Prim Perfect and Ekphrasis talks at the SL10B CC Auditorium: Wednesday 19th June

Prim Perfect is sponsoring three talks today at the Auditorium at the SL10B Community Celebrations.

What lies ahead for the heroes of The Blackened Mirror?

First of all, at 1pm, Elrik Merlin will be talking to Zander Greene and Aisling Sinclair, two of the cast of the popular Treet TV drama series The Blackened Mirror. Zander (in real life actor Scott Simpson) plays Harland Quinn, the private investigator in a big dieselpunk city who is hired by the mysterious Alais Allen (played by Aisling).  They will be talking about the show and the upcoming series but … no spoilers! The show, by the way, is written by author David Abboy, who is also travelling The Long Walk at this year’s Community Celebration.

Ekphrasis Talks at SL10B Community Celebration

Then, at 3pm, in the next in our series of Ekphrasis talks, Rowan Derryth will be talking to the very talented film-maker Draxtor Despres , who has been drawing plaudits for his new media series, the Drax Files. You can see more details of that talk here.

Non Profit Commons at the Auditorium

And last for today, at 4pm SLT, Saffia Widdershins will be talking to several members of Nonprofit Commons about their work and about the role of nonprofits in Second Life.

Do come and join us!

And don’t forget the special Prim Perfect contest at the Celebrations.  Name the places In Our Second Lives, and you could win L$5000!

Can you name the places?

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Prim Perfect Jigsaw: Lush, lovely and now on the web – Cerridwen’s Cauldron

Cerridwen’s Cauldron

Cerridwen’s Cauldron, created by Elicio Ember, is one of the most beautiful places on the grid. It formed the setting for a key episode of The Blackened Mirror, and we’ve also filmed a good part of an episode of Designing Worlds there.

Now Elicio has created a beautiful new website – and it’s part of a planned redesign that will see the entire ground level of the island changed – Elicio is urging people to go now and take pictures of the ground level as it is now (temples, caverns and all) for their archives.

Cerridwen’s Cauldron in Episode 4 of The Blackened Mirror

For me, one of the most stunning things about the Cauldron (in addition to the utterly gorgeous usage of colour) is the way Elicio creates a realistic fantasy. He is trained in both the visual arts and as an oceanographer – and he is at pains to create fantasy plants that are based on real life botanical specimens. As he says: “This gives the plants and trees (or other more alien looking plants) a ‘solidity’ that makes them more believable. Somewhat as if they could exist in a world or reality very close to our own. Same applies with architecture; I research ancient and modern cultures and architectural styles to achieve a look and feel. And well, being a hardcore gamer and geek also helps, of course.”

Cerridwen’s Cauldron – photographed by Wildstar Beaumont

Do pay a visit before it closes – and also take a look at the lovely photos Honour Macmillan has taken over there for her blog.

Fantastic mushrooms with a realistic botanical background

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Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

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Fun Noir at The Blackened Mirror: Inworld games closing at the end of the year

Sadly, with the end of Season 1, the time has come to bring the inworld games for The Blackened Mirror to an end.

The games that run purely on the web will continue, but we will be ending the games that are played on the Second Life grid at midnight on December 31st 2012. Announcing this now will give you the opportunity to play any of the games that you might have missed.

Why are you closing the inworld games?
Region and parcel owners have been very generous both in donating gifts and in hosting our prims for the games. But they need the freedom and flexibility to change their areas, which could invalidate or even remove clues in the games. If we are doing this for one area, it seemed right to do it for all, so that there should be no confusion.

Why are you keeping the web games open?
Although the first season of The Blackened Mirror is now over, the episodes continue to be available through The Blackened Mirror and Happy Hunting websites, and through The Blackened Mirror page at Treet TV and The Blackened Mirror You Tube site. So it’s possible that even at a period when we are not launching regular new episodes, people might be coming to the show for the first time and – if they are – we want them to learn that The Blackened Mirror is more than a TV show (and more than a game). We hope that keeping the web games open will give people who discover the show the fun of also discovering the challenges!

