Zipdash Infoportal

 

I decided that I needed a break from the ZISP store to go off and work on a few offshoot things that had been pressing. The reason I thought is that I was neglecting some other things in Second Life and in ZISP that I vowed to get done or at least started. One of the things ZISP will be doing was quite unplanned and out of the blue due to a chance meet. It's something I never thought of doing but as a media project and it should be worth getting into. The second is also media based, but in an old traditional form. More will follow soon on this subject at a later date as there are some boring legal stuff to sort out - but as soon as thats all clear we will work to getting that project working soon.
The store itself will be open as usual but seeing the pirate suit is newly released, I would like to give what stock is there to develop a customer base before I decide on another adventurewear suit. On that note... I am happy to say that a few kid avatars have been out wearing ZISP suits in space themed sims . Thats a great thing to see, in fact I was taken to one by an SL buddy Kris Spade yesterday. The creation is called Doomed Ship, a dark sci-fi themed scenario close to Aliens , Event Horizon and such like. I had never been there before and I was really impressed with what I saw, it was very immersive , very well built and textured and had so many levels to its build that you would keep discovering new things as you revisit. Sci-fi places are thin on the ground in Second Life, well inventive and well designed ones anyway. I hope to see more in the future and that new creations keep popping up from time to time.

In the meantime another neglected part of my Second Life was within Wastelands, which has been my self-made exile for the past 3 years. It is there I have a home and life amongst rubble and junk of a post- apocalyptic estate. It is also there that I run a little RP point of call as a Pipsqueek, basically a SL kid based faction inspired on old 1950s scouting books and values "albeit slightly warped and sinister". To be honest it's a little bit quiet at the moment, coming back after a bit of what I call "uninformed negativity in the group" killed confidence in anything where drama moves its head. However I placed a foot back and went about making new alliances, RP bushwhacking some people, sussing out some new folks and generally getting back to how Wastelands was for me. And what a good time to get back.

Halloween was upon us in the wastes, it was mayhem and lots of fun combined. First up was Halloween Warzone, which by all means was perhaps one of the best Warzones I have ever taken part in. Three rounds of whizzing bullets, hacking blades, teams jeering back and forth to place low moral in their contenders. I think what made it extra special, was the teams spirit of the day.
It made for a a good community event and had a few surprises in store, this included the return of Ccindy the mutant witch who returned back to the warzone event.
The Black Rider also returned from his fiery lake, back spewing radiation filled pumpkins on protective wastelanders and placing candy at your feet as you fell under his galloping steed's hooves. The Candy Ghoul also appeared ,shuffling the sands to spread his strange ramblings of fire and impending doom. Before he parted ways he passed on treats for all in the form of food candy from his pumpkin basket of goodies. That candy will be really useful, as the season of starvation is coming soon, food will hardly drop in crates if any. As we need the food to survive now ( the HUD now has a starvation meter, if you lose food your health trickles slowly down), who knows what will happen to some of the wastelands population. Will they survive or will they leave to more fertile soils of the outerlands due to lack of food ?

Any which way, Wastelands is a hard place to survive in. It can however be fun if you have the right head on and the correct frame of mind to develop here. I guess we shall wait and see who has the will to survive the food shortages. I guess coal won't be so prized as it was and food prices raised to its demand. As a result word got around the wastes of my constant quest for collecting candy, which was quite amusing until others have taken on my obsession ( mixed with good wastelands sense) and started looking/ stocking up on what are my favourite trading currency. The latest candy was the chocolate covered cockroach, which makes the owl that lives in our lodge hoot and flap his wings frantically at the sight of them. Placing a couple on the floor, it immediately grabbed them in his beak and placed them in his nest- box. It is there he sits guarding them with with ever watchful eyes , lowering his gaze for an occasional peck at the chocolate covered treat. Although the Honey crusted larva are my favourites, the roaches come a close second on prized trades.

 

So as well as all this happening, cheese wheels also started to make an apperance. Although they smell terrible and you can't eat them, they are decor I like for my cheese cave I am creating. The cave has another purpose but i will keep that story for another time. Just now the owl seems to like wearing them as hats to ward off predators and starving smooth-skins.  I guess that wraps it up for this blog entry, but you can expect to see more Wasteland tales in the future, as I get on with " other secret things"

 

