I would hang there, crash, lag so bad, and learn something new everyday. I remember the Starax sculpture of the gorilla holding the hapless blonde woman in his paw. The sculpture was positioned like a doorway into the sandbox surrounded by a river and waterfalls. I flew past that statue every single day... always stopping to land on his hairy arms. That SL sculpture and the surrounding waterfalls just mesmerized me. I could not understand at that time how the builder, Starax made the gorilla or the flowing water and landscapes.
I would puzzle over it and then look at the build constantly, trying to figure it out. Yes, I should have tried to take a building class, but I was so shy and so withdrawn at the time... I just couldn't. So I hid out at the clubs dancing and writing and meeting great people. But, I kept at the building process.
One day, I left Mauve after an avie griefed me there. Shooting me, caging me... you know what I mean... typical shiz. But, at that time, it scared the hell out of me. I didn't understand it and I usually just poofed away... like a scared rabbit. On my way out of there, I saw a bunch of beautiful, colorful flowers and objects on the ground near Mauve. The sculptures (Olympia's flowers) were so sweet and pretty, I walked around them to just absorb the artwork.
I walked and walked and suddenly, I was lifted and pulled across the land without warning. (Region crossing between sims) I was freaked because I didn't know about crossing slowly from one region to the next... especially on these older sims. The mysterious pull landed me on an empty parcel of land with a fractal sculpture on one side. A small 512 square meter plot next to the other one...
Bisque. That's how I landed there... with the mysterious pull of the region crossing... lol! Those of you who build in sandboxes know what I mean. It's great to build in a sandbox... large space, lots of other builders, but... frustrating on another level. Lag is bad because you got a lot of avies building and testing scripts. Also, noobs with a bit of scripting background can come in and just reek havoc there griefing builders showing off their new skills. So, to find this little plot sooooo close to Mauve... SL gods, I swear, were having their day.
So I bought it. And that's where I really became a builder. Later on, I found out from my SL mate that the gorilla was created by Starax, the famous builder in SL... and I never knew that such a well-known, famous builder had created it!
I write this now because I received an invite into a new flickr group called Starax. Second Life builders owe a great deal to Starax who stepped up the level of prim building sculptures at a time when the grid did not have the same technical abilities. Keep in mind, most of the sculptures you see now that are similar were not built using just prims but with sculptys. No offense to the sculpty builders, but when I look at something like a Starax Statosky or the Ivory Tower of Prims and start comparing sculptys... well, you know... Both are great, but one is a masterpiece... especially if you are NOT counting prims! LOL!
