31 May 2015

New Impressions from Never Drift & Opening Party Date!

The Professor is almost finished with building on his Sim. If that's not a good reason for some more pictures, I don't know a better one!


The Sim is called Never Drift, because it hopefully never drifts away!




The islands seen from below...



...from the famous Nautilus!



Looking like The Velvet Underground going steampunk: your Drow-Blogger and Prof. Wickentower.


The opening party will be on Sunday, June 14 at 12 PM SLT, featuring the fantastic jazz-singer and overall great chap Clyde Barrow! I will keep you up-to-date with further info.

29 May 2015

Never Drift - First Pictures!

My good (and pretty crazy) friend, Professor Wickentower seems to finally has put down roots - air roots of course! He is now the happy owner of his own homestead region - Never Drift.






Here some first impressions. Needless to mention that its a lovely scenic and steampunky floating village with fort, airship dock, lighthouse, pub - and a lot else to discover!




























Currently Never Drift isn’t open for public, but once the building is finished, access will be granted - stay tuned!

16 May 2015

Big WW1-Anniversary-Airplane Overhaul!

When you step into a modern passenger plane today or see a jet fighter above your head and hear the boom when it breaks the sound barrier, its easy to forget that exactly 100 years ago, during World War 1, aviation was still in its infancy. The air planes were flimsy constructions made of wood, wire and fabric and their air-bases were usually not more than an abandoned field and some tents and shacks.


Immortal legend: Manfred von Richthofen's red Fokker Triplane.

Despite their simplicity air planes were something exotic and spectacular though. Wherever an airplane was spotted, people couldn't help but gaze at them and cheer to their pilots, who were idolized like superstars.


Albatros D.Va - the backbone of the German air force in 1917 and 1918.

These people were daredevils in the best sense of the word. Flying these fragile, but deadly armed machines to fight each other, thousands of feet above the ground. Without parachute. Day after day, sometimes from morning till sunset.


Sopwith Camel - the most successful fighter of the war.


No era in aviation fascinates me more than World War 1. Build just a few years after the first motorized flight, these machines are the definite flying machines for me. They didn't had much engine power, or sophisticated weapons or highly developed flight-control systems. Some 100 hp, a machine-gun or two and wire-controlled rudders had to do. But this primitiveness, this basic and natural flying with the pilots exposed to the elements and listening to their guts rather than looking at their instruments is the stuff legends are made of.


Fokker D.VII - the best German fighter plane.


Nieuport 17 - one of WW1's most classy (and good looking) designs.


Fast and powerful and aggressive: the S.E.5a.


To celebrate this legendary era, I did update all of my World-War-1 air planes. With improved textures and new mesh parts and a general design overhaul, these machines look better than ever before. I also have released a new creation: a 1915 Fokker E.III 'Eindecker' (monoplane). The game-changer of aerial warfare! The Eindecker was the first fighter plane with an interrupter-geared machine gun to fire through the propeller arc, which allowed the pilots a much higher firing accuracy than in any other plane. It took the Allies until well into 1916 till they had a match for the Fokker Eindecker. Until then, the E.III remained the definite fighter plane.



How it all started: The Fokker Eindecker.


All creations are available now! Check them out!

15 May 2015

Professor Wickentower's Transmissions through the Aether - Part 2

After the positive reception of the first post of our new series, I am glad to present you his second transmission today. Enjoy!

The Professor transmitting his transmissions!


Beware, beware,
Be careful where you tread, 
Be careful what you do,
'cause Mumbo-Jumbo 'gonna Hoo-do you.
I heard a Soldier say that once, Soldiers know death is watching and waiting, but they do not fear death, they are just watchful of him. The Soldier was quite right of course. One should be careful where you walk, be careful where you tread. You see there are some places you should not walk, and the less adventurous, or more sensible if you ask me! Will not tread. Be warned, some places, do not like visitors, some places are very old, and sometimes there are very old things which still dwell there. and they do not like you treading in their streets.

In a ancient rotting Seaport, cloaked in mist and shrouded in rumor, it is not just death that watches, things older than death lurk just beyond your lamplight, half seen out of the corner of your eye, only to vanish when you turn to look. A creak on the Hotel stairs, is just an old building settling, isn't it? Because, you know no one is there on the stairs, just beyond the door, which you keep locked because, well...you just do...Or, is it, in the back of your mind, really a barrier? Between you, and the other side of madness?.

The residents, or as one might like to call them 'denizens' watch you, unblinking from half shuttered windows, as you wander along over grown pavements flanked by crumbling houses, once fine and even austere, now draped in ivy, unkempt and unclean.
The shoreline flows into the salt marshes, vast, mist shrouded and empty...But are they empty? Of course they are! That is just mist, and not tendrils from a half formed bulk of some 'thing' which perhaps, is best left alone...

