Winter Wonderland

While taking photos for my Christmas card this year I found a couple of really fun spots. While I want to re-shoot most of them so I can get everything JUST right, here's a few that came out better than expected.

Hanging in the park in New London. The rest of these are from Timeless Photography.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kalamata/196/128/21

Cute deer. This is my new profile pic for the holidays.

Is that sign for the deer or me?

Time to send off that letter to Santa.

A better look in my box.

Yes it is a bit chilly taking these photos but its so much fun.

40K Calendar Pictures

So this scifi sim I'm in is doing a calendar and I figured I'd do some demo shots. My previous pirate photos will serve for the Rogue Trader. In addition. . .

Anastasia of Volk. One part Russian, one part HUGE FLAMER (not shown)

Magdalena of the Administratum. Want to see more? Just fill these out in triplicate. Sign here, here, here and there. Initial these 37 sections and include certified funds. . .

Marg, the Ork girl, likes to take off her heavy armor at the end of the day and watch the underhive go by below. She's never without her kombi-weapon, though.

The as yet unnamed Mandrake (womandrake) of the Dark Eldar. She may seem like fun but she eats souls. So. . .yeah.

Behind the Scenes of Devil Girl

Detective Reynolds started out as a nameless cast-off attempt to inject some plot into the series. The more I look over the last strip, though, the more compelling she becomes. Justine has been one of my biggest supporters in this little project and I'm delighted that she's willing to play one of the major roles for me.

Being a female police detective in the (more or less) 50's was probably unheard of. I'll have to look more closely at how she managed it as time goes on. Being a closet lesbian detective in the 50's opens up a lot of room for depth and drama that DG just hasn't developed yet. Reynolds probably faces what we would consider sexual harassment on a daily basis. She definitely gets less serious cases and gets thrown the perverts so the guys can laugh at her.

In some ways they're mirror opposites. DG rarely has to worry about consequences. She is, after all, a devil girl. In order to maintain her charm she has to be fun and more or less get away with being true to her nature. Detective Reynolds is all about the cost and consequences of being a self-directed woman in that era. She works because being true to her nature is not easy for her. She's also shaping up to be DG's consequences incarnate. When the two finally meet up its going to be epic.

I'm still not entirely satisfied with the art style but I'm learning as I go. The filters I use to give the strip an illustrated look seem to like bright light, so my next challenge will be to mess with the light and contrast levels to get the nice thick lines while still making some scenes look dark.

The editor's notes make the strip fun for me. They're a chance to drop the narrative voice and make some comments in my own, more light-hearted style.

I'm still exploring the possibilities of DG (and maybe even Detective Reynolds) tie-ins in SL. I'd really love to see a DG brand chopper out there.

As this raw outtake shows, the spots do indeed go all the way down. It also shows that I'm her date, but let's all just let that slide. It was late and I would have had trouble finding a second model for this sequence.

Adventures of Devil Girl

The Adventures of Devil Girl is now up and running. Its my little tribute to vintage artwork and my own twisted sense of humor.

Coming Soon

The Adventures of Devil Girl

A blog comic.

Sacred Courtesans

I'm going to take a break from random naked digital shots for a moment to go into something just as interesting but based in the real world. As I'm sure some of you know already, prostitution is legal in some parts of the Western world. Amsterdam has its red-light district. Nevada has legal brothels pretty much everywhere but Vegas and Reno. Australia has its own brothels as well. I'm not going to debate the morality too much. I will say this, though, legal=safe in this case. Check the requirements in any of these places for a legal brothel and you will see that the dangers of the underground sex-worker just are not there.

However, the world's oldest profession is still not exactly a respected one. Make no mistake there are skills to be learned and honed, work clothes to buy and all of the other things that a real profession requires. These women are as professional as anyone in a more normal office environment. However, there's still a lot of incentive to keep your job quiet from friends and family.

So, in that vein, I thought that those in the industry could use a little positive re-enforcement. As adults making a free choice that's true to themselves despite what society may say, I support them. So I got to thinking, why not have a symbol? Something you can wear that announces to those in the know "I'm not ashamed of what I do" while not necessarily getting you disowned from your family. What I came up with was this:

The scallop shell is the symbol of Aphrodite. Although commonly known in English as the goddess of love, she was also quite openly the goddess of passion and sex. A subclass of her priestesses engaged in sacred prostitution and ritual sex. Those currently in the trade do much the same thing, providing a transcendent experience for money.

This necklace says "I'm a child of Aphrodite. I like what I do and I'm good at it. My profession is not just an honorable one but a spiritual one and I'm willing to take it to that level."

This particular necklace is spoken for but if there are any other brothel workers, call girls etc out there who want to reclaim their spot as a sacred priestess, let me know. I can always make more.

Pirate shoot

Yarr mateys! Here be one of the few pics from last night's shoot that I really liked.