We are extremely pleased to announce the BlakOpal Designs Group on Avatars United! For those not familiar with Avatars United, it's a social networking site for avatars that Linden Lab recently acquired. You can read the official announcement of that right here.

Keep reading to see how you can WIN A L$5,000 GIFT CARD!

As you can imagine Avatars United is still rough around the edges, but we think it has a LOT of promise as a way to connect with SL friends even when they're offline. BlakOpal and TriloByte have both joined the site (links to profiles are below) and now there's a BlakOpal Designs group with photo galleries, videos, and discussion boards. Tell us about your favorite outfits, share your awesome SL party pics, and check out our latest creations! JOIN US!

FIRST, if you haven't, sign up to Avatars United.

SECOND, once your account is activated, you need to enable groups. It’s easy - just click on the 'Account' button at the top right of your web browser window. When that page comes up, click on the 'Groups' section heading, and check the 'Enable Groups' checkbox. That's it!

THIRD, join the BlakOpal Designs Group!


BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!!
All month long, we're running a PHOTO CONTEST! Upload your best pictures wearing BlakOpal Designs clothing to our Customer Gallery on Avatars United. We'll give a L$300 BlakOpal gift card to you just for entering (limit one per user). When you upload, include your SL avatar name in the comments! And at the end of February, we'll pick one winner who will WIN A L$5,000 GIFT CARD!!!

Find us on Avatars United!
TriloByte Zanzibar on AU
blakopal Galicia on AU

Tags: AU, Avatars United, Photo, Contest, Shoppe

With the holiday season upon us, we are pleased to announce that our holiday items are now in the shoppe. We’ve brought out our holiday trees, introduced new outerwear creations, and placed our FREE knit scarf and gloves at the Main Store as well as our flagship locations in New Babbage, Caledon Oxbridge, and Steelhead Shanghai.





Come get your FREE knit scarf & gloves and check out the other holiday items at our Main Store

Tags: Christmas, Shoppe

Beautiful victorian christmas tree, a perfect addition to your steampunk, gaslight fantasy, or other classic period residence. This larger version not only works beautifully outdoors, but has mod permissions, so you can resize as necessary to suit your needs.









Buy It in-world at our Main Store or on XStreet SL

Tags: Victorian, Steampunk, Christmas, Tree

As we celebrate our first weekend in the new Main Store, we felt the time was right to introduce two new free gifts in the shoppe. We offer a free outfit for a few reasons - first as a way of saying 'thank you' for stopping by, second so newcomers have something nice to wear as they explore the surrounding communities, and third as a means of demonstrating the quality of our merchandise. Back in July, we introduced the Burgundy Cutaway Suit For Men and the Lace Front Corset as gifts, and couldn't have been more pleased with the response from friends and customers. But that was nearly six months ago, and it's high time to start offering something new.





Get them FREE in-world at our Main Store

Tags: Emerald Garden, Corset, Bustle Skirt, Green, Steampunk, Formal Suit, Black, Freebies, Shoppe

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- BlakOpal Designs today announced the opening of their new Main Store location in Second Life, on a brand new victorian steampunk region. They will be marking the occasion with a number of giveaways to group members through the end of November. Residents can join the BlakOpal Designs Group (which doesn't count against SL group limits) via the terminal inside the door at the Main Store.

While this is exciting news, designers BlakOpal Galicia and TriloByte Zanzibar initially resisted the idea of building an island. "It always felt excessive and isolated - a store in the middle of the sea. I could never imagine using that many prims or needing that kind of real estate for what we do," Trilo explained. "It wasn't until I started thinking about the expansion of the steamlands and BlakOpal and I started having a lot of creative discussions that it started making sense to me."

"The environment has always been important to us, having an interesting location for people to come and explore, and be inspired - not just to come and shop," says BlakOpal. "It's kind of an extension of the fun that we have had with various events like Burning Life and SL6B, incorporating buildings and places for people to wander, along with the fashions."

