my favorite thing to wear. I’m also very excited that I am a top 10 finalist this month. Last month I was a top 15 finalist. Some people get so upset about not being a finalist. I will admit when I have not been chosen as a finalist I have been a little bummed but that quickly passed. I say have fun and do your best. The rest is out of your control and worrying over it constantly won’t help at all.

queenbrat

help my inventory please!!

   I really need to spend a lot of time working on my inventory in SL. Every time I start working on it someone interrupts me or I remember something I need to do. I am up to over 69,000 things. I don’t think I will ever again be one of those under 20,000 in inventory people but am hoping to reduce it by say 10,000. Most of all I just need to organize more. I haven’t had time to work on organizing outfits into folders. I also bought inventory storage boxes but never used them. It really is a lot of work. I used to do a lot of hunts and my inventory exploded and then I started modelling. Well, all models know we need a lot of stuff for modelling. So I now have a ton of gowns, other clothing, accessories, poses,etc. I don’t even want to think about how much money it cost.

QueenBrat modelling my new gown

    Above is me modelling my new gown on the House of Beningborough runway. I love this gown. I love purple. I’ve been wanting this gown for a while so I finally just bought it. This gown is called Confetti.

   In my next post I will include my interview I had to do as part of MRI Challenge #3. It was a fun challenge. The hardest part was deciding who to ask to interview me. SL friends are so great. Always there to help when you need it. Speaking of MRI, please don’t forget if you read this to vote for me please. http://wp.me/pyh5c-uw I have been shamelessly asking everyone I know and even people I don’t to vote for me. It means a lot to me. If you have time to vote thank you in advance.

queenbrat

my awesome day

oh my gosh that's me again

    Today was a great day for me. My hubby went out-of-town so I can stay online and play tonight. Just kidding, that’s not why it was great. Today was great because it was one of those few modelling days where everything went right. I competed in the Le Charme Fashion contest and made it through to the semi-finals. I was second actually out of the 8 of us which is not bad. I was chosen for the week for the JCNY Showcase and I was picked to be a finalist at House Of Beningborough for the November Model Awards. I was also looking around JCNY and found a second picture of me on the wall! I was shocked. There are two pictures of me on the wall now at the store. I had to take a picture of course lol. Who knows how long it will be there.

    I had show practice today and it went well. No lag for me, which is unusual. I didn’t have much of a lag problem when I competed either. That’s quite unusual. With 8 girls competing and an audience I expected more, but wasn’t too bad. I have found that closing out everything on my pc except SL in these situations and reducing my draw distance to 64 has helped tremendously. Out of all the tips that I posted last week, those 2 things are what works the best for me. I always restart SL too,but that’s a given.

   As I said before days like today are rare so I will enjoy it while I can and be thankful and grateful for every opportunity. Oh, and don’t forget if you read this to please vote for me in the MRI competition. TY http://wp.me/pyh5c-uw

queenbrat

How to get the best lighting

   In real life, professional photographers and models know that things like whitefill reflectors are flattering for people, and take advantage of this in their photo shoots.

   Advances made in SL graphics allow residents to have their own ‘whitefill’ without having to use a face light.  Follow the steps below so that you can get optimized lighting conditions, too.  These tips are all over SL so not sure where they came from and can  have some slight variations. Once you enter these settings, play with it until you achieve the best look and are happy. If you are like me, you don’t like the ugly gray shadows. See your avatar the way it was meant to be seen!

1.  Open your Environmental Editor.
(Menu bar > World > Environment Settings > Environmental Editor)

2.  Go to Advanced Sky settings.
3.  Click the New button.  Type in Nicelight or whatever you want to call it and click OK to save your new lighting preset.

4.  In your new  preset, go to the Atmosphere tab.  Make the following changes on the sliders:

Blue Horizon:
R:  0.10
G:  0.32
B:  0.66
I:   0.66

Haze Horizon:  0.00

Blue Density:
R:  0.04
G:  0.04
B:  0.04
I:    0.04

Haze Density:  0.00

Density Multiplier:  0.19

Distance Multiplier:  27.0

Max Altitude:  1315

5.  Go to the Lighting tab.  Make the following changes on the sliders:

Sun/Moon Color:
R:  0.29
G:  0.28
B:  0.32
I:    0.32

Sun/Moon Position:  1.000

Ambient:
R:  1.00
G:  1.00
B:  1.00
I:    1.00

East Angle:  0.00

Sun Glow:
Focus:  0.17
Size:     1.75

Scene Gamma:  1.15

Star Brightness:  0.00
6.  Hit the Save button to save your new settings. That’s it! The light on your avatar should now appear even and smooth, making your avatar look its best!

queenbrat

MRI Challenge #3 and you go girl

    Well we got our assignment number 3. The last for the semi- finals. We have to get votes for our picture from last week. Our before/after Miss Refined picture on the MPI website. 100 votes for max points. So I’m not above shamelessly asking anyone who reads this to please vote for me. If you know anyone else who would vote, that’s great as well. 100 votes is a lot. The other task we can do is have a friend interview us and post it here. I will do that too and post it. Here is the link to vote for me.  http://wp.me/pyh5c-uw

  I’ve been looking at my schedule for the next few weeks. It is going to be crazy. I have an average of 3 shows that I am in a week. I did 3 last week too. I love it though. Runway is still my favorite thing to do. Auditioning for a show and being chosen is always a thrill. Not to be arrogant, but I get picked the majority of the time I audition. But, whether I am picked or not I always give it my best. I can’t do more than that. 

