Reel Expression

Hi all. Just a quick note to let you know I’m sponsoring the above event.

You can find more information here: MODAVIA ANNUAL FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR CONTEST.

121 Random Poses:
Months ago I sat down for 3 days to see how many poses I could do in that time period. I mainlined tea, hardly talked to anyone (ok that’s kind of typical) and went through more jolt gum than is probably healthy. Sometimes I like to push myself just to see what I can do. It keeps things interesting. I averaged about 30-50 a day, as there a bunch of sitting ones that took longer than the standing ones.

Today I put all of them in the discount section for L$50 each and L$4800 for the set. Does that make up for not releasing anything for months?

- All of them are from source photos
- Some of the sources are previously used
- Some of them had been scrapped because I couldn’t work out the kinks
- Some had been scrapped before just well.. because I didn’t like it.
- The only tweaking to them was fixing major breaks and balance issues, so they are lower quality than my usual.
- I couldn’t use previously made poses as a starting point
- I couldn’t use my excel cheat sheet

Pro Posers Hunt:
So I have some free (previously unreleased) poses out for this hunt. It ends on the 30th.

In other news:
You may or may not know that prior to working full time in SL, I was a film editor. Part of my moving back to the States was to venture back that direction. I missed editing. A lot. I love making poses, but it’s not editing. It’s not telling a story with pictures, at least not like editing is.

I have this love/hate relationship with both SL and the film industry that I’m not going to bore you with here. SL was a nice break from it, but it’s time for me to go back. I’ve been spending the past few months relearning old stuff, figuring out what’s changed since I left, setting up my online reel and getting ready to put myself out there again. About a month ago, I got a job editing a feature length documentary and I’ve been knee deep in it since. Contract negotiation, production meetings, and other such nonsense that I still haven’t touched a bit of film. Hell, I haven’t even opened Avid.

What does that mean for Reel Expression? A lot less releases and slower customer service response time. I try and log in often, but sometimes I just can’t. I still have pose ideas bouncing around my head screaming to get out, but I’m working on them very slowly. I’m also working on a sim rebuild and attaching it to my dear friend Aems Case’s sim.

So no, I’m not rage quitting. You can’t get rid of me that easily.

Cheers
Luth

Hi all. Just a quick note on why I’ve been so quiet. I’m in the midst of an acute wrist tendinitis flare-up. This is actually the worst it’s been. Typically when it happens, taking a day away from the computer makes it go away for months. The only thing constant I found was that any yoga position with my hands supporting most of my body wasn’t very comfortable.

I suppose all these years of video games, animation, video editing, and other computer things finally caught up to me. I still blame it on Vanguard’s crafting system.

This time around, getting rid of it is proving to be difficult. Luckily it happened right before I went on holiday, but a week off the computer didn’t do very much. So, I spent another week on the couch. Nothing. Ice. Nothing. So I finally broke down and went to my health go to person - aka mom - who suggested a rather strict regiment. Ice it 20min, rest it 20 min, heat 20 min, rest 20min 4 times daily. That eats up 6 hours of my day alone. The rest of the time I can work, but every hour I need to take a 15min break to pace around my apartment doing wrist exercises.

It’s working. I now can rotate my arm without screaming. There is pain, but nothing like it was. But the new poses are taking a while to get out.

Cheers
Luth

Ok. You all know I hide under a rock. So if this is all old news, just bear with me. When I first heard about luck chairs, I thought they were crass. Not as crass as campers or bot camping, but still too gimicky for my integrity. Yes I know, I’m more tortured artist than suave business woman. Whatever.

With the new search of course we got even worse gimicks of gifts only if you have their store in picks… I hate that almost as much as camping. Only because camping lags the store to the point where I refuse to even shop there. Personally, I hate that the search uses picks at all because it can be gamed that easily. Picks should be the creators who you think are awesome, not those that give you free shit for it. For a while at least the all search was a bit better than places, now it actually seems worse. Shopping in SL just makes me feel ill.

Shep also has a new thing sort of like the mobvend (which is higher on the crass-o-meter than the lucky chair) that if enough unique people click on it once by midnight, everyone who did gets the free gift.

But over the weeks I’ve been distracted by plurk, many people I respect have been going lucky chair hunting. So… is it now cool instead of crass?

The reason why I’m asking is cause if people think its fun + like free shit, I’d give in. I actually like giving out free shit.* Biz has always done fine without it so it’s not that much of a big deal either way. And in my experience, traffic has no effect on my sales at all. Not sure if I’m an oddity or not with that, but some of my best weeks have been with some of the lowest traffic numbers. Maybe because word of mouth still beats everything else. Perhaps it’s all my loyal customers I’ve gained over the years. It could be that stuff is easy to find. I dunno.

Oh yeah… as a side note:
I’ve been ill for over a week so the next set has been pushed back. Maybe on Wed? Don’t quote me on that.

Cheers
Luth

*don’t send an IM asking for free shit. I will not respond.

12 new poses just released. Called Arty V2. I had been planning to make this set for a long time, but never seemed to get around to it. After my long holiday and rennewed inspiration of making poses I wanted to venture back to specific roots. I also have converted the last 7 sets into “curvy” version which can be found in the vendors.

Available at the main store, onrez, and slex.

Version 1 was created 2 years ago this week and was the beginning of the types of poses that I really enjoy making. It was a creative response to a thread in the SL animation forum full of complaints of only being able to animate the body and the little you could with it. At the time, the majority of poses only showed the expression of “sexy”. I wanted to something different and that it was.

It was also the very first set of poses that had been reviewed on a fashion blog - written by Willow Zander. No longer was I a kooky animater hiding in seclusion with a few extremly dedicated fans. That set and review began the snowball effect that has been the last 2 years. Which has led me to being called “the queen of poses” by Phoenix Chapman and “the godmother of pose making in SL” by Dove Swanson. Even if in my head I’m still that crazy geek who hides out in Poser most of the time and the rest spent on the old dancing cow freebie.

In my mind I have derailed this year, like I’ve said in other posts. My spark was out and the rare times it came back, someone else would put out a set just like it before I finish. Which just made matters worse. I’m back now and ready to bring out a long list of innovative things.

Cheers!
Luth