Kat Johnston

Tag: sanu

  • Sanu In SL: Crayons are made for fun.

    Kat Johnston as Sanu: Crayons! You shouldn’t stick them up your nose, and any drawing is given a 20% bonus cute factor just by using them. In short… they’re awesome.

    Crayons… they’re cute, they’re quirky, and any drawing is instantly made a trillion times cuter and comes with added whimsy when drawn with the humble crayon. These are no ordinary crayons though… when someone gives one a click, it gives them an especially cute hand-drawn picture! Awww… can anyone say adorable? There’s twelve colours to collect!

    To name them, I jumped into my Sanu system group (which is made of much awesome and win when I need some ideas, by the way) and asked them for some suggestions! Soooo, all of the names have been offered by my very own groupies.

    Don’t you love the names of crayons? I had to look up some of the current crayon colour names (just because they’re so awesome), and you’ve just got to love the imagination-evoking titles that are given… like ‘Razzle Dazzle Rose’, ‘Mountain Meadow’ or ‘Tumbleweed’. But of course, not everyone wants those cookie-cutter politically correct PG rated names, do they? Of course not. Rejected crayon colour names are so enticing that someone’s even formed a Facebook group to celebrate how awesome they are.

    Anyhow, all this talk about crayons makes me seriously want to go out and buy a set right now… and if it weren’t after 6pm on a Saturday night, I think I would actually do so. I might have to wait for Monday! Is anyone interested in seeing me scribble with some crayons?

  • Sanu in SL: You can’t wear a cupcake on your head… or can you?

    Kat Johnston/Sanu in SL: Tasty cuppies are utterly delicious. These are date-loaf cupcakes with a raspberry and wild hibiscus buttercream.Kat Johnston/Sanu in SL: Tasty cuppies are utterly delicious. These are date-loaf cupcakes with a raspberry and wild hibiscus buttercream.

    I’m posting a picture of a cupcake today, because I’d like to show how my everyday life ties into my creative pursuits. I baked those cupcakes last night – they’re a date-loaf cupcake with a liberal serving of raspberry and hibiscus buttercream.

    In case you were curious as to how I got the two-toned icing, I used a piece of parchment paper to divide the piping bag before scooping in the different colours – one to either side. Carefully remove the parchment and voila! Perfectly consistent two-toned icing in your piping bag. I love beautifully presented food, so I am trying a little harder to make even the common cupcake look wildly delicious.

    So how does this relate to Second Life, anyway?

    Kat Johnston/Sanu in SL: now for the Second Life translation… a cupcake on one’s head.

    The things that I enjoy in real life inform what I do in the second. I may not be able to eat as many cupcakes as I want or wear one on my head in the real world, but I’ll be darned if I can’t enjoy it in a virtual one, where something as simple as a food item can become a fashion statement in itself. You don’t get the joy of actually eating it, but luckily you get to dodge the calories too!

    The cupcake pictured is currently one of a whole heap currently available in the lucky cuppie at Sanu.

    Additional images of the real life cupcakes, including Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licensed photos can be found in my Baking/Cooking Flickr set.

  • Sanu Stuff: A little inspiration from Shakespeare

    Kat Johnston: Ahhh, it really is a gorgeous piece of work, if I do say so myself. This has to be my favourite skybox in SL, and not just because I made it!

    Ok, so my hubby still doesn’t have the scanner set up… so I’m going to show another Sanu related item! I’m saying this, by the way, as he is dutifully plugging it in beside me.

    Anyhow… this is not a recent recent release – it was put out a little while ago. It is, however, one of my favourite releases ever. This lovingly made little skybox is just gorgeous, with luscious textures and little details that make me smile. Working curtains that pop back and forth with a click, a placard with multiple Shakespearean play titles built in, so that you can have a different one set up every day, and even a built in pose so that you can be the star of the show without much ado.

    Making it was a bit of a laborious process, because I wanted everything just so. I had a little vision in my head of what this skybox would look like, and it really needed to be fulfilled. There was quite an amount of ‘umming’ and ‘ahhhing’ as I was testing out extra little bits and pieces – candelabras, wall sconces, additional decoration… but in the end, what was created, when finished, did exceed my every expectation.

    I’ve got to admit, that is one of the things that I do so love about Second Life – the creativity and freedom to explore an idea without as much trouble of ‘messing it up’ because you did one thing wrong. So long as you back up your work along the way, you’re fairly fine. You can explore all your options, tweak and obsess until you get it juuuuust right… which is a great thing for me, because I am a bit of a tweaker (something, I must admit, gets me into trouble now and then with media that can’t be reverted back to a previous version with a click).

    As this post draws to a close, it would appear that my dear scanner has finally been plugged in and is ready again to scan away to its heart’s content – so you can expect a post with an actual drawing soon!

    Are you in Second Life? You can get your own Shakespearean Theatre Skybox by teleporting to my store here. There is a demo set up too, so you can see it in person before you buy!

  • Sanu Stuff: Hi there… it’s been a while!

    Sanu Stuff: It’s a Christmas succubus! Isn’t she pretty?

    It has been a while since I’ve posted to this blog… what can I say? I’ve been busy! Buuuut, I really should get into the habit of posting again. Since my printer/scanner is not currently up and running though, I am restricted to what I have on hand. What do I have on hand, you say? Why, I have images from my Second Life stuff!

    Here is one of my most recent creations… well, part of it, anyway. I have done a range of succubi outfits, and this is a special little something just for Christmas! Sanu products in this image include the eyes, ears, horns, wings, choker and candy-cane, all of which can be purchased in-world along with a whole heap of other pieces to the set. Isn’t it wonderful when creativity strikes?

  • Sanu: Ok… I’m going to start posting some Sanu things here again…

    Sanu in SL: Oh yeah… this is one kick-ass looking sign, don’t you think? This is a competition for the truly creative!

    Because I am seriously too lazy to maintain two blogs. I know, I know, I should really learn how to maintain the two, but it is harrrrrd… so occasionally you’re going to get something like this sneak through. Besides… I’m really proud of this sign! I mean… come on. How cool is this sign, guys?

    As many of you may know, I maintain a little hobby business in Second Life, and as a part of that, I am holding a little competition. Sanu has held four ‘quests’ since it opened (I’m not including the mini-quest… it was just a space filler!), and there is now a competition on to see how people have been inspired by them! The rules are simple: make an image inspired by one part of a story, and go to town with the creativity. The images will be posted on the Sanu in SL flickr group (which can be found here) for everyone to see, and the grand prize winners will get a whole swag of goodies. Full rules and all that can be found in the Sanu flickr group discussion section, too.

    So anyhow… that is my bit of creativity for this morning, though the sign was started last night. Something was just off for a little while there, and it had me stumped, but now I think I have it looking rather snappy. Yay Sanu!

    Edit: I’ll have to replace the image with a properly resized one at some point, because the automatic resizing that occurs when a larger image is used on the blog has made some of the smaller text blurry… and it isn’t actually blurry! Uhhh… so… ignore the blurriness, ok?