Meeting a Seeker of Truth

We’ll be republishing details of all the web games shortly. But for now … make sure you get the last of the information about The Blackened Mirror inworld games in our Fun Noir section!

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Fun Noir for the Blackened Mirror – the winners of our special contests!

The Seraph Club in Seraph City

At the end of season party for The Blackened Mirror, we held draws for all special games that we have been running throughout Season 1. The prize for each of these games is a chance to appear as a character in the world of The Blackened Mirror, not on the show, but referenced in The Blackened Mirror materials!

We will not reveal answers here, as people will still be able to play the games on the web!

The questions (and winners) were as follows:

From Episode 1 – the A Day in the Life of Harland Quinn game
As part of the clue in the diner (where we showed a copy of The Daily Prim newspaper, with its racing news), we asked:
What links Quinn’s bet with a Broadway musical?
The very first person to get this right won the chance to appear in The Blackened Mirror world. This was Kyle Beckett, who chose to become a good character and a reporter on The Daily Prim newspaper.
But we continued the game till the end of the season, and the winner was:
Chris Collins

Harland Quinn – Private Investigator

From Episode 2: Secrets from Quinn’s past
This game was first launched at the HP Lovecraft Festival in Second Life, where a special playbill was located. It was subsequently included as part of the jigsaw game associated with Episode 3. We asked:
Tell us the connection between the poster, the newspaper report and a famous Hollywood film about the world of theater …
No-one has been able to answer this question correctly!

From Episode 4: Death in Velvet Game
In this game, readers (and later listeners) were able to find the first three parts of Death in Velvet, a special Harland Quinn short story written by David Abbot, the author of The Blackened Mirror. They then had to tell us who the murderer was (and how they dunnit too!).
The winner was:
Orpheus Angkam

From Episode 4: The Link between the Seekers of Truth and a famous 1930s novel (and film)
This game asked players to find outwhat linked Episode 1.4 of The Blackened Mirror with a famous novel of the 1930s, made into a very famous film, by the author of Goodbye Mr Chips and Random Harvest.
The winner was:
Garnet Psaltery

From Episode 5: The Police Report game
This was part of an inworld game that asked people to trace copies of the police report that revealed what had been happening in Seraph City while Quinn had disappeared after the Unpleasantness at the Java Jive. One of the places people visited on the Hunt (or through the inworld quiz) was a rather exclusive apartment block, which had a doorman … and we asked:
Why is the name Carlton Garfield a very appropriate one for a doorman?
The winner was:
Maeve Everest

Quinn and Co face a mystery

Congratulations to all our prize winners!

We will be contacting Chris, Orpheus, Garnet and Maeve shortly to find out whether they want to be good or bad characters and how they can best be incorporated into the world of The Blackened Mirror!

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Prim Perfect Jigsaw: Merry Christmas from All of Us!

Christmas Greetings!

Today’s jigsaw is a Christmas message from all of us – that’s Prim Perfect, Designing Worlds, Happy Hunting, Metaverse Arts, The Primgraph blog and, of course, The Blackened Mirror.

May the joy and peaceful hopes of the season touch all of your lives.

And we hope you will be joining us on another New Year of an exciting journey!

Let’s do a jigsaw!

Christmas Greetings from us all!

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Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

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Celebrate the Holiday Season with the new issue of Prim Perfect!

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – Cover

The Christmas issue of Prim Perfect is now out – and it’s filled with amazing things to see and places to go this season!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose… unless, of course, you’re holding a braai in South Africa or a barbie on the beach in Aus. Or glumly contemplating the rain in England …

But don’t worry! Because just a few clicks away in Second Life, you can enter the winter wonderland of your dreams, with snow piled thick and deep, and blazing fires in welcoming homes – a time to sparkle at parties, making sure you’re as bright and dazzling as any Christmas tree ornament.

