None of these styles will be available until the fair opens and, for the duration of the fair, will only be available at the fair.

Here is a preview of the fourth new hairstyle which will be available at Hair Fair 2010 from Curio Obscura:

Give people a reason to play with your hair with the Puzzle Hairstyle! It’s a puzzle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a full can of hairspray!

Fully Functional Puzzle!

This puzzle really works. You can touch any side of this cube-like hairstyle to rotate the blocky hair segments on that side. If you keep the puzzle unlocked, everyone around you can join in the fun, trying to solve the puzzle of you!

Since the centers of each side can never be moved away, you’ll always be able to peek out, no matter how scrambled this puzzle gets!

None of these styles will be available until the fair opens and, for the duration of the fair, will only be available at the fair.

Here is a preview of the third new hairstyle which will be available at Hair Fair 2010 from Curio Obscura:

Keep a close eye on all of your friends with the Telly Tower Hairstyle! Once a friend touches your towering updo, their profile picture is displayed on the screens, creating a visual record of the last fifteen friends you have made!

Seventeen Screens!

Up to fifteen different profile pictures can be displayed at once. When a sixteenth person comes along, the oldest picture will be removed to make room.

None of these styles will be available until the fair opens and, for the duration of the fair, will only be available at the fair.

Here is a preview of the second new hairstyle which will be available at Hair Fair 2010 from Curio Obscura:

My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf so now you can wear it on your head! Taller by half than the old man himself, this timely hairstyle features a fully animated pendulum that tick-ticks away the seconds and chimes on the hour.

Keeps Time Accurate to within One Minute!

No Lag Pendulum!

None of these styles will be available until the fair opens and, for the duration of the fair, will only be available at the fair.

Here is a preview of the first new hairstyle which will be available at Hair Fair 2010 from Curio Obscura:

Do you love to ride on Carousels? Now a carousel can ride on you! You will be the envy of everyone at the fair in this festive hairstyle as four tiny carousel ponies, woven out your own hair, prance in a circle on plaited poles, to a light-hearted tune!

PONIES!

It Really Spins!

Ponies Really Prance!

On Saturday, September 4th, one week from today, the 2010 Second Life Hair Fair will be opening for a week-long fund-raising extravaganza of coiffure couture. A portion of all proceeds will go to Wigs For Kids, an organization that helps children suffering from hair loss due to cancer.

Curio Obscura will be releasing four brand new hairstyles at the Hair Fair this year. That’s right - I said FOUR NEW HAIRSTYLES! All four are already finished and boxed up, ready to debut at the fair.

And you can rest assured that, while they may not be quite as large as the Rococo Fantastico, there is nothing ordinary about any of these hairstyles. What are they? It’s a secret! Oh, I want to tell you. I’ve really outdone myself this time. But I can’t reveal everything just yet. You’ll have to come to the 2010 Second Life Hair Fair to find out!

Until then, feel free to drop by the Curio Obscura main store for all your old favorites. Remember: The more you buy from Curio Obscura, the more time I can afford to spend on creating new inventions from Curio Obscura and the closer we all come to bringing the entire planet under my ironclad but benevolent rule.

This update includes several fancy new features:

• Doors no longer have a “wrong” side. The front of the door is whichever side of the door you choose to open it from so that doors can be opened from the left or the right as you choose. (You can still make a door only openable from one side by placing it against a wall, of course.
• Select between five styles of inner effects including the swirly vortex, solid black, overwhelming white glow, brick wall, and invisiprim.
• Auto-resizing of door parts. When you edit the size of the frame, the other parts of the door will automatically change size to match, making it easy to make your door any size that you prefer.
• Option to choose between Tiny-Compatible and Kid-Compatibility so that child-sized avatars don’t have to be squished up anymore.
• A new “ducking” animation for when doors are too small to walk through but too big to crawl through.
• Dynamic animation alignment for smaller avatars so that kids don’t walk through the floor.
• Double door support.
• Additional built-in textures for the back of doors so that shadows all go the right way and “Exit” isn’t written backwards.

I’ve been to other types of conventions but SteamCon 2009 was my first steampunk convention. This particular steampunk convention took place locally in Seattle so it was a bit of a staycation for me.

As conventions go, there was, perhaps, less to do. They had lots of panels with very little difference between many of them. With a theme this narrowly-defined, I would imagine that a lack of variety in panels would be inevitable. The panels were usually very interesting but I kept wanting something more. Still, for the very first SteamCon, it was remarkably well organized.

One difference between SteamCon and other types of conventions, such as anime or scifi conventions, is that the percentage of guests in costume was much, much higher and of unusually high quality as well! I saw everything from super-fancy period gowns to soot-stained overalls, gleaming rayguns, jetpacks, and crazy multi-lens goggles. I think we neared some kind of Top Hat Critical Mass where there were so many top hats that, with just one more top hat, we would have created a top hat gravity well that would have sucked in all top hats within this hemisphere.

For my own outfit, I started from some patterns from Truly Victorian for the bustle and skirts, then did a lot of draping and improvising for the vest, blouse, and hat. I spent weeks and weeks on it. I feel that it turned out very well and I received many compliments. However, on the second day, as I started collapsing while having dinner, I learned that two days of wearing a corset is not to be taken lightly. Next time, perhaps something a little looser.

One of the best parts of attending SteamCon was getting to meet other steampunkish people from Second Life. I met Terry Lightfoot (whose vest I wear in many of my product photos in SL), Delora Starbrook (who I had previously met at Hair Fair 2009), and so many others whose names I can’t recall. I’m afraid I’ve never been very good with names, especially when I am feeling a little overwhelmed by the experience.

So I had a great time, met interesting people, even sat on a panel to discuss steampunk in video games with Seattle novelist Cherie Priest and 2009 Hugo Award Winning Colorist for “Girl Genius” Cheyenne Wright. I can hardly wait for next year!

Tonight (Friday), I just attended Studio Foglio’s Intro to Steampunk Art panel and I am about to attend the Virtual Steamlands Salon.

On Saturday, at 3pm in the Spokane room, I will be joining the panel on Steampunk Influences in Video Games.

*gasp*

This corset is killing me!

My first life day job is in video game development and, as you might guess, Thanksgiving is the biggest target release date. Our current project was started with too little time to complete so the past three months have been solid crunch time week after week, 60 to 80 hours every week.

The good news is that the game is finally finished and I will finally have more time available for Second Life.

But not today. This weekend I’m heading out in first life to attend SteamCon, the steampunk convention in Seattle. I’m not a scheduled guest or anything but, if you see me there, feel free to bow down to my greatness. Or say hello. Whatever works for you.

Why type when you can write on a whiteboard? Why write on a whiteboard when you can draw an awesome picture? With the Whiteboard Typing Override, you can draw on a whiteboard instead of typing and get a different picture each time!

The Whiteboard Typing Override comes with 15 built-in doodles or you can use your own!