Have you ever wanted to do something, and was so excited when it finally worked out? Yep, that was me last week, when I forced myself to sit down and learn how to make a bento pose. It was a little difficult, as there's not much 'bento pose making tutorials' out there, so I really had to just... figure it out on my own. I'm pretty good with doing that though, if I was to be honest. If there's something I want to learn how to do, or want to figure out, I will keep trying until I succeed. I can sure be determined when I want to be!

I mean, the pose wasn't really *spectacular*, but, I was so pleased with myself that I figured out how to move the fingers! It's not my favorite program (Poser), as I had to learn how to pose in Blender, which is not a strong point for me. But I'm learning. And I'm getting better with each pose.

If you're interested in these bento poses I made, I have listed them on the marketplace for rather cheap.

As I get more comfortable with our trial daughter, Yuna, I've been trying to use her Yuus/Nuuu HUD a little more. I love being able to pick her up and carry her around, it also makes for better photos, too.

Well, last night, we planned to all watch a movie, and I wanted to hold her a during the movie. We tried by using the HUD, but it was a huge fail. I tried holding her before and after sitting, but well.... it didn't work well. Eventually, we just used the HUD to sit, and although we were hovering probably 2-3 meters in the air off of the ottoman, I rezzed some books and we sat on them just so that we could watch a movie together. Even then, it looked absolutely ridiculous. LOL! However, the experience made me want to make my own pose for watching movies, and just general parent/child cuddles.

As I was thinking about doing a pose last night, I also decided to try my hand at an actual animation. Sure, I didn't want or need it to be fancy, just a tiny bit of leg movement so that it's not completely static.

It turned out really well, I really like it! It's subtle, not static, and does exactly what I envisioned in my mind. I've got my alt, Ennaline, with me in the gif, but I'm hoping it will be just as perfect with Yuna, as well! I've raved about Anypose several times on my blog, but this animation, is yet another reason why I LOVE (!) it!

You ever have a whole bunch of stuff to do, but prefer to not do them? That's me, lately. I've been terribly sick for the past month, and it's getting progressively worse. Because of it, I've been really slacking on a lot of things that need to be done. Our sim will host it's first wedding in a couple weeks, and I still have a lot to do. They'll be using our barn for their wedding, and they may want to have a dance party afterwards. So, I've needed to get our dance area done. I've been really not looking forward to it, mainly because I have some uhh..... naughty animations in my Intan Couple Dance Ball, and I didn't want to search through all the animations to find the naughty ones. I don't want to have them out for the wedding, and I also want to keep our sim child friendly, because we are trying to adopt a child.

Anything with that dance ball is a nightmare. I hate updating it, adding dances, configuring it, modifying it to look better, everything. I don't like it. I hate dealing with it. But, well. It needed to be done! I finished the couple's ball, and realized I don't have a solo ball. GAH! I tried many scripts from the this awesome library of scripts, and didn't find one that worked the way I wanted it to. You'd think after majoring in computer programming in college, I'd know a little more about SL scripting. But nope! Never even wanted to learn it. Once, I found myself at the College of Scripting, looked around... and went "NOPE." Too overwhelming for me. Anyway, I ended up buying a full perm ball for L$1 on the marketplace, and modified it quite a bit. It looks presentable, and works just how I want it to. Of course, I needed to test it out.

I spent waaaaayyyy too much time, just dancing. I need to look into setting up another DJ table - this one belongs to Jeffry, and isn't all that attractive looking for the sim. It doesn't quite fit in well. But, he liked the animations in it. So, I gotta do that, put animations in the new DJ table.... Ugh.  feel like I'm going to get all this done, just in time to turn the sim into the fall season. LOL! Speaking of - I think I need to start looking into pumpkins and fall things, because it's getting closer to that time!

I've also been trying to teach myself how to DJ! I want to eventually DJ in a club, so I purchased my own stream to practice on my land. I play a lot of country, which is the music I really enjoy. My husband hates it, so I do it while he's at work! I'll just need to gather my courage up to apply to be a DJ at some country club!

So, with my alt's store, I have been dabbling a bit in mesh. It's been a process of learning several different programs, and I've come to to conclusion: I suck at it. I have decided I spend too may hours a week cursing and fighting with Blender, and the stupid weighting of mesh. Not to mention, everyone is making for different mesh bodies, and I am completely left in the dust, because I am not capable enough in Blender to know how to do these things. So, unfortunately, I think I'm giving up mesh.

