On the brinks of Revolution, American militia men—troupes of armed farmers and other non-military men—stand to guard the “Patriot Cause” against the British redcoats. Unknown to the vast majority of fighting men on both sides is the presence of magical intervention—or that those among them are charmed or gifted with supernatural abilities.
Twenty-year old Proctor Brown, a farmer and militiaman, spots a charm worn by Major Pitcairn, a British “lobster”. Though Proctor is supposed to be wooing his sweetheart Emily’s father, the British soldiers pull him into a brawl, where after he is forced to ram a knife into Pitcairn, he discovers that the officer with the charm is invincible. Proctor’s worrying about making a good impression on Emily’s father fades as both war and magic come crashing into his life.
In Finlay’s mythos, magic in colonial America was made famous by the Salem witch trials; Proctor, as betrayed by his name, is a descendent of Salem witches. Fearing for persecution, his mother has taught him very little of his inherited abilities, and discourages him from discovering more, both for fear of the principle and of losing her only son. In the beginning, Proctor is only capable of scrying, but through the course of the story, becomes capable of invoking protection and reversal spells that become crucial in determining the outcome (which we know in hindsight) of the battle of Bunker Hill.
Magic, in this saga, seems more plausible due to its limitations; flights are illusions, but magic can spontaneously combust things (and people), summon zombies and spirits, heal, and be channeled. The exact words of your spell don’t matter, if you don’t find a focus; thus, it’s interesting to see blood used as a focus, and verses from the bible as incantations for spells. We do get to see a bit of that nostalgic “learn magic in a school-like setting,” when Proctor is exiled a la the Quaker Highway to stay at the Farm, a sanctuary of witches protected by enchantment from outside view. However, Proctor’s male gender, in part, creates some discrimination against him in the Farm, composed of a small group of female witches. There is virtually no sexual tension, however, other than the differences in culture between males and females.
While the author cites inspiration from his experience researching original documents from this era, historical details do not weigh the book down, and the setting of the book seems more like a stereotypical “pop culture” conveyance. The lack of subplots slows the story, but keeps it clear that our story is about the Patriot Witch—not quite a wizard, but just a determined and able colonial man named Proctor Brown.
Written by ina on Sunday, 19 of April , 2009 at 7:15 am Tags: Elorisse, FDC, iCouture
Elorisse is my contribution to the FDC. It’s an entire outfit that I created from scratch — well, the “look” is inspired by this image from Seregel:
And the rest took about 24 hours of insanity as I bootcamped myself to working blender into creating sculpties for Second Life, to meet my own random-ish personal challenge of migrating to open source starting with this project. All the sculpties were created using Blender, although I baked textures using modo. The skin is a pale hybrid of some of my old 2008 creations - Juliet and Gaeae.
In the final step, I wrote a ditty called M’Elorisse (well, the skins I create on SL are always attributed to a character in my urban fantasy), and braved the guerilla tools of SL photography, by having to use hack-ish ways to align the eyes and such.
M’Elorisse
The daughter of a bishop,
who should ne’er have been:
Silk’s way, fleece’s haven,
They call her M’Elorisse.
That visage of perfect haughty,
strong jawbones, thin arms,
half-painted lips on ivory skin.
They see her M’Elorisse.
Her mother’s elegance,
Her father’s nigh repugnance,
Flutters of satin aloft,
They bid her M’Elorisse
–Ina Centaur
April 19, 2009
Inworld notecard:
iCouture by Ina Centaur presents Seregel Elorisse, a virtual interpretation of a Seregel sensation,*
created as part of the Fashion Designers Challenge event, where two dozen fashion designers on
SL challenge each other to add some spice to our usual perfume of artistic creativity.
The outfit includes skin, eyes, dress, and extra’s, such as earrings, bodysuit, and draft variations.
Additional items to complement (not shown in ad photo) include shoes, hair, and hat. Find the rest
at the iCouture Grand Opening event on June 9, 2009… when Ina Centaur turns 25 in RL (zOMG!)
* The FDC Challenge I received was to create an imitation of something from Seregel. I chose this
elegant dress, partially for the challenge of creating something that looks both special and elegant
in black (on SL!): Seregel Pic
iCouture is currently located @ http://slurl.com/secondlife/Skin%20City/186/175/563
I ended up using the Mona Lisa backdrop from my Mona Lisa Primting, and this video summarizes some of what I wrote above, and also shows in context where I took the photo at (although the entire backdrop, pose, shape, skin, eyes, and more, are included in the boxed outfit set)!
I used to use modo and zbrush to create sculpties (sculpted prims) for Second Life. Yesterday, I stumbled on Blender and spent a huge part of the day throwing things on various objects in draping experiments (it’s kind of mesmerizing in a similar fashion to action painting). It generally takes me a few days to get used to a new 3d modeling program, but I found myself getting into Blender in just a few hours, and even had time to record a tutorial on draping cloth in Blender that first day. Now, more and more, I think Blender is AWESOME for making sculpted prims because:
You can reorient the bounding box of the sculpty simply by re-setting the Axes (Press F9, Center New).
