Friday, March 23, 2007

Temenos Island is Dead! Long Live Temenos Island!

Fine. Sue me for the silly title. But, it's true...the old Temenos shopping area, with all it's stores is going away. because...everything is moving soonish to the new and improved Temenos Island.

Temenos is a year old or so now, and I have watched and learned, listening in carefully to all the customers over the last year as they shopped and complained about things at Temenos. There have been numerous issues and things needing improvement I have learned in this time. I created what I thought was a very simple and intuitive teleporter system...but sadly most people were confused by it, and it rarely was used, and often bitched about. So...that will be totally revamped. When I designed the temple shopping area, it seemed I had soooo much room to expand. But a year later I am so cramped and out of room I have curtailed many new releases just for lack of a place to put them. So...obviously the new store needs to be hugerish than this one. people complained often...usually by shouting while standing in the central lobby...that they couldn't find whatever they came to buy. I will try to make the layout far more user friendly and also add more ways to find information on where things are located. Temenos has always had 5 floors, 4 of them housing shoppes...however, I have found that most people rarely find the stores on the upper floors, which is clearly a problem of both design and information. The new store will be mostly on a single level, so as to eliminate that issue. And those are just a few of the major issues I have noted with the old build.

So...after deciding I surely needed to have a bigger, better designed and simpler store, I decided I just couldn't part with the current build on Temenos. Which meant, I had to buy a 5th island and build the new store there and move everything. This approach has advantages and disadvantages. the big disadvantage...not including costs...is that when moving any store there is a small percentage of customers who may not find you again. In this case, since the new island will be right next door, and share the same keyword in it's name (the old island is simply "Temenos", and the new will be "Temenos Island"), and since the old build will remain with a landmark pointer to the new store...I think this is a minimal concern. hell...you should be able to see the new store from the old...unless your draw distance is set at like 10 or something. The big advantages are...i get to keep the cool old build with Mount Sy'kirra...one of the few volcanos in all Second Life, and not have to disturb the roleplay areas I created around the island, from the pirate cove and neko tree village to the Japanese temple sanctuary. I am too attached to these builds to want to let them go just to expand the store. So they get to stay this way.

Temenos Island will sit right next door to Temenos, and the two landmasses will be connected to form a single island that continues to share the jungle ruins theme. The new store complex will cover much of the new sim and should leave me and the other stores I have invited to have lots of room for future expansion. The overall style of the stores will remain based on the "jungle ruins" look from Temenos, but will be revisioned to be more simplified and easier to navigate.

I have ambitious plans for a detailed scripted directory system that shows where everything is, and can even teleport you to it...assuming I can make my poor scripting skill manage it. LL recently broke my old teleport system that used warpPos anyway...so definately time for a new one.

If you have ever visited or shopped at Temenos, and you have ideas or suggestions, gripes or bitching about what was wrong with the build or what could be improved...I would greatly appreciate your imput, either here at the blog or in SL. I ordered the island last week, and I was shocked to see they delivered it already...but put it in the wrong place. So...as soon as I can get them to move it where it belongs...I shall begin work on the new store complex.

Following the opening of the new Temenos Island stores, I have a whole slew of stuff I plan to release, including the newly revisioned and repainted Neko Skins version 2, and lots lots more.

The old temple store build atop the volcano in Temenos will be converted into a combination roleplay area, and live music club most likely. Yes, I am deaf, but live music seems to be a big thing in SL, and I always wanted to try making a small club that is not a glitz-filled, flashing lagfest of lightshows and scripted 'sploder balls. I have hired a club manager for it, and we are brainstorming ways to make it more of a true social gathering spot without the gimics. If it goes over great...if not, then who knows. But, any ideas or suggestions in that area are also welcome.

So...look soon for more announcements about the coming opening of the all new and improved Temenos Island!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

~ broken ~ products

I wanted to toss some images up this morning of just a few of the new products now available at the ~ broken ~ store. Hopefully I will get even more done in the next few days. I plan to use today's downtime to work some new textures up, so we will see. For now, the items below are already up and available, among others...


Lucifer - This is a complete outfit, rather anime inspired, which includes my new ~ broken ~ strapped boots, pants, vest, shrug shirt, overcoat and gloves. The jacket, shirt and vest all come on seperate layers, or merged together on various layer versions for maximum flexibility.


Sheer Shirts - This is but one version of these silky semi-sheer shirts. There are eight different shirts available with various designs, each comes with a high collar and scooped collar version and they are completely unisex ad look so hot on the guys too. They include all layer options.


Body Belts - these ~ broken ~ strapped body belts are designed to match the boots, gauntlets, and waist belts all in the same style. This set comes with both upper arm bands, thigh bands, and a neck collar band. Unisex, and pre-sized for small and large avies.


