User:Alexis Stapovic

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About Alexis

Hello, My name is Alexis Stapovic, aka Lex, Lexi. My human was born in '83 (you figure out the age), but I was born Aug 30, 2006. Yeah, I'm kind of an oldie now. I could prattle on about "I remember when" but I'll spare you. I AM STILL EDITING THIS. this takes forever.

Currently

I've just stepped back into SL, June 2010 marked my return to SL after a 7 month hiatus. I am currently focusing on making prefabs, some with shadow maps, some without, whatever strikes my fancy. None of my houses will have any of this 9 meter ceiling height nonsense. Things will be on a realistic scale. I'm also open to the idea of working on another major sim building project. They are loads of fun.

I'm also considering resurrecting my skin business, because skin sales can finance anything.

SL 'Personal Life'

On 'Family'

While the idea of having a "family" in SL complete with parents, children, lovers, grand parents, cousins, ect appeals to some, it doesnt appeal to me in the slightest. I find it creates more drama then necessary. Unless they are actualy reltaed to me in RL through marriage or blood, it holds no interest for me at all. That being said, I do have an SL Wife, but we were married largely in jest, becasue we knew SO many people at the time that were getting all tangled up in silly EL boyfriend/spouse drama, and neither of us wanted to have to deal with that. I do luff Jade muchly though. Even though we are both married IRL to IRL husbands (ZOMG!) we stil luff eachother and id have her pixel babies if she asked me to.

Also in the rant sections, find my thoughts on SL 'SEX', on Prim babies/Pregnancy bellies, and on Child Avatars

Skills/Things I've done

Building/ Architecture

I like to build. I've been building since about day 3, and love it. Its the reason I come back to SL again and again after my many hiatuses. I've been roped into several building projects along the way, some weee a success, some were an epic failure. Lets go:

Project 'Robin Hood' (disaster)

Fall 06

Please note that I had NOTHING to do with naming this project. Nothing AT ALL. This was the first 'large scale' project I worked on in second life. It was only about a month, a month and a half, into my SL career, and a then-friend bought a piece of mainland that was to small for the purpose and had me build a mall, (the design to which i still hold rights) It was a mess. but the time the mall was finished, even with space saving techniques, there was no way that enough prims could be allocated for retailers. I dont remember why, but the owner and I had a falling out over something to do with the management of the place so i took my build away (since i hadn't been paid for it), and went into my next project, which was due to start right away anyway:

First Material Squirrel Sim build (success)

Winter 06

Let me just preface this by saying that this build is no longer in use. She outgrew the size of the shop and had to have a new shop built, but my build stood for a good 2.5-3 years. (wow this makes me feel old) Anyway. I had contected Kala Bijoux (lovelovelove) for some random reason, and we got to talking. she mentioned that she would soon be buying an island and needed a builder. GOSH! I was a builder, and I LOVED her products, so I jumped up and down in my chair and told her I was an aspiring builder and I'd give it a go if she would let me. I was elated. I'd only been in-world for about 3-4 months at this time and not only was a TALKING to THE Kala Bijoux, she was letting me submit a design for her. I got a loose idea of what she and Ziggy were looking for and threw together a design.

I'm still at a loss as to why, but they really liked it, and they let me, a veritable nub-face, build their sim. It was possibly the best and most useful experience of my SL career. I learned more about building, texturing, project timing, project organization, and SL in general from that project, than from any other single project I've ever worked on. I do have to admit that Ziggy helped me out on this project a bit while I was away over Christmas. The MS build is what really locked me into SL for the rest of my life. Even though the build has now been replaced, for good reasons, I still love the sim, and I still love Kala and Zig, (I even have them on my RL resume. Seriously) I Still have a stall/area thing on their sim, and if Kala ever outgrows her new massive build, I hope she calls on me to build her another.

SoHo NYC (EPIC DISASTER)

Spring 07 In the fall of 06 I met an av named Alena Nebestanka, and the following spring she and her rl boyfriend (Girent Robson)was a real-estate person from NYC, had an idea to build a photographic recreation of SoHo NYC in SL and to attempt to get the real retailers from the real stores to be in the sl stores, Brands like Victoria's secret, Banana Republic, Armani, Steve Madden, Lucky Jeans, ect. A bit of a crazy dream, but there was a lot of talk about RL brands in SL around that time. The arrangement was ME: builder, HIM: financial backer/ talking to RL brands, Alena: PR/in-world marketing (Later Fischer Munson was added as a texture artist). I was finishing up my final courses at school at the time and I told them upfront "look, I'm extremely busy at the moment, I will not have a lot of time to dedicate, because expensive schooling comes first.