It had been a hectic month in the ZISP HQ, as spent a while thinking up ideas that would not only create a more open image for ZISP, but also try to develop a more close knit relationship with its future and past customer base. It was so that ZISP decided its first role was to try and promote its adventure-wear products to a market that is very difficult to break,that market is the the kid avatar market. And boy is that a hard thing to do - but we are quietly confident that we will slowly see more Intergalactic kids appearing on the grid. Such things take time and when eventually they get fed up of looking " normal", they will creep into more unusual yet kid based wear. I wear mine almost all the time, not just cause its promotion but I actually enjoy wearing it. I get noticed a lot and being the big -headed vain fashion conscious boy I am - I choose to wear it cause it gets me fussed over ( oh how vain am I ? :D) So when it came to thinking about ZISP's 2nd product, we wanted something tough looking to the last suits clean lines.
So we needed a " bad guy" costume to compliment the bubble helmet spacesuit and we came up with - the Space Pirate after hours of thinking and rubbing out, amending to have the suit we have today

What ZISP aims to develop, is create things that real kids would love to have; clothing that would never be possible in our lifetime due to cost of materials and labour ( as well as health and safety laws:) From the first time I ever read the TINTIN in Space books as a kid, I always wanted a suit like his and thus years later in Second Life I achieved just that. And that's whats great about Second Life, that some things are possible to have. So yeah I don't mind saying ZISP is possibly more kid minded ( I am a big kid :P) as a venture than a lot of more traditional kid stores are. In the space pirate you can see loads of things that hark back from watching 80 movies and cartoons and in celebration of all our well known villans , Skeletor from He-man, Darth Vader and the Storm troopers and a dash of General Zod as well as adding a bit of Mad Max for good measure. It was just a fun costume to think up and eventually create

What I wanted to do first of all was try and create something that had been missing in the community for a long time, that was actual opportunities for kids to be part of something. I also was very adamant to try and source models in people I had never met previously - by that I mean actual paid jobs. Our of the three I chose, two were found though friend of a friend sort of thing and one I asked through trawling through adoption agencies. So who did we choose?... well 3 boys including myself and one girl. We chose a girl because not all girls are ribbon wearing, thumb sucking cutsie babies. WE wanted to prove that we make stuff for tomboyish girls too.

So we went all Advent Children for our poster campaign and the final shots came out pretty darn good and each one looks the the smuggling scallywags they are. I have to thank the following models Daide, Flokers and Dylan. Emilia Darkwatch for the awesome photowork and of course Crias ( Scotty) Rowlands - the ZISP engineer, for yet another ZISP masterpiece.

The launch party was a quiet affair, but most left with a fantastic set of DECO Mesh sneakers as a goodie bag item. Now I guess its time for a little break, settle back to Wastelands and RP and then start work on the next product  which will possibly be the equivalent of  ZISP's "difficult third album " .

 

ZISP REPORT – TOP SECRET -  System date 2721

Subject -  Space Pirates

Following the battle of Outpost 7 ,a subspace battle that lasted 3 gruelling months against the formidable Shadow Angels.  The ZISP report logs of the year March 2718 were submitted to chain of command for inspection. It was reported that during this time that as well as suffering heavy losses, a group of pilots from  Squadron 208 of the ZISP Special Operation Force were also reported shot down behind enemy lines.

Better known as the Vampire Pirates, Squadron 208 missions were often dangerous ones involving close enemy sabotage, spy missions and small but lethal spacecraft formation attack and flee orders over enemy lines. during what was classified as a routine flight as part of strategic surveillance mission.

Although ZISP deny all knowledge of falsifying accounts of battle history, there is rumour to state that the whereabouts of Squadron 208 were little more than a cover up for a more darker tale.

During this time, The ZISP force were developing new ship prototypes known as the Arató or Reaper Interceptors. The Arató came equipped with state of the art technology, including partly tested Stage 3 Nuclear Pulse Propulsion engines that were capable of limited dimensional travel.

The Vampire Pirates in relation to their missions were given access to the new technology as a test-bed and battle tactic to destroy the Shadow Angel fleet in one short mission.

The squadron however reported strange happenings when powering up the engines – strange disembodied static induced voices over transmissions and eerie ghostly figures were reported to being seen around the cockpits. Seconds later all transmissions ceased and were never heard from again.

The Arató Project was quickly hushed and dis-banded, nothing more was said regarding the ill fated mission but for a small remembrance service for the lost pilots.

It was exactly a year later that the first recorded reports of the Space Pirates were transmitted. A wave of 20 battle scarred black Arató fighters were honing to attack a ZISP supply ship in the Omega quadrant. This ships were acting strangly different to their normal specifications, as they seemed to become translucent and could pass through other ships without damage.  A month later they attacked a school ship of young ZISP academy students, of which all crew and 15  passengers were reported missing. The fate of these youngsters was unclear until one such Arató ship was captured (due to a chance of pilot error) , and its two crew were taken for questioning. One of said crew included a  young crew member, a student of the ZISP Academy who was previously missing on that fateful raid. The youngster according to the older pilot, had been taken out on a training exercise to create a new wave of interceptor pilots, ones that had quicker reflexes and saw every battle as a game.

