Alaska’s Picks – New Shoots

Here I’ve chosen three outfits from each section for the New Shoots show to give you a taste of what’s to come for the show. It was hard to pick just a handful. I think you’ll be as surprised as I was with the quality of the fashion coming from these new designers. Myllie and Annah were both under 4 months of age when they applied for the New Shoots showcase, but I know we’ll be seeing a lot more of both of them!

ANNAH COUTURE:

Candystripe is the kind of delicious retro dress I’d wear on a first date if I wante d to look sweet.

Gillian comes with a white trim version as well that’s just heavenly. I love the contrast of black on buttercup yellow though.

I normally am not a big fan of babydolls, but this dress is flowing and can either be a cute casual, or by slipping on the matching black lace gloves, a more formal look.

PERSONA:

Misbehaved lingerie is seductively feminine and pretty.

The Mias dress is a perfect fall outfit. Simple and classy. The matching lace shrug is a great touch.

This gown is a real stunner! Named Evening Inspiration, it’s the kind of gown you’d wear if you want to be the star of the evening.

New Shoots will run on Friday, September 28 at 6:00 PM SLT and Saturday, September 29 at 11:00 AM SLT. Hope to see you there!

New Shoots – A Fashion Showcase

Join Metro Models and Second Style as they present a showcase of two talented new fashion designers in Second Life. Annah Couture and PERSONA will be presented by some of Second Life’s most beautiful established and up and coming models. We recommend arriving 10 minutes early to ensure you a get a seat and to enjoy the goodie bags.

Showtimes: Friday, September 28, 2007 at 6:00 PM SLT
Saturday, September 29, 2007 at 11:00 AM SLT

Location: Metro Models event stage: Narcissus Island (203, 171, 22)

More models get their own profiles, plus…

…please welcome the winners of the Second Style model search to Metro Models. They will be assisting us with the New Shoots show, and are invited to the join the agency afterwards.

The following model profiles were added to the Models page: Ana, Anastacia, Candace, CronoCloud, Francesca, Leisa, Queenie, Summer, and Valerie.

New Shoots – A Fashion Showcase

Now confirmed – New Shoots, a fashion showcase of designers under 4 months old, will be held towards the end of September. New Shoots will feature Annah Couture by Annah Whitfield and PERSONA by Myllie Writer.

The show will be a first for Metro Models and we’re very excited about showcasing the high-quality, classically feminine designs from both Annah and Myllie. Though both are newer players, they show amazing potential and we hope you’ll join us for this fashion event showing the next generation of fashion design in Second Life.

Stay tuned for show time and event locations!

New Shoots is co-sponsored by Second Style. Issue #11 is now on stands!

Possible employee impersonation

It’s come to my attention that it’s possible someone is impersonating a Metro Models coordinator and is harassing designers about free items.

Please be aware it is completely unauthorized. ONLY Alaska Metropolitan will be in communication with designers about shows or shoots!

How did she do that? Or, CC plays with The GIMP.

After having joined the Metro Models agency and visited the new headquarters one of the first things on my mind was: “How did Alaska make the “METRO MODELS” logo stand out like that on the building.?”.

At first I thought the actual leters were prims, but they’re not, it’s just a texture. Then I thought, “Cool, I wonder how you do that in The GIMP”

In case the reader doesn’t know, The GIMP is a free and open source image editor often referred to as the free equivalent to PhotoShop. I have used it for my very simple image editing needs for years, having first been exposed to it in 2002 on my Linux machine, in it’s older GTK1 using 1.1.4 version. It served me very well, and I have continued using it for image editng for SL and not-SL related to this day. However, as I said, my uses of it are very simple. Cropping, resizing, saving in various formats, that was pretty much it until last year when I began playing a bit more with it. Learning to do collages for example. I’ve not really explored the more advanced features of it. But I decided to try to duplicate the effect that Alaska created to see if I could do it with my limited skills. Which I did.

Basically, what I did was create a blank canvas, put a text layer on top of that using the Kartika font, use select by color to select the actual letters, create a drop shadow using the function in the Script-fu menu, clear the black pixels of the still selected letters and replace the black with a pink marble pattern. Then I simply used the Emboss filter. Not bad for a first try and a good example fo what exploring and playing with the features of your software can teach you.

I decided to play some more when I saw the model “Polaroids” here on the blog. RL model agencies themselves use Polaroids for various uses, as seen in reality TV shows depicting the modeling business, so I thought that was a neat touch. Again, I decided to try my hand at making some “Polaroids” of my own. I googled and found various tutorials for doing so manually and also found a “Polaroid” script to add to the GIMP’s script-fu functions. Using the script, adding some drop shadow and a plain backdrop I was able to get something similar, but not as nice looking with relatively minimal effort. I figured RL model agencies might write model’s names on the Polaroids so I used a Brush script font to add my name as if written by a felt tip marker.

So no matter what your skills this goes to show you that anyone can do fun and interesting things with their imaging software with a little bit of experimtation.

7 new model profiles up

Please welcome Arabesque, Aradia, HarMonica, Moisie, Mui, Nemi and Serenity to the Models page!

Though the agency has just started, I am already excited about the talent and beautiful avatars we have working with us.

6 new model profiles up :)

Today we held our first training session, and I feel it went well. We’ve got some stunning models in our group and it’s exciting to start working on this project!

After the workshop, where participants learned about creating a unique look for their avatar, working with shapes, body proportions and avoiding the dreaded system skirt “giant butt” syndrome, I snapped some quick polaroids of myself (lol) and 5 other models to start the profile page. Welcome Lisa, Payton, Qi, Salindria and Temptest to the Models section of our website! More models will be coming shortly (we ran out of time to take snaps of them all!) so watch the site for more coming soon.

New designers, under 4 months old – your very own free showcase fashion show!

As a new, “boutique-style” model agency prepares to start up, we’d like to give new designers a chance to be showcased. Because this will be our first show, it will be FREE publicity for your fashion items!

The showcase, tentatively titled “New Shoots”, will be held towards the end of September. What we are offering 4 new designers:

• A showcase of 4 outfits to be modelled during the show
• A keepsake book/catalogue for show participants to leave with, including photos of your designs
• Vendor space (box with “sell contents” only!) during + after the show, with a total of 10 vendors
• All the publicity that comes along with being part of a fashion show in Second Life. Movers and shakers of the SL fashion community will be invited.

To apply, please drop the following on me (Alaska Metropolitan) before Sunday, September 9th, 2007:
A note card with:
1) Your avatar name
2) your birthdate in SL
3) your store brand/name
4) up to 5 photos of your products
5) a landmark to your store/mall location in SL (or a link if you only sell via shop.onrez or SLExchange)
6) a short paragraph detailing why you’d like to be part of a fashion show, what your inspirations are for your fashion, and what you see yourself doing in the future in Second Life.

Only avatars under the age of 4 months (as of contest start date) are eligible. Thank you for your understanding. Preparing for a fashion show is work and you’ll be asked to supply the models with clothing they will keep, as well as some text describing the outfits. Therefore, we ask only serious designers to apply.