I’ve known a secret video for a day or two ….
Episode 30 of The Drax Files World Makers features Maylee Oh, Second Life fashion creator and owner of The Secret Store. I’ll follow my traditional pattern and embed the video at the end of this post.
Regular and irregular readers of this blog will know that I’m not a fashionista. Indeed when I realised this was about fashion I thought, “They do it over there, but we don’t do it here …. Fashion!”
However in Draxtor Despres we trust and this is another excellent addition to The Drax World Makers series, with Drax doing what he does best, gaining insight into the person behind the avatar and allowing that person, in this case Maylee Oh, to describe and demonstrate their Second Life and outside of Second Life personality with words, images, video and machinima. There’s also a funky scene near the end in a park with Draxtor and Maylee Oh chatting to each other.
Maylee Oh is 28 years old and lives in Paris. Maylee makes mostly female apparel in Second Life, along with some quirky things, which you will see in the video.
Maylee talks of how she makes commercials for her store in Second Life, using a variety of tools including Adobe After Effects and her own illustrations. This is an excellent example of something that doesn’t really get talked about regarding Second Life or other virtual worlds, the ability to create advertisements in a digital realm.
Maylee admits that she quit art school in her third year, but does not regret it and that via Second Life she has been able to bring her artistic talents to a medium that has allowed her to generate enough income to earn a living. Now, as I have links to education outside of the virtual world I have to frown somewhat at this point and say “Don’t try this at home kids“, please, finish your art school classes and any other classes. Pretty please?
As an example of how much work it takes to earn a living in Second Life, Maylee tells us that if she sells one dress in Second Life, she can buy half a baguette. So Maylee has to sell a lot of dresses. However one thing that comes across strongly in this video is that Maylee is very good at marketing her wares.
Frowning over, an interesting part of the video is where Maylee explains how her Mom is very proud of Maylee’s work in Second Life and will happily introduce Maylee to people and tell them that her daughter creates items in Second Life, leaving Maylee to explain what they entails. This is interesting because a lot of people don’t tell their parents or families that they even engage with Second Life.
We see a brief glimpse of Maylee working in Blender in the video and Maylee explains that she uses Blender, Photoshop and ZBrush in her workflow. The brief glimpse we get of Maylee working is quite interesting as you see the items taking shape. Maylee does like to stream her working practices, but I don’t know where she streams from.
Maylee enjoys sharing tips with people, especially with new members as she enjoys giving something back to the community.
We also see Maylee outside of Second Life and relaxing in the sunshine of Paris. Maylee also makes an interesting link between Paris and Second Life : “Paris is somehow a bit like Second Life, because it’s a huge mess but it’s also full of amazing things“. I haven’t seen enough of Paris to know if this is a fair comparison!
Maylee’s enthusiasm for life inside and outside the virtual world really shines through in this episode. Maylee also breaks down the many stereotypes regarding what a Second Life resident is, Maylee is 28, creative, making a success of Second Life and enjoying life outside the virtual world. Draxtor has been breaking down that wall of stereotypes for thirty episodes now and the wall still holds firm in some quarters of the media, which is a great shame.
This is another great episode and Maylee really shines in the spotlight. The video is only around five minutes long, so if you get the time, it’s well worth a viewing.
If you want to find out more about Maylee Oh :
Website : http://www.thesecretstoresl.com/
SLURL To The Secret Store : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Inspiration%20Point/75/197/29