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – Winter Wonderlands

And so, for Christmas, Honour McMillan, Ceejay Writer and Qwis Greenwood have set out across the grid to explore some of the most beautiful winter regions they could find – and they’ve found some very unusual ones too!

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – Christmas Photostory

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – A Tiny Christmas Tale

We also have a couple of specials for you – a couple of heartwarming Christmas stories – The Tale of the Tinies’ Christmas Pudding by Qwis Greenwood – which proved to be very far from a tiny Christmas pudding after all!

And we have a special Christmas photo story from Wildstar Beaumont (and me), taken from the camera work of Elrik Merlin and Beq Janus. We have taken the Designing Worlds Christmas special episode and turned it into a rather special photo story … of a coal shortage, a dangerous (and stolen) book, and New Babbage’s legend of the Steam Santa …

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – Make your own Christmas Cards!

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – All about the Christmas Hunts

Winona Wiefel is here to tell you how to make your own Christmas card (and we are supplying the tools to help you make your own). And if you’re looking to do something more than simply explore over Christmas, Rosamoo Mendelsohn has a round-up of all the available hunts, while Tricia Aferdita tells us all about a fantastic holiday event at Art India to raise money for an Indian children’s charity.

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – Not the End of the World

For an alternative take on the end of 2012, we have Cain Maven speculating on what we might do if the world were to end!

There’s exciting news from our TV shows, Designing Worlds and Happy Hunting!, available on Treet TV. And there’s also news of our interactive media experience, The Blackened Mirror — part TV show, part game!

Our team of talented photographers, led by Judith Lefevre, PJ Trenton, Winona Wiefel, Wildstar Beaumont, and Honour McMillan, bring you some of the most artistic eye candy from across the metaverse.

All this with News From the Grid and more!

And thank you to all those who voted for us at the Avi Choice Awards. We are so proud to have won the award for Favourite Magazine, Newspaper and Periodical. It’s a tremendous boost for us – especially as the competition was so terrific. We love producing Prim Perfect – and we love the fact that you clearly enjoy reading it too.

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – A Seasonal Excursion in the Steamlands

We’re working on a major initiative for next year which we think our readers will love – you’ll be hearing more about that in January! We’ll also be keeping up our involvement in issues that affect creators and residents across the grid.

And we can promise you that, throughout 2013, we’ll be featuring the best stories, the best writing and the best photographs on homes, gardens, landscapes and more!

So what can we say but … we wish you the compliments of the season – and the happiest of New Years!

Congratulations to the Winner of the Halloween Quest: Kyle Beckett!

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – Winter Wonderlands

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So how can I get Prim Perfect?

If you prefer to read the magazine online but not inworld, there are choices. Firstly, there’s the wonderful Calaméo system, which allows you to moves smoothly through the pages, giving you the feeling of reading a real magazine. You’ll find Issue 44 here – and please do leave a comment!

Prim Perfect: Issue 44 – Winter Wonderlands

But, if you like to download your magazines to read as you commute to work, or in the bath, or wherever, you can also download a pdf of the magazine from Calameo – or print it out!.

You can get the latest issue inworld – and copies of all our earlier issues too – at our new head offices in the Irish Isles.  It has a great cafe to relax in while you’re reading the latest issue too! We also have subscribe-o-matic kiosks throughout Second Life – so you can just click to subscribe. You’ll be sent a copy of the latest issue, and then you’ll receive your issues regularly!

Or you can have it delivered to you each month as an IntelliBook, by joining the Prim Perfect Readers group inworld. It costs nothing to join and, apart from delivering the magazine each month, we won’t overload you with chat or messages!

In addition to delivering the Intellibook version of the magazine, you’ll also get a link to the online Calaméo version of the magazine, so you’ll be able to access that too.

How to Join Prim Perfect Readers

• Inworld, open Search.
• Search Groups for Prim Perfect Readers.
• Click to join

So … enjoy! And let us know what you think of our new edition!