While the region bears the BlakOpal name to make searching easier within Second Life, Mr. Zanzibar explains that the island itself bears a different name. "I call it Reachra - which in gaelic means 'the place of many shipwrecks.’ It serves as a sort of trading outpost, or shipping center. If you look back to the age of English, Dutch, and French colonization, there were a number of small coastal and island towns along the trade routes that sprang up to serve the shipping industry. In addition to legitimate industry, they also had trade with privateers, smugglers, and even pirates. The idea of exploring that from a victorian steampunk perspective was really exciting to us."

Considering the number of tropical islands in Second Life, they quickly ruled out anything equatorial and started heading North. After reading about towns on the southern coasts of England and Ireland that did business with bootleggers and privateers well into the 19th century, things started to come into focus. "At that point," says TriloByte, "it was all about Ireland. While we love England, it's fairly well represented in the Second Life Steamlands. Caledon feels like the English countryside to me, and New Babbage has always felt to me as if it was rooted in London."

The timing couldn't have been better, since Trilo and BlakOpal were heading to Ireland that day. "Hilariously, we'd been planning the trip for the last six months, and it wasn't until we were about to board the flight that it occurred to me that the foot we plant in reality might be planted in Ireland."

From there, everything fell into place. Resistance turned into excitement, and the island was born. In fact, Trilo sketched out the plan for multiple regions, giving them option to grow and expand down the road. Hundreds of reference photos have helped him create the original textures and shape his plans, and he's looking forward to fleshing out additional builds and the region's backstory as time permits.

It may come as no surprise that the two are multi-media artists and designers in RL as well, having worked together on a multitude of projects ranging from Burning Man festival art installations to sewing opera gowns, elaborate costume pieces and, of course, pirate outfits.

More Photos


ABOUT BLAKOPAL DESIGNS

BlakOpal offers wearable art and specialized pieces for both ladies and gentlemen in Second Life. Drawing from neo-Victorian, gothic, pirate, and steampunk inspirations, Miss BlakOpal Galicia and Mr. TriloByte Zanzibar create works that infuse passion and adventure with just a dash of whimsy.

BlakOpal Designs started in New Babbage in November, 2008 when the pair moved into Her Dark Materials, a warehouse space in Babbage Palisade designed and run by Miss Bela Lubezki. The first shoppe opened in Babbage Square in December, followed soon by satellite locations and another store in the Caledon Oxbridge Village, near the community gateway. In addition to the new Main Store, BlakOpal Designs has three flagship locations (in New Babbage, Caledon Oxbridge Village, and Steelhead Shanghai), and more than a dozen satellite stores. BlakOpal Galicia and TriloByte Zanzibar have also participated in Burning Life in 2008 & 2009 (under the Eridu Society camp name), the SL6B event, Virtual London Fashion Week 2009, and a number of other festivals and fashion shows.

Visit the new Main Store

Tags: Shoppe, Reachra, Press Release

For the last year, we have been offering the SteamBook Pro portable computing device at our shoppes in Second Life. It’s been a remarkable little gadget that serves as a wonderful, low-prim steampunk decoration for your virtual home or office. Showcasing a selection of public domain illustrations from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and components designed from original RL counterparts, it was quite a lot of fun to make.

We are very pleased to announce a partnership with Mr. Zauber Exonar to take this wonderful creation to the next level. He has skillfully applied his ZauberCom scripts to the device, so now it not only has great form, but it offers great function. Indeed, take a look at the long list of things it can now do:

• Adjustable clock function
• Answering Machine
• Send emails to real-world inboxes
• Receive emails from the real-world, with configurable blacklisting or whitelisting
• Twitter and Identi.ca updates, with tweet-splitting for tweets longer than 140 characters
• Tip jar with 3 optional special effects
• Optional hovertext for answering machine and tip jar.
• Optional online status indicator with hovertext.
• Built-in security orb system with whitelisting

The basic decorative models are of course available at the main store and several satellite locations as a free gift for your enjoyment. These new scripted masterpieces are available either at his shop in-world, or on the Meta Life site.