Realtime-esque Cloth-draping, and select whichever frame of the simulation you want to use, then 1-click export using the (also) open-source Blender sculpty conversion scripts by Domino! (See the 5-minute tutorial here.)
Blender’s OOP-ness makes it easy to automagically turn things into other things (literally!), as well as to rewire things from a “holistic Matrix-sort of backend view”, and its non-linear layers make it fun to have a variety of sculpts (especially simulation-based cloth-sculpts) in the same file, without the scene getting grotesquely messy. It’s also an interesting way to get organized.
Using a lattice modifier to sculpt is awesome!
Blender is not only free, but also open source!
If you’ve got that crazy idea weighing you down, you can go right into it and mod it from code!
Also, I’m of the belief that traditional modes of software licenses will soon become extinct… While it used to be that o/s software often died out after their lead gets corp-cannibalized, it seems the exact opposite nowadays. Migrating to open source now is, interestingly, an investment for the future — both in funds saved and time saved.
Written by ina on Thursday, 16 of April , 2009 at 11:16 pm
The SL Shakespeare Company’s 2009 Quarter II (Q2) open auditions will be held on Saturday, April 18 @ 11 AM - 11:59 AM SL Time and Saturday, April 25 @ 1 PM SL Time. We are hoping to launch an open-ended run of Twelfth Night: Act 2 (Production Serial: OEP2) in June, with rehearsals starting in May, exact timing TBD. Auditions would be for roles in this upcoming production, and also several possible productions, including a Challenge Production (a non-Shakespearean production) and Twelfth Night: Act 3. Please be sure you have SL voice configured prior to auditioning.
Please have prepared a passage (from Twelfth Night, Act 2) of no more than 5 minutes. Polish it well; this should demonstrate what you are capable of at your best.
Be ready to perform another segment from the perspective of the character you wish to play (though you might not get casted as that character).
Be prepared to demonstrate (voice) range.
If you can’t make it to the audition times, please email item #1 as an mp3 file (no larger than 10 mb) to production at SLshakespeare dot com, along with a detailed schedule of your availability from May to August, inclusive.
Written by ina on Tuesday, 14 of April , 2009 at 11:37 pm Tags: Blender, Cloth, Sculpted
After a hiatus of about 4 years, I stumbled back to Blender (which I used to write tutorials for on Wikibooks) today to do some CG fur and cloth tricks. I’ve been using Modo for the past two years or so, and have long since forgotten how to use Blender. Blender seems much more intuitive and loads more developed, and I found myself getting in sync with it pretty quickly. It seems like a nice (not to mention free!) tool to create sculpted prims for Second Life — and I thought I might contribute a tutorial on how to make cloth in Blender for use as sculpted prims (”sculpted cloth?”) in Second Life.
Now, there are several ways to do this, but I’m using the Cloth simulation tool (which also lets you select which keyframe to choose to freeze it at — you can even make a sculpted cloth animation in SL using this, by exporting the sculpt texture from each frame). Details are summarized in this quick and dirty screencast tutorial I’ve put together. (I also discovered a new free online service and free screencast software called Jing. Here’s my first tutorial video using Jing & Screencast!)
I’ve been rather quiet on my blog lately, but very, very busy… (Then again, much of I do never makes it here.)
Last night, I finally forced myself to finish Inachi’s Nyotaimori I info website, which documents my nyotaimori performance art event and experiment last month.
Recently, I’ve put together a Portfolio website, which attempts to both introduce my complicated self along with some things I’ve done in the past two or three years in virtual worlds.
I’m currently trying to apply to my first grant as an independent artist. I’m musing on doing something with action painting, fractal analysis, bear-baiting, Shakespeare, and theatre in Second Life.
I’m also trying to finish a novella and get it sent off before the postmark expires… and getting back into director-mode for the upcoming open auditions and rehearsals I’d be holding.
The Super Spoof plays @ 5 PM on April 1. ONE DAY ONLY. The SL Shakespeare Company is going to multi-parody a whole bunch of things from 2008, and see if they flow with Twelfth Night–that is, this is the SLSC’s “Twelfth Night - Popular Culture Analogues” Edition.
Everything is summarized by the playbill above. Please feel free to link. This is a strictly unofficial fan production; the SUPER SPOOF-esque version of Twelfth Night just for April Fools Day 2009 - just for fun - join us at the SL Globe Theatre at 5 PM PST (GMT-8).
A 25-year old American polymath of Taiwanese ancestry pretending to be old and Caucasian in Second Life. Semi-retired independent scholar also dabbling as an independent artist in new media, particularly theatre and the humanities—notably Shakespeare. Programmer, playwright and novelist. Formal academic background in http://portfolio.inacentaur.com/ina/scientist, philosophy, and bioengineering.
This is largely a personal blog which isn't always up-to-date. There's no one definitive way to stalk me ;-).
The Patriot Witch by C.C. Finlay