It was these new hopefuls that would make the Pirates of Gyilock feared throughout the star systems and beyond.

The boy himself was also no longer the happy go lucky student he was at the Academy, now embittered with blood boiling rage and talking religiously of his leader Gyilok.
The boy often referred to the Sword of Gyilok or Gyilok the Bloodspiller when referring to any questions, one who crosses time and space; he who plunders all souls and whose face adorned his armies to cause fear in his enemies. “ We are his children “ he spat with venom in his voice. “He is one that will bring come and take your souls, so they may power our ships and strengthen our missions” On further research, technicians tried to reverse engineer the captured  Arató to understand the workings behind its unusual ethereal function. They discovered an engine that had been heavily modified and powered by a large violet glowing crystal where the original  radioactive collection coils were housed. The understanding of this crystal were not known, only that according to the captured Pirates “ held the prisoners of Gyilok for his bidding”. Further tests resulted in a new weapon for the ZISP force, the frequency dissipater deflector. When in close distance  the deflector could “ short out” the crystals molecular structure for 5 second bursts, therefore allowing for the Arató ships to destabilize the ethereal cloaking functions and thus damage like normal spacecraft.

As for the boy , he was reunited with his parents after a year of “ de-programming” and now lives a normal life back at the academy. He is reported to be in good health and mind apart from occasional restless sleep patterns. His flying skill are reported to be higher than his fellow students although despite medical tests, cannot find any conclusion to this phenomena. Perhaps this is down to training on the Arató Interceptors which are “skittish” in flight dynamics but more likely down to something close to the Pirates. What that is we have yet to find out.  The adult crew member whereabouts and status is further classified.

Recommendations – You best get those Pilots up to speed who knows what this Gyilok is capable of.

 

I have been on a little research gap on a ZISP idea this week , I won't give too much away but I can tell you the story leading up to it.

A month ago I was having really crappy issues with my Second Life inventory, of course we know the usual suspect servers are always to blame for that - however having over 64.000 items in inventory did not help. Slow loading, often unrezzable items  and jumbled mess of inventory were getting on my nerves. So I sat down one day and chased over 33.000 items that I considered obselete and no longer useable and deleted them all, the old stuff such as clothing I never wear, old prim sci-fi stuff that adds 10 sims worth of lag as soon as i put it on - that sort of thing.

As I was working on " spring cleaning" , I came across one of my old Vetox hoverboards that I bought in my first year of Second Life. Vetox freestyle boards although good, were not a common sight among Second Life users. It was even more rare to see them being used by kid avatars even though traditional skate parks were popular with SL kids in the past.  Vetox boards came in one flavour - the freestyle board which pretty much was a flying board where you could do some limited loops and curve spins. The were actually great fun and a good way to travel around a sim in even though sim crossings were out of the question ( less you find yourself in sim drift). My only issue with them were the style of them, they were hardly the prettiest of boards to begin with and even now still there can be room for improvement. But as with most things in Second Life, as you spend longer on the grid you also move on to new things sometimes through your own intentions or pushed into a new avenue. So my simboard became a forgotten item until recently.

So I rezzed the board and had a little go on it and actually had a lot of fun. To be honest I was hoping the board designs would have changed a lot since I bought my old board, so  I went on a little jaunt to see if anything was new with simboards and turns out a few things have.   
Over the years many others have caught onto the simboard bug, creating both freestyle teams as well as a new concept for me - Simball. Simball basically is  like a cross between basketball and skateboarding with some pinball bumpers added for good measure. Simball also introduced a new kind of simboard that is different from the freestyle one , where it reacts a bit more like a traditional skateboard. Also known as the CS range , they dont fly unlike the Freestyle counterparts but are more geared to simball users rather than recreational everyday exploring .
There are also small number of very committed players and teams out there creating a little network of simboard related arena, games and meeting points for others interested in the simboard vibe.

The CS boards have really begun to interest me , so much so I thought I would look into a  new sim board and start training on them to see how good this new sport really is.  Maybe with time I will get better and less as my tutor calls me " tsutanai ". :). As for my freestyle board, well I will continue to use it as its still a very fun item to have ,but it's given me some ideas for the meantime to be getting on with. 