Long story short: I spent HOURS on the phone discussing stuff inconsequential details with Girent when I could have been doing school work or building. Right after I finished school Girent (who decided that he was in charge of the project, when we were all supposed to be equal partners), decided he was too impatient to wait any longer and, behind my back, put out an ad requesting noob builders to come work under me. I did not agree with this, and he basically told me he didn't care. After one particularly long building session (like 9 hours+ SOLID) to finish the Prada Falgship/American eagle /ex-Guggenheim Museum property at 575 Broadway, so that he could show it to prada/ or AE or someone, he then blamed ME for his being unable to sell SL to them. After that he told me i would be "allowed" to have a cut of profits only under certain conditions... next morning I took copies of everything that I had completed - almost 2 blocks of SoHo NYC - and left. I had another project waiting in the wings anyway.

I still have all of the builds from that project that i finished, including the massive prada/AE/guggenhiem build, the scholastic building, H&M, lucky brand jeans, Victoria's Secret, the Armani building, and several others. I may dig them out and sell them someday.

Monopoly / Eleanor sim (never finished/one)

summer 2007

This was a cool project becasue I was sitting around with my now-SL wifey Jade Serdyuk (Wifey for lolz, not cause we are into girls) and one of us said "Hey wouldn't it be cool to map out a whole sim like a monopoly board?" and the other went "ZOMGYES!" Jade knew a person, Ruuh Cassini, who had just acquired a sim and didn't have a plan for it yet. Jade pounced, and we got to use it. Jade and i were to be the builders and Ruuh was the largely-silent financial backer. We drew up contracts and stuff so all was fair.

After doing a bit of research about Monopoly, we mapped the whole thing out. Monopoly as it exists today was initially copyrighted by an American in 1933 History of the board game Monopoly, so we decided to use architecture that would have been present in large cities in the USA in 1933. There was a lot of deco. We liked deco. There was also some Gothic, and a few other things. It was SO MUCH FUN! The project lasted all summer. We had plans for shop rentals, an awesome club, apartments, a skate park, a concert hall, a movie theatre, a jail (obviously lol), and a pool, billboard advertising, awesome flier style advertising and more. it was allllll most finished. all of the buildings were done, we just needed to put up billboards and finishing touches. Then jade got sick/busy with RL and understandably had to step out of the project, and Ruuh stepped in to take jades place. Ruuh ideas of 'aesthetics' greatly differed from my and Jades vision for the sim, and without Jade it was no fun at all. Eventually I also left. Ruuh decided to take the sim another direction and that was the end Eleanor.

I still have most of mu builds from that project, a massive deposit of pre 1930s architecture. I might drag it all out one day and sell it.

Pompadour shopping area (finished/gone)

part time, summer/fall 07

I spent a bit of time working on the Pompadour market. The owner, Marjorie Market, wanted some deco-ey type builds for her sim so I made a few for her. It was a blasty. I made a few of them, and aside for a couple custom builds for specific vendors, she took 2 or 3 of the shops and arranged them into a mini-mall/market. It was awesome, but sadly, now 'tis gone.

I have the buildings for sale at Material Squirrel in my Retrologic series, though they are in dire need of retexturing.

Skinning/ Eyes

Eyes: FLAWED PERFECT

In about the second week of my SL life, someone came to me asking if I could make them some eyes. I'd never done it before, but i said id give it a go, since I do a lot of vector artwork in RL with eyes in it. The rest is history. I'm a fan of crazy weird colours and patterns, though demand from customers has produced a large number of "normal' eyes also. I now have a stock of 272 vector eyes:

  • 94 regular/normal/human eyes
  • 55 neko/cat eyes
  • 37 star shaped pupils
  • 14 inverted pentagram pupils (Halloween 07 specials)
  • 33 heart shaped pupils
  • 39 broken heart pupils

Get them here @ Flawed Perfect

Skins: Esthetica*Makeup*Arts (E*M*A)

In Early '08, after taking a 2-3 month hiatus, I discovered the Eloh Elliott had released some full perm skin PSDs My PDSs, Let Me Show U Them. I was a bit of a skin whore, but I could never find skins that were EXACTLY what I wanted. when I saw that Eloh released these, I almost died, and I immediately downloaded them. I Loved the bases, but I had a lot of things that I wanted different so I modded the crap out of them and came out whit a creation that was largely my own... and then I smeared colours and leopard print all over them. I had enough of them finished to participate in Skin fair 08, and I managed to grab one of the last stalls that were available. While at skinfair Skinkie Winkler saw my stuff and contacted me. I gave her a bunch of review copies and she wrote up a lovely review of me in Second Style magazine. Sales EXPLODED enough that I was able to make 2 student loan payments with the revenue <3 (LOVE YOU ALL). Unfortunately that summer I moved to from Canada to England and between Packing, Moving, and re-settling, I lost momentum in SL and my skin line flagged. As of the summer of 2010 I'm attempting to resurrect it with new and exciting makeup and skin tweaks. We shall see what happens. They are available here @ Esthetica*Makeup*Arts