Gauntlets - The strapped gauntlets match the rest of the options, including the boots, and come with fingerless under glove and prim parts for arm and hand. Pre-sized for men and women, as with the other items.


Strapped Belt - Belts have always been a bitch for me in SL. No one ever makes em small enough to fit my avatar, so I always look like I have a fuckin' truck tire around my waist. So, here is a new belt set that was designed for someone small like me and then sized up for the big people. It will fit most smaller avies (I am 4'9" in SL) though may still be a bit big on some children avatars. Totally kickin' on men or women.


Cross Corsets - Okies, these corsets aren't very unisex, but hey...gotta have a few kick-ass girlie things in there ya know? I have a corset fetish in SL and RL, and just can't resist making em. So, this is but one colour of 8. Yeah, they have a religious theme...sue me. I am a former catholic girl gone bad who spent years rebelling among the pagan withes. I got religious fixation issues, deal with it. Lots of the ~ broken ~ items will have religious themes, though not all will be Catholic oriented.

Not pictured, but also available are two styles of men's prim soul patches, some ribbon corset piercings, and whatever else I can't recall now. I plan a whole line of men's prim facial hair. I made myself a really hawt and drool-worthy bishie boi avatar to use in ads , and got obsessed with making him a soul patch. The idea grew outta that, and now I plan everything from demonic goatees to handlebar mustaches.

Coming up soon...plans for prim thigh high boots, stillettos, more kick-ass overcoats and trenchers, and lotsa stuff with spikes. Just to mention a few. Oh...and the vampire and gothic skins are still being tweaked and will arrive shortly. Male and female, yes.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Zoe Llewelyn is ~ broken ~

It's been quite a while since I posted anything, or even since I released or worked on anything new in Second Life. So long...over three long, long months...that some people seem to have thought maybe I died. Well, sadly for them, no, Zoe is not dead, nor even horribly maimed. I am, however, quite ~ broken ~ in more ways than one.

Now, I know that no one comes to a fashion blog to hear the designers whine about their problems as if we are different in some way from the rest of the fucked up people out there...so I will spare you any rambling on the exact nature of my issues, and just say that I have a lot of them. So many that over the years, I have taken to considering myself one of the most fucked up, insane, and broken people I have known.

Why do I mention this now, in this blog, and after 3 months of silence? Well, the reason is two-fold. Firstly, it is why I have been away, hiding, and not working, releasing new stuffs, blogging here, or even logging into SL for weeks at a time. Holidays are not fun for lots of people, and I am among them. But as bad as the "holiday season" is for me, the first few months of the year are worse for me and usually result in me going into a deep, uncontrollable tailspin for a while. All due to my issues and fuckedupedness. Secondly, because when I finally did come back from my period of insanity, and started working again, I decided to finally design some of the dark, gothic, industrial, punk influenced fucked-up type clothes and accessories that I like most at my heart but have sorta avoided making yet in SL. Since this new style didn't really seem to fit with any of my current brands...guess what nutty Zoe did? Yes, she created yet another new brand name and clothing line...

The new store, ~ broken ~ is thus named after me. It represents me better in some ways than any of my previous work, and to be honest it just speaks to where I am in life at the moment: fucked up, angry at life, struggling, and quite broken inside.

So...here is the post to officially announce the newest store, brand and line of clothing, skins and accessories:


So, what does ~ broken ~ offer that my beelion previous brand names didn't? Something angrier. if you like your clothes made of leather, metal, spikes, broken glass, sheer materials, torn and dirty, edgy, shocking, and with a bit of a bite...~ broken ~ may be for you. It's highly inspired by my many real life interests and influences in style and clothing over the years, from Punk to Gothic, Industrial, Grunge, Vampires, and just about anything else fucked up enough to catch my dark, scary little mind's eye. yes, there is even some anime influence in it...but not the cutesy anime stuff.

The new ~ broken ~ line carries both male and female outfits and accessories, and will soon also sport gothic skins for both sex. Yes, indeed, you heard me...stuff for guys too. I have made a point, after a year of comments and suggestions from male customers and friends, to start designing more of my outfits to either be unisex, or have a male counterpart. There are plans down the road for hair, AOs, and anything else I feel is fucked-up enough to place in this brand.

The ~ broken ~ store is located temporarily in the volcano, under the lava at Temenos Island. There are a few signs with teleporters around to find your way there...or if you feel crazy enough, just jump into the lava. You will find it. Eventually, ~ broken ~ will move to its permenant home on the Isle of Damnation, just north of Temenos...but that is a ways off.