original post 29 December 2008
It’s a question I’ve been asked a few times in the short time I’ve been designing in phils place. In fact it’s possibly most popular I’ve been asked, and it springs to mind that those designers who have been doing this a lot longer than me may have been asked a million times over. So, I call to those designers out there to answer too, in comments or on their own blogs.
Why do you design clothing in world?
For myself, its complicated.
I didn’t join with any intent on designing, I didn’t even know that it was possible until a week or so inworld. Even at that point, I didn’t think I would be able to design. I’m not the most artistic person, and I’d not used photoshop at all until I started. I didn’t even have the software.
Eventually I got bored with the clubs and had a list of things I wanted to achieve. The first being, I wanted a business. Something to keep me entertained, and some way to earn L’s to keep me in shoes and clothing.
I opened a few club’s. Each of which I got bored of eventually. I even set up a resell (sorrrryyyy) store, which lasted all of 1 week.
Then I found the appearance menu’s and began to play. Coming up with Kelly and Layla (available in the dollarbies area) after a few weeks and with the help of a few tutorials on prim skirts.
I was excited at the prospects of this new skill, and wanted to learn all I could about creating, so I started reading. I spent time at the Ivory Tower, and even tried scripting.
At this point I still had no idea what I wanted to focus on, and so I tried a little of everything, learning that I was not very skilled with larger prims, and, although I enjoyed it, I wasn’t very imaginative with jewellery or creating textures for them.
I even tried creating shoes and boots, but lacked the patience for lining up the prims.
Sculpties confused me, and still do. As did animation.
Therefore, after putting my finger into a LOT of different flavour pies. I decided to concentrate on clothing design.
My first software for this was the Gimp. Which I fell in love with within a month or so. It was, and still is, free. But so rich on features it could easily compete with photoshop.
I found tutorials, and slowly but surely began to create clothing that improved from barely wearable, so sellable.
And Trubble was born.
I moved onto using AvPainter alongside the Gimp, and found my designs so much easier to bring into world, and once I’d mastered that, I took the plunge and got Photoshop.
I now use, SLCP, AvPainter, Gimp and Photoshop CS2 to design, amongst other programs to make textures and other details. I still look for tutorials, and know with each design, I am improving my skills. So I keep going, learning and selling.
Don’t be fooled into thinking I do this for the L’s. I’m not denying they’re nice when they come, as they do help me to puchase items for the store, pay for the textures that I really struggle with, purchase sculpties (I’m more than useless at making them) and cover the costs of uploads. People do say that once a design is in world, it’s all profit. But any designer will say, the overheads of an SL store are more than they look.
But for me, seeing my designs in the clubs or out exploring, is the most amazing feeling. To spot something on somebodies blog, or on an avatar in world, and to say “I made that” is the reason I design.
