Saturday, September 29, 2012

Shadow Dancing


Shadow Dancing 120929

Yesterday Princess Diawa dropped by the area where I am creating the dance show, SOMBRA, that I have recently been writing about. Diawa was interested in shadow dancing. I thought a little explanation of the details of how to make a shadow might be helpful if you want to try it.

You will see in the SOMBRA show that I will do a lot of shadow dancing, in other words, dancing with my shadow. There are several ways to make a shadow, but the one I have used involves making a shadow avatar using the Tattoo layer. The way to do this is to put an all black tattoo layer on the shadow avatar. You can make this all black tattoo layer easily using the SL tools available when you go to Appearance. First remove any Tattoo layer that you are currently wearing. Often make-up is done with a Tattoo layer.

Here I am in Appearance with Edit Outfit selected.



I select the line "Tattoo not worn" then click the gear icon in the lower left to get the choice of New Clothes or New Body Parts. I select New Clothes then choose New Tattoo layer. This gives me a window for making a new Tattoo layer.


Click one of the three windows marked with a big "X" and choose Blank. Here is a picture where I have already done the Head Tattoo and am now doing the Upper Tattoo.



After you have switched all three (head, upper and lower) to Blank, you can now color your tattoo. For a realistic shadow click on Color/Tint and select Black. Of course you can choose any color you want like red, purple or yellow, although you will see the colors other than black allow some of the body features (such as boobs) to show. Here I am in black.


Close Appearance and there you are all black. Next, remove your clothes. I keep on a black hair and my Nottoo's Famous 2005 Color Changing Shoes, which I make black. Once you have done this ... there you are as a shadow.



If you don't want your eyes to show, put on some black sunglasses.

To dance with your shadow you need a second avatar. I borrow the avatar of my RL best friend, Nottooo (3 o) and we put on the same shape. One of us wears the shadow costume and the other regular clothing, then we can dance away ... dancing with our shadow.

xxx
Nottoo