Tura has built an art gallery.

The Mondrian-Johnson Gallery of Modern Art.

The theme for the B2B competition build in July 2014 was to make a building based on the architecture of Philip Johnson and the art of Paul Mondrian.

I knew something of Mondrian's art, but I had never heard of Philip Johnson. So I went to Google Images for inspiration. I didn't really get an impression of a single style running through his oeuvre, but I eventually found motifs in some of his works that tickled my brain.

I’ve made a second draft of a mesh parachute harness. The first I made by laboriously extruding a rectangular cross-section inch by inch around the avatar. I’ve since learned how to extrude one curve along another, so I made the second version by wrapping Bezier curves around the body and extruding a rectangle along them. Then I converted it to a mesh, and with some help from the Blender Avastar group uploaded it and adjusted the balloon to join onto it.

This is still a fairly raw draft. The weight assignment needs a lot of work. Making an animated pose to go with it is going to be interesting, as to keep the harness joined to the balloon, the avatar has to be animated as if the chest bone were the root, which should remain fixed while the rest of the avatar moves.

Circumnavigating the volcano in Mahulu

The web site is live. Anyone with a copy of this balloon (which is only me at the moment) can log their journey and later see a map of the route, drawn on the SL world map.

Tura has made a balloon.

Kanin region

Today's addition to the villa: rustic stonework for the door frames.

I wish I had more time to work in Second Life, but I’ve made some recent progress on the villa. Here I’ve filled in more detail for the portico and balcony, and built and scripted some doors. The outside walls are all in place now. The textures are still placeholders, and there are some plywood surfaces poking through.

Spiral stair sculpts. The stair texture is just something chosen to make the sharp edges stand out. I haven’t decided what the real texture will be.

At Tura’s workshop.

Tura is building a new home.