Water flows into half covered sewer grates, twisting out across the port town like veins under a corrupt skin.
And here, you really should not wander, and if you do, when the lamp light flickers and the shadows dance, and the half hidden openings in the walls, yawn wide into the proverbial blackness, you really must be careful where you tread, be careful what you do, because something more foreboding than Mumbo-Jumbo is going to do much worse, than Hoo-do you!..
But...
Those places are far away, far from the nice normal safe streets of your home town, and one would never ever think of visiting them, but ...Would one?

Exert From
 'My further travels across the 35th Dimension and other places'
Prof.Z.Wickentower.

[here the writer tips his hat to the Innsmouth Sim and it's creators]

13 May 2015

Professor Wickentower's Transmissions through the Aether

On one of my many journeys through the steampunky realms of Second Life, I met a person who would become very quickly a dear friend of mine. Professor Zen Wickentower. Regular readers may be familiar with this name. We did collaborate on several projects before.




Today, I introduce you to the narrative side of him. We were talking about him having a more or less regular series about his travels and the adventures he had. So here is the first part of "Professor Wickentower's Transmissions through the Aether". I hope you enjoy them!

Once, a few Tinkerers would have it, even before the rise of the Steampunks way back in the History of the JunkPunks of Old Shoregate, there were the Clockpunks. they had other names of course, Cogpunks, was another, and they lived isolated beyond the Black-Coal shores beyond the turbulent Aether streams, beyond the Grey-cloud reefs, in the brass walled Clanking City.
Clock workers, labored in their factories, sprung wound conveyances trundled along the copper paved streets and their clock work Dirigibles glided above the brazen roofs and pinnacles.
But that was a long time ago.
A very few claim to have seen one of these clockwork artificers and most think they are a myth...But...
Recently, a Mad Tinkerer, built the first, for a long time anyway, Clockwork Dirigible. Maybe he found a wreck, off the Cavorite crags? Or the worn and tattered schematics left by the original maker in an ancient, dust cocooned draw? Who knows?... Now these Clockwork Aetherboats are being spotted again, drifting almost silently through the clouds, their arrival heralded by the slow ticking and clicking of the clockwork mechanism.

Of the Clockpunks themselves? Little remains to show they were even here, some twisting spires of brass and cobweb shrouded clockwork are sometimes sighted on the distant horizon, before they are engulfed in stormcloud, or a curio, from their homes might turn up, at a merchants store, sold by a salvage man, tight lipped as to how he came by it of course!

But...some Aeronauts, say, in the quite hours of the, late watches, and if the static is very very low, if you listen very carefully to transmissions on the Aetherscope, you can almost hear the faint clicking of gears. Most say that it is just the engines of the Airship, echoing through the hull but some say that this is the sound of the Clanking city, out there, beyond the Black Coal shores, beyond the grey cloud reefs, where the air Kraken prowl and the Night Gaunts lurk....What do you think?

Exert from "My travels in the 35th Dimension and other places" 
                  By Prof.Z.Wickentower.


12 May 2015

Sim Redecoration @Unzipped!

My friends Destany and Barnabas at Tesla Isle have given their sim a major - and quite beautiful - redesign.

Besides the new layout, with a lovely shopping village and plenty of scenic spots, the new place will also see new events, like treasure-hunts - great news!

After setting up my new store there I had a stroll around the sim with my partner Emma.


The Unzipped Mainstore with the new landing-area in the foreground.


Lovely Airship!

From the mainstore our journey lead us to the village on the eastern side of the sim. 


The center of the village is marked by a ring of gothic arches


Oh what a lovely store!


View from the village to the Unzipped mainstore in the north.


A little underwater excursion.




Back on the surface we met the local sea-dragon Tessie, who looks quite happy in its new environment!


As you see, there is a lot to explore and I guess I didn't even scratched the surface yet. The sim is definitely worth taking a look or two ;-)

Unzipped Landing point

Drow Science @Tesla Isle


P.S. Yes, thats a Ms. Marvel outfit I am wearing. I didn't change since our last dance at Raven Park. Putting on so much skin-coloured makeup over my natural drow grey was a hell lot of work btw ;-)

5 May 2015

An Undead... Sim?

Shoregate, today afternoon: still kinda there.



It seems not only the zombies of New Shoregate, but the whole sim itself has become undead! Exactly one week after the last payment happened the place is still intact! Well – mostly.
I don't expect this state to last for much longer though. I guess the rental company just wants to show what beautiful landscaping and builds are possible on a homestead sim. There is at least a clear sign that the land managers did indeed visit and like the place. They put up their land sale booth right in front of the tower, instead of clearing up the sim and rezzing it then.

This is quite ironic, but shows how much the place was and still is appreciated and loved. That's at least how I interpret it ;-)


So if you want to pay the Sim that was New Shoregate a last visit – better hurry. It is still here. But who knows for how long.

This way, please.


P.S.
Due to changing the land-group by the rental company zombies, kraken or the plane rezzer don't work anymore. but the tram is still there!