Fantasy Faire 2013 – Ciaran Laval

April 30, 2013

Fantasy Faire 2013 – Wrapping It Up

“Fantasy Faire is always a treat for everyone involved, but this year has been especially great. The artistry and pageantry has been mind blowing to behold, the people have been a joy and fun to be around, and the events have been great.

The Dwarfins team has been blown away by the generosity of the Dwarfins community members who have gone above & beyond in their donations to the cause of fighting cancer. We’ve been overjoyed to welcome many new members that the Faire brought to us, and have reveled in the community spirit brought to us by this great cause.” – Judy Chestnut Of Dwarfins.

All good things come to an end and I’ll pretty much wrap up my Fantasy Faire coverage with this post, although you should never say never as there may well be more news to post, but I’ll mostly wrap it up here. I apologise to those of you who read my blog and have no interest in this event, but I love this event, it’s an event that exemplifies oh so well some of the excellent use cases of Second Life and that most certainly should be highlighted.

One complaint regarding events like this, and that applies to the other fairs that take place during the year, is lag. Fantasy Faire this year wasn’t that bad, but there were some who experienced problems. The thing is, this is Fantasy Faire, if you take away the beautiful buildings, the weird and wonderful avatars and their scripted accessories, you take away some of the heart of the event.

Although Fantasy Faire 2013 is officially over, there are still a couple of Fantasy Faire related events to run. There’s a short story competition in association with Prim Perfect: Weave a tale of fantastic landscapes for the Fantasy Faire / Prim Perfect Short Story Competition. Your story should be between one and three thousand words and the best entries will be published in the summer edition of Prim Perfect Magazine. One of the good things about blogging Fantasy Faire is that I’ve now discovered the excellent Calameo system Prim Perfect use for their magazine, that’s a really impressive platform.

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April 30, 2013

Fantasy Faire 2013 – The One Of A Kind Auction

Sunday night saw Fantasy Faire 2013 pretty much winding up with the one of kind auction in The Valley Of IshNar. This is an event whereby creators offer unique items for auction to raise money for Relay For Life and the event proved very popular:

Sim performance during the auction was excellent, with auctioneer Cortez Brandriss proving to be an expert auctioneer, all that experience from doing auctions for Oceania Breedables certainly came in handy there, she was fantastic.

The auction saw the fundraising effort for Relay For Life cross the eight million Linden Dollars barrier for this year’s Fantasy Faire, I don’t yet know what the final total is.

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April 30, 2013

Fantasy Faire 2013 – An Interview With Khyle Sion

An Image Should Be Here — The DragonSpire

Fantasy Faire 2013 may well be pretty much over, but I’ve still got a few posts on the event to post and I’ll start with an interview with Khyle Sion. Khyle is the person who built The Dragonspire sim and spent a lot of time working during the event, meaning I couldn’t catch up with him! At one point he told me he’d been awake for 36 hours! Khyle also displayed some wares from his store, Refined Wild at Fantasy Faire, naturally in The DragonSpire sim.

CL : How Many Years Have You Been Participating In Fantasy Faire for?

Khyle : This will be my 3rd year participating in the Relay for Life Fantasy Faire; however, this is my first year having built an entire sim for it.

CL : What have you enjoyed most about your participation in Fantasy Faire?

Khyle : I’m a professional artist in real life, as well as in Second Life. Unfortunately, due to illness and circumstances beyond my control, I currently do not have the ability to create many substantial works of art to participate in public shows. I’ve been showing in galleries for a long time — since I was 8 or 9 years old, in fact — up until after college. I deeply miss all of the interaction and hustle and bustle of putting together a show or installing a work of art for people to enjoy.

The Fantasy Faire has allowed me to create new sculptures and installations to be showcased and seen by a large-scale audience while also using the same work to help raise money for cancer. Whether it be a fountain like “Violet Rebirth”, an interactive work that requires audience participation, such as “Paper Boats in a Paper Sea” — or an entire sim, such as “DragonSpire” (which was built in multiple levels, with winding tunnels and secret spaces and even a secret pet to hatch!), I’ve taken great joy in discovering an outlet for me to return to my traditional, fine-art roots. I take the Faire as an opportunity to share something new and exciting with the world — to inspire, and touch the hearts of those who take the time to stop, take a breath, and really look around.

An Imagae Should Be Here — Spire And Map Layouts

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April 28, 2013April 28, 2013

Fantasy Faire 2013 – Back To The Arcanum

Oh ho ho it’s magic, you know, never believe it’s not so. I’m back at The Arcanum but this time at the main store where if you have sound effects on you can hear the thunder and rain as you approach the impressive magical building. Inside you’ll see the ghostly piano and hear that someone or something is tinkling the ivories to help create a magical ambience.

The Arcanum is owned by the wizardly Mr Zachh Barkley who has been answering some of my questions regarding his participation as a creator at Fantasy Faire 2013, but as Fantasy Faire is unfortunately drawing to a close, I’ve retreated to his main store, which is a beautifully impressive photogenic setting, Marcus Inkpen has his hand in that too.

“I’ve been participating in Fantasy Faire since 2009.” Zachh casually tells me, wait a minute, this is the fifth Fantasy Faire, which means Zachh has been participating in all of them!

When I ask Zachh what he has enjoyed most about Fantasy Faire, he tells me: “The sense of community and coming together for a great cause.” This has been exemplifed by the fact that this year’s Fantasy Faire has been a record breaking affair with 6,870,027 Linden Dollars raised for Relay For Life by yesterday and it’s not quite finished yet. Over the years Fantasy Faire has raised close to USD$100,000 for Relay For Life.

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April 27, 2013April 27, 2013

Fantasy Faire 2013 – Lupoaica

“Hair? Seriously Sonya, you want me to look at hair?” I asked Sonya Marmurek when Lupoaica appeared on my blog horizon.

“What the bloody hell are you talking about? We didn’t ask you to look at hair, Dwarfins, magic, builds, no hair!”

Ah, my bad, Lupoaica isn’t on my list of assignments, but I do have a bloggers pack from them, so tail between my legs I headed off to Ravenshard, a world of crazy themes.

Meka Aeon is the creative force behind Lupoaica and hair is indeed their game, rigged mesh hair is amongst their newer items and they are exemplifying this at Fantasy Faire.

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