   I was given a notecard on what to do about lag in a show. One of the suggestions was not to complain about it. I told the guy who sent out the tips that, thats not going to happen. I have no problem at all with another model saying wow lags bad or watch the lag, work the lag or anything else. Obviously if someone was complaining constantly it might get annoying, but that’s never been the case that I have seen. As I told this guy, women might complain but we root each other on, cheer for each other. That’s a bonding experience. That’s being a team for women. We give each other pep talks. We don’t talk about it killing morale to mention an issue. I don’t think that talking lag is a contagion that spoils the whole show like this guy told me. We know lag is a part of shows. I don’t think people blame their performance problems on lag when it isn’t true. I know lag does crazy stuff sometimes, so I would never think someone was faking it. I think guys can learn from us girls. Don’t worry, we will cheer you on too.

queenbrat

photography vs model looks

 
QueenBrat HOB entry
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
QueenBrat HOB entry
  •  Today was a slow day for me. I worked at JCNY and HOB like usual, but I didn’t have to rush to rehearsals and shows. I took some pictures for my entry into HOB this week. My own pictures. Two of my pictures are above. I love taking pictures and once I learn how to use Photoshop they will be better. I can add text in Photoshop but that is about it. I wanted to take a class that’s starting this week but because I am in so many shows over the next few weeks I can’t do it. Some of my friends routinely make their own backgrounds and they are amazing.  But, Photoshop or not I keep trying. Often some contests in SL are about how amazing the photographer is and not about the models. If you want to hire the photographer that’s fine but to me, most contests should be about how the model looks. How attractive is the model. Do they style well and pick the right fashions?  But, I’m not running these contests and they can do what they like of course. I’ve seen pics from some great photographers and the model looked terrible. The purpose of the picture was about being artistic and not how the model looked.  I’ve seen  some great pictures too, of course. It’s all so subjective though. What I think looks terrible sometimes, other people love, and probably vice versa. We don’t all have to agree. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine happens to be right. Just Kidding.
queenbrat

marketing me

QueenBrat on the runway at JCNY

   Well here I am again on the JCNY runway right after our show today. It was laggy but went well. This beautiful gown was from our sponsor this week Miamai. This is the third week in a row I got a great gown. Gowns are my favorite things to wear. Probably because I can’t recall the last time in rl I wore a gown.  A customer told me once that I lived in the wrong place because I don’t wear gowns much. She was from NY and I am from the midwest. I agreed with her lol. 

    So I submitted my entry for MRI challenge 2. I am worried about it though because I have never in my life done anything marketing related and am not sure I was even in the ballpark. We had to create a 10 point marketing plan for our blog. This is all foreign to me. Two weeks ago I did my first blog and now I am trying to create a marketing plan for it. But the idea of basically marketing myself, marketing my blog which contains my thoughts, is not something I had ever thought about doing. It was an interesting challenge. I like challenges. Challenges are how we learn and grow. I won’t say it was fun though. Marketing is not fun to me. Which I hope isn’t insulting to business people. I don’t mean it to be insulting, it just isn’t for me. But I am sure there are things that interest me that other people would find uninteresting.   

    I was picked for the show where I wear the darker skins. I am excited. I love being in shows. I did 3 shows in 3 days this week. Fashion shows are my favorite modelling job. I was called a show hog by an agency owner once. I try to get into every show I can. I don’t see what is wrong with that. Does it upset other people? Maybe it does. I thought it was rude when he said that though. I would think most models try to do as much as they can. Agency owners should be happy that their models are out there and working and encouraging them.

queenbrat

MRI challenge 2

   So this week we found out our next challenge for MRI. The first task was to take a picture of how we look now and combine it with a picture of what we looked like as a newbie player. We could use an old picture of ourselves or take a new picture but in our newbie outfits and skins. Well, I honestly think I burned all pictures of me as a newbie or didn’t take many because I couldn’t easily think of any that I had. So I put on all my old newbie stuff. Anyone can do this since it is all sitting there waiting in your SL Library. I put those clothes and that skin and shape on and, oh- my- gosh, did I ever really look that bad? Apparently I did. Although what’s funny about that to me is, that all new players think they are just quite hot. It isn’t until you play for a little while and see how other people look that you realize you don’t look very good. Anyway, so I had my newbie picture combined with what I look like now by a friend since that requires Photoshop and I haven’t been able to develop my Photoshop skills that far yet. It is quite a striking difference when you see the 2 pictures together.

 We could also choose to do a task involving making a 10 point marketing plan for our blog. I plan to do both since we get more points for that, however, I know nothing about marketing and this is a true challenge for me. It is quite interesting from what research I have done so far.  The idea to me is still a little foreign, I only started blogging a little less than 2 weeks ago. However, I will approach it like I do everything and give it my all.

queenbrat

oh my gosh that’s me

QueenBrat, oh my gosh that's me
QueenBrat on a wall

    So today was a pretty good day modelling wise. I got picked to compete for both House of Beningborough and JCNY for the week. I had a dress rehearsal and it went well. The designer was there and that always makes me nervous because I think well, what if she hates everything that I just did, but she only made a couple requests and I was totally fine with it. I want the designer to be completely happy and the small changes made do look better anyway. So what makes this a good day you might say, well I love competing both places and when I enter it’s always thrilling when I get a yes. So today was a two yes day. I’ve talked before about how I get 5 or so no’s for every yes I hear so on a day I got two yes answers, it’s a good day. Then, when I got to JCNY I noticed there is a picture of me on the wall. I was thrilled when I saw it. I even took a picture to share in here lol.

    So I am going to keep writing in my blog. We get more points for the MRI competition if we continue blogging but more importantly than that, I like it.  I can post things about Sl and modelling that amuse and interest me and annoy me. Maybe I will be entertaining and provide information that others need.

  We got our next challenge for MRI which I will talk about in my next post.