I had gotten a Wacom tablet as an early birthday gift from my husband. I decided to use it and try my hand at creating appliers. Well, that went downhill quick as well. I am coming to the conclusion that... well, I suck at anything SL related. Then, suddenly... I found myself about to upload a pose.

I had a HUGE moment of "WTH am I doing right now?" I had told myself - no poses when I came back. However, there were a few things that got me somewhat excited for poses again. The mesh bodies now, make poses beautiful, and not as ugly with the standard SL avatar. I battled a lot with the lumpiness of the SL avatar for years when I made poses for [ImpEle].

There's also a variety of poses that I want to make. As my readers (and friends on plurk) know, Jeffry and I have been looking for a child avatar to adopt - I now want to make poses for our future family. I hate buying couple's/family poses, because of the differences in everyone's shapes, I can never edit them to look like they are supposed to. So, I like to make my own - that way, I have full control over how the pose fits.


I logged in my alt to make poses with me, who, ironically, started out her existence as a child avatar. I had all the Toddledoo stuff from ages ago, it was just a matter of dressing her in it again.So, yes - preview of a pose that will soon make it's way into .ennaline.!


Another reason why I'm so excited to make poses: AnyPose! While AnyPose isn't that great for single poses, I much prefer to do them manually in another program - this is FANTASTIC for couple's poses! And also family poses! I really wish I had known about this waaay back when I had [ImpEle] open. It would have cut down soooo much irritation and stress while working with two avatars. No longer will I have to have Jeffry and I log on the beta grid and me telling him to sit on the poseball, nope, stand back up, tweak an arm, and on and on and on. I can edit up to 9 avatars IN WORLD. The concept is incredible.

I'm also finding it really nice to use for more difficult-to-pose-for things. Like, making perfect poses for gowns, poses for toddledoo's, and mesh clothing. Things that aren't as standard as the normal SL shape is. Because, with AnyPose, really - what you see is what you get. I like making a pose for a toddledoo with this HUD, then taking it into my posing program and just perfecting a few things that you can't do with AnyPose (stuff like making the feet parallel to the ground and minor things like that)

So, I am still alive! I've been so busy lately, omg. My RL roommate has been in the hospital for the past week, in and out of ICU, so I've been hanging around up there while he was up there. Then I had to get poses done in time for the Bunny Hop hunt, and finish my store's releases for tomorrow. I've been busy busy, I was glad to finally have a little bit of a rest last night.

After seeing loads of pictures of those AIFriends kitties, I came across a picture of one of the corgi's they released before the kittens. And then I was reminded I had one of those corgi's. Since November 14th, to be exact. I remember I stopped playing with the corgi I had because it always insisted on attaching to me whenever IT wanted to, which annoyed the crap out of me. So, its been hiding in my inventory. But last night, I updated it to the newest version, which appears to have stopped the random attaching. :D

And, I finally see how adorable these dogs are. I am having a nightmare of a time resisting the call of the kittens as well. I think the only thing stopping me from buying a kitten, is that I can't decide which breed to buy! :O I love the silver tabby, the bengal and the siamese - they all look so adorable. Though, I can't get all of them, because I think the sim owner (and my neighbors) would hate me. xD


I think the corgis look the cutest while sleeping though. But then again, don't all dogs? I have several dogs from different places like Zooby's, Petz, Vooner, and VKC, but none seem to have the interactive-ness as these AIFriends animals. Which, make them more fun. I like giving them baths, feeding them, and playing ball with them. :D


On a side note, I've been reworking my AO quite a bit, trying to find lesser-known places to buy animated stands from. I managed to find some super cute place with the most adorable stands, walks, and poses I've ever seen. Since I make poses, I very rarely buy any anymore - but some of their poses were so cute, I just HAD to buy them. And, the one shown above just happens to be my new favorite pose. :D

But, I finally got my AO the way I like it, its silly at times, cute, and I love it. I'm finally glad I got acutal animations that I like and fit my avatar better than most. They aren't perfect, but still manageable. I don't lose hands in my boobs or butt like other animations do. \o/