It's been a little while since the last Zipdash blog entry, so I should by rights put stuff in here to keep myself right. ZISP was kinda quiet the past month - possibly due to a number of factors. My vendors stopped giving out Demos due to me revising them, Second Life also decided to discontinue its magic box deliveries on marketplace. So I had a bit of re-shuffling of storeroom work to do ( thank you SL, your love for making all things that were working fine into a chore, yet leaving more important things still not fixed is yet again a great example of how SL marketing continues its " head in the sand" policy.
But seeing the Wasteland RP was stepped down a bit as nothing really exciting was going on there at the moment, it was a good time to sort out a few store bits and bobs. 

Anyways I love any chance to wear my overalls , so I spent a couple of hours putting things right and now they work pretty good. The pirate suit was finally created, boxed up with a little story behind it and introducing the world of Gyilock the Bloodletter. Who he or what it is can only be told through other pirate suit wearers, so maybe its best to track one down or indeed buy the new suit when they are released later this month ( all going well)

A few suits were given out to a few friends for testing, some were sold early as they could not wait for them after seeing the concept drawings. So the suits are out there and they do exist, they are just not officially on sale till we get all the advertising stuff done. On that note, ZISP also did a pretty unusual thing and that was to look for some models to star in the poster campain  we will launch. Finding models is hard, finding really cool looking kid models is close to impossible.  In my opinion a lot of kids don't know how to create and develop their look, so it was a great pleasure to find and  work with some Second Life kids that really know how to put a good avatar together.

Over the past week we booked them in for green screen shots courtesy of my good buddy Emilia Darkwatch's photography studio  called Elements.  I have used Elements for a long time, starting out initially for my own profile pic and she does some fantastic work . Elements did the photos for the last ZISP product and when we got to discussing the look of the new posters, we were both pretty excited to start work on them.  So who did we choose?,  well you will have to wait and see but we have myself , another two handsome looking gentlemen and one extremely scrappy cute girl. Yes thats right a girl - no cute pink bows for her and she looks fantastic as a mini space pirate. It was so nice to meet kids who were open to wear new things that move from the normal, in fact a very cool thing happened during that photoshoot .

As we were waiting for the photographer to set up, a lady teleported into the studio to look around. The really nice comments she made on those kids was really sweet and she even mentioned the word " cute space children". Thats exactly the comments I wanted to hear cause I get that a lot. Normally you travel around Second Life as a kid avatar looking for things. It's a common occurance some kids are told off by other people by rezzing in sims, despite many people not understanding what kid avatars can or cannot do in Second Life. In the suits I get nothing like that, its mostly the first typed words are "where did you get that?  or that looks really cool". It's the thing I always wanted for ZISP from the start, clothing for kids that look as good as the top quality stuff adults get but stuff thats totally unusual and does get you noticed. WE really do make explore-wear for kids

So I guess the next blog will be all about the models and how the shots turned out. In the meantime I have another concept to plan which I think will be less about spacesuits but more about futuristic city wear.

ZISP store has been going a month now, sales are slow but that's not why I really came to venture into my own project. The aim was to highlight the artistic genre of Atompunk and hopefully install new ideas into Second Life for new and fresh themes for others to create on and create new communities geared to all that.

That being said despite waiting for others to catch on, The lab boys at ZISP are working on a new suit that is so evil and cool looking, I have had to lock it in a strong lead lined box and placed targeting lasers to vaporize it if it gets out of control. Nicknamed - Project X 47 or " The Reaper" - the prototype is on the blueprint table as we speak.

One of the official ZISP suit store pictures taken by my favourite photography studios in Second Life - Elements Photography. Store is open and available to visit.

Creativity in Second Life is not an easy venture. For some it's a natural progression and for some its a long hard slog to get anywhere - for me its the latter. I have created many things in Second Life mostly club based ventures and each time I created one - I became more detatched from each incarnation. The reason being clubs are fleeting projects, the competition is wide as anyone can open one and create thier own niche . The problem is with such open ventures comes the hard lesson you are dependant on a number of people to support a venture. You also support a working team of Djs who bother to play for you. 
Its a hard lesson to learn when you have to not only take care of your own life when creating things in SL, but also major drama to deal with your patrons issues and fights as well as disenchanted Djs playing to flakey audience numbers.  It is soul destroying to say the least and can and will put you off creating things. The reasoning is that many outside influences affect your ventures and how you are revered in S.L (be it true or false idolization ), can be the catalyst or dodgy exhaust port to your ventures. But in all cases, fear of trying and failing should never be a stumbling block and the best way is to aim for something and do whats good for you. If others get into your mode of thinking - even better. Its not an easy road but its not dependant on a backer or encroching ideas from other parties that differ from your own. This way you can allow for personal intervention in a project no matter how wild they are.