Scripting

During the summer of 09 I was involved with sionChickens. Yes, I know. I'm sorry. This was a money draining, and frankly kind of boring time for me. They were a waste of time, full of bugs, flaws and exploits. I created an egg boxer under the name [SPLICE], and I did TONS of scripting for it, and then proceeded to undercut the priced of other, frankly overpriced egg boxers out there. when i finished scripting it i became totally disenfranchised with chickens and ended up deleting all fo them.. last i checked Sion hadn't made ANY update to his sub-par birds, and it should still work. it was pretty, and it worked well. That's all i can really say for it.

I will most definitely not be having anythign else to do with the chickens though.

Newbie helping

I honestly and truly love helping Noobs. the orientation areas dont teach them how to walk or fly easily, or how to do a lot of other things easily. I like to drag them around and de-noobify their avatars (clothes, skins, hair, AOs), teach them how to walk, talk, use their inventory, build, upload things, whatever they need. I've made a few really good friends out of this. Any new players can contact me and I'll happily spend a few hours with them getting them acquainted with the basics of the game. Im not so great with Viewer 2 (cause its a POS and I refuse to use it) but I just get new people to DL Emerald and away we go!

Alexis Rants

On SL 'SEX'

In a word "NO"

In 2 words "HELL NO!"

In several words "I think that SL sex is creepy, weird and wholly disturbing. SL genitals that talk about how hard or wet or tweaked or... whatever they are.. it's annoying and not necessary. Does your junk verbalize how hard it is irl? NO. does your special girly place verbalize how wet it is irl? NO. Would any of your erogenous zones proclaim how horny they were in PUBLIC irl? HELL NO. Please keep your SL genitals quiet near me, or I will mute them, and I will mute you. Don't EVER bring any of your SL talking junk to any of my stores, or I will kick you out."

On 'Prim babies'/ pregnancy bellies

If possible I find these even more disturbing than SL genital talkers.

1) you cant be pregnant, you are PIXELS. and 2) Preggo women dont have stomachs that TALK. If they could the only valid statements that a belly should say are 'Alexis felt a little parasite boot her from the inside', 'Alexis threw up this morning becasue her body can't handle the messed up hormones, and now her shirt smells like vomit', and 'Alexis is having contractions'. None of this "you feel hungry, and smile to yourself, knowing that now you are eating for two and your proper nutritional habits are providing a stable, healthy foundation for your fetus to grow into a strong healthy little human" THAT'S CREEPY. 1) You aren't hungry: avatars aren't alive and cannot be hungry. 2) You aren't eating for 2: there is only one of you and you cant eat. 3) Do expectant mothers actually think crap like "I'm eating for two and my proper nutritional habits are providing a stable, healthy foundation for my fetus to grow into a strong healthy little human" I somehow doubt it. They probably just think OMG I NEED a cheeseburger or 2 or 9 NOW." Shut up your preggo talker, or get away from me, or ill kick you in your preggo belly so you can pretend to miscarry.

I have much the same feelings towards Prim babies. 1) they are ALL creepy looking. 2) INFANTS do not talk to you or tell you things.. They think things like "food", "sleep", "lights", and "ouch. They don't have complex thoughts or emotions. Shut up your talking prim baby, or get away from me, or I'll throw you both down the stairs.

(If any of what I've just said to REAL, LIVE HUMAN mothers was in any way offensive, it was not intended to be.. I have mega respect for you guys, not for the faker SL babies/preggo bellies)

On child avatars

I have mixed feelings about these. If you want to have a short-ass avatar that dresses like a candy raver, and runs around doing silly childish things, fill your boots. I couldn't care less. Some of them are kind of cute. But DON'T come into MY store and tell me off, in baby-talk, for swearing, or wearing revealing clothing. You are an actually adult, not a child. When I was four, five, and six years of age, I did not wander around in make-up and talk baby-talk, there is no reason for you to do so either. I can't handle baby talk. Boiling it down: Child avatars, whatever. Baby-talking, whore-made-up, chastising, child avatars: DIE.

Contact/ Stalk Me