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Prim Perfect Talks at the SL Christmas Expo: Edward Pearse

Today sees the final talk in the gorgeous Prim Perfect Pavilion are at 3pm, when Saffia Widdershins will be talking to Edward Pearse, Duke of Argylle and gentleman explorerin the Steamlands and beyond. Runour has it that he has also ventured into trade, with a range of stores of Gentlemen’s Outfitters, known as Pearsed and Cut.

Meet Edward

He has also been part of the cast of The Blackened Mirror, where he played the part of Edward, Harland Quinn’s friend. And he is, of course, a popular DJ is the Steamlands. But today he’ll be talking about seasonal traditions across the globe – with a certain slant on things as he is actually from the Southern Hemisphere and is therefore currently in high summer!

Come along and learn more at 3pm and 5pm SLT! And we don’t think we are too hard to find …

Christmas Expo 2012, photograph by Wildstar Beaumont

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Happy Hunting’s Christmas episode on the web – with the shocking season finale of The Blackened Mirror!

Now you can enjoy the new episode of Happy Hunting! with Cinders Vale and Rosamoo Mendelsohn and an interview with Amanda Yven to find out all about the SL Christmas Expo – and the Race for the Bells - and to see the final installment of Season 1 of The Blackened Mirror – and it’s a shocker!

Rosamoo Mendelsohn of Hunt SL, our hunt reporter, is on hand with all the latest hunt news of the amazing plethora of seasonal hunts – and just look at the way she decorated the studio! You can see more details of the amazing things she’s found – and upcoming hunts – here in her special post.

Happy Hunting Studio – decorated for Christmas!

Then it’s off to the SL Christmas Expo, where Cinders talks to Amanda Yven, who is the organiser for the Race for the Bells – and you’ll have a chance to see them in the beautiful Prim Perfect Pavilion, designed by Eliza Wierwight of Patron.

And last, but definitely not least, we have the final episode of Season 1 of The Blackened Mirror.  Harland Quinn,Harland Quinn, Alais Alleyn and indefatigable Mr Biggins heading in to danger (rather than trying to escape it).

Heading into Danger in The Blackened Mirror

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A Party and Prizes for The Blackened Mirror!

Blackened Mirror Season 1 has ended – and what a shocker of an ending that was, eh?

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s now on the web.

And we’re going to be celebrating the end of Season 1 with a special party today at the Seraph Club from 3pm till 6pm with Edward Pearse, who plays Harland Quinn’s friend, Edward, not only our host, but also our DJ. And Dress is definitely Film Noir!

The Blackened Mirror End of Season Party

But as well as celebrating the end of the season, there will be more goodies too!  We will be announcing the results and winners of the Special Competitions that we’ve been running all season – five very special games:

Game 1: The Broadway Musical GameGame 2: The Hollywood Theatrical Movie Game
Game 3: The Death in Velvet Murder Mystery Game
Game 4: The Shangri-La Game
Game 5: The Mysterious Doorman Game

And how will you know if you solved the mystery of Death in Velvet?  Well, for the very first time we will be broadcasting Episode 4 of Death in Velvet – which contains the solution to the mystery!

This is going to be a really terrific party – make sure that you don’t miss it!

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Prim Perfect Jigsaw: The Seraph Club is preparing for a celebration!

Seraph Club

Today’s jigsaw is a picture of the Seraph Club in Seraph City, owned by Edward Pearse.

We’ll be holding a party there today (Saturday 15th December from 3pm – 6pm) to mark the end of Season 1 of The Blackened Mirror, with all sorts of fun surprises and announcements – more information will be coming on that shortly – although here’s the poster!

The Blackened Mirror End of Season Party

And now – let’s do a jigsaw … but I’ve been a little mean and selected an unusual shape! Actually, I think you’ll find it easy …

The Seraph Club in Seraph City

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Catch up with your Prim Perfect jigsaws (showing images of Second Life and other virtual worlds).

If you’d like to submit a photo of your own to feature as a jigsaw, send it to the Prim Perfect Flickr Group. It should be sized 800w x 600h, or else it will need to be re-sized.

Read Full Post »