So with 4 years of the grid, I am now working to create something thats personal to me and it has been a lot of fun to create. From its concept idea to a finished item, when you see something thats been created really well with attention to detail - its a great self achievement.  ZISP is still in its early stages, but there are some great concepts on the burner that will be incredible fun to do - as well as creating things that are unventured for SL at the time.  
So yup, A mesh store with kids in mind. Not a new concept sure - but its what its creating and to the high standards we aim to develop with ZISP that is. But its the very fact meshwear for small avatars in mind is on the thin side, more so when its something thats been created for kids from its early concepts, but also keeps with the high quality wear associated with bigger avatars and some really classy boutiques. However ZISP is not going to be just a clothing store, it has other tunnels being created as offshoot projects.   In the meantime, should be cool to see who climbs onboard starting from this weekend

 

>The project that never happened - shame as if it had (and if this trailer was real), how good would this have been to have on the movie theaters. Imagine the toys that would have been out... oh jeeze my nephews Christmas list would have had been cut a lot shorter. That rocket ship is just OMG better than cake, the design is just so cool and so in keeping to the classic sci-fi deco/ metropolis theme

The world needs a new Buck Rogers movie to make up for the suckfest of the Star Wars prequels. Give us this now Pl0x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rvx6BBkxz4&feature=player_embedded

“Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars”

I have always had a love of the space race era of the 1950s and 60's, for at that time most things had a name synced or designed with the fascination of Atomic Science. From cars to jukeboxes, a wide majority of things were themed in similar futuristic lines.
Although the game Fallout brought these iconic ideals back into a new generation, this was a reality to most people way back in the 50s and early 60s.

Children were especially encouraged via games and play to help gear interests in Atomic Science There were board games such as Uranium Rush or the Gilbert Toys -Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab, which even came with 4 samples of uranium ore and a government manual to learn how to prospect for Uranium. Hard to imagine in today’s world where we realise the danger impact of Atomic power, from the horrors of the A bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the disaster of Chernobyl. Back then it was a platform of optimistic idealisation of a futuristic utopia, that could contain anything from sleek hover cars to hotels on the Moon.

Space Exploration also became a constant fascination and a tool to fire the imagination of children. Disney displayed a 76 feet rocket display called the Moonliner in 1955 as part of a Flight to the Moon exhibit. It was proposed the real Moonliner ( if it ever came to be), would be powered by... yeah you guessed it.. . an atomic engine. Everything to do with the magical powers of this new found science influenced many things. And rockets and astronauts were pretty much the big trend play subject for kids back then. Today its Justin Bieber- where did it all go wrong?

There were also new media entertainment to capitalise on space travel, the avent of sci-fi movies like War of the Worlds, The day the Earth Stood Still and This Island Earth to the Television programming of things like Lost in Space, Buck Rogers ( not the 70s Twiki version) and later on the Star Trek series.
Toys were pretty cool too from that era too, from well crafted ray guns such as the Strato Gun ( link included)
http://astoundingartifacts.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/strato-gun-futuristic-products-co-1953.html
but also of the various styles of perspex “goldfish bowl” space suits that were often on the market at the time. These must be pretty hard to find or were out of reach of most, possibly many were made for movies and television at the time such as The Rocketman, but I am sure some did exist as a national sold toy. By chance I was talking to a friend about 1950s designs and talked about various products we liked the look of, I then admitted up for my geekish love of sci-fi 50's/ 60s stuff and thus the idea for ZISP was created.

And this is where ZISP comes in – ZISP standing for the Zipdash Interplanetary Space Patrol. ZISP is gonna be a mixture of things, some things I am still working on however the SL merchandise (first wave) stuff is completed. Just now we are in the middle of setting up stuff, an SL info point is being built in mesh – posters being made for advertisement etc. ZISP will pretty much be a package – a mix of things and perhaps something to get into and have fun with in a creative and imaginative role-play way, as well as being a nostalgic trip to some others.

It was hard to think up something that would use Second Life but not be dependant fully on it. By that I mean it will be used much like a virtual forum only, give creative people a chance to involve themselves in things with like minded people and create a character for yourself in your own pace. Why a character you say...haha well I can't say exactly why yet. As time rolls on you will see,but it will be pretty unusual for an SL project.

We would like to think that from the time you will arrive at the welcome hub, you will be also be starting a mini adventure from the beginning. I have a lot of ideas to create for ZISP, these will unfold as the opportunities come about – rest assured the group will have occasional meet-ups and fan based stuff as we gather more people interested in hosting cross- promotion events etc. Even Space captains need fun too right?... and that's main point, that it be as good fun for me to do as well as you guys. So while I juggle real Life and the development aspect of ZISP, in the meantime you just gotta keep the thrusters on idle for the moment, Lift off will be soon.