Buy It in-world at Zauber Exonar’s Steampunk Emporium or you can purchase sepia or color versions on Meta Life

Tags: Steampunk, SteamBook Pro, Color, Sepia, Scripted

It is with great pleasure and excitement that we announce the opening of a shoppe at Isle RFyre. In addition to the wonderful clothing creations, RFyre has created a wonderful space adjacent to their main store that serves as more of a showcase than a mall. We are deeply honored to have been invited to participate, and can’t help but keep popping back over to check out all the amazing pieces.

Tags: Shoppe, RFyre

Below are the music media files for the BlakOpal Designs fashion show events. Tracklisting info is also listed below, as well as on the 'Lyrics' tab of the MP3 ID3 tag info. Mixes performed by Trilo on 16 September, 2009.

VLFW BlakOpal Sunday
(click link above to play in browser, or right-click and choose 'Save Target As' or 'Download Linked File' to save)

PANTyRAID's debut album "The Sauce" is released in October 2009 on Brighton native Adam Freeland's Marine Parade record label.

• PANTyRAID - One Mo!
• PANTyRAID - Headcase
• PANTyRAID - Beba
• PANTyRAID - Enter The Machine
• PANTyRAID - Too Fine To Do Time
• PANTyRAID - Like That
• PANTyRAID - Our Second Chance
• Freeland - Do You (PANTyRAID Remix)

Running Time 29:55

VLFW BlakOpal Tuesday
(click link above to play in browser, or right-click and choose 'Save Target As' or 'Download Linked File' to save)

UK's Future Funk Squad has been tearing up dance floors for a long time. His most recent album, Disorders Of Skill (on En:Vision Recordings), arrived in July and has been filling dance floors all around the world. Along with some of his best tracks and remixes, this set features two tracks taken from the upcoming remix album, Re-orders Of Skill, due later this fall.

• Future Funk Squad - Zones (4Kuba Remix)
• Future Funk Squad featuring Mojo - Sorcerary (FFS Club Mix)
• Future Funk Squad featuring Mojo - Blow (Kid Digital Remix)
• The Prodigy - Warrior's Dance (Future Funk Squad Remix)
• Daft Punk - Da Funk Squad (FFS Breaks Mix)
• Muse - Knights Of Cydonia (FFS Breaks Mix)

Running Time 31:18

Tags: VLFW, Virtual London, Fashion Week, Fashion Show, Music, Future Funk Squad, PANTyRAID

Check out streaming video of the VLFW events below! BlakOpal Designs runway shows are today (Sunday) at 2PM SLT, and Tuesday at 2PM SLT. There will be a party afterwards - if you can make it in-world, join us in Kensington.

Embedded video player has been removed, since the event is over. Check out video of the BlakOpal shows here and here.

Tags: VLFW, Virtual London, Fashion Week, Fashion Show, Kensington, Video

We are very excited to be participating in this year's Virtual London Fashion Week in Second Life! The event organizers have put together an amazing week-long event which runs from 19th to the 25th of September. Some amazing vendor booths, freebies and prize boards, and several amazing runway shows being held each day. The event is starting to get some great attention, with notices on Prim Perfect, iheartSL, and New World Notes.

We are very excited to be participating in two separate runway shows. The first is on Sunday at 2PM SLT, featuring a sexier 'body beautiful' theme, and the second one happens on Tuesday at 2PM SLT when VLFW on a theme clothing night. The fashion shows are not free - tickets are L$100 for each day. While it would be nice for the event to be completely free, making it a ticketed event should cut down on lag and make for a much better experience for everyone. You can check out the complete schedule and buy tickets here.

We will be featuring more than two dozen ensembles in the two shows, as well as featuring brand new mixes made for the events by Trilo. If you've ever wanted to see how some of our most fashionable pieces look in-world, this is your chance! Tickets are not required to explore the VLFW booths, get some freebies, and chances to win prizes. Our booth is located on the upper level of the expo center.

Tags: VLFW, Virtual London, Fashion Week, Kensington, Fashion Show

We are very pleased to announce a Photo Contest of sorts. That is, we would love to see photographs of you wearing BlakOpal Designs in Second Life. The best snapshots will be included in a customer photo gallery on the BlakOpal site, and the winners will get a BlakOpal L$300 gift card!

Entering is easy, and costs nothing. Take your shapshot, and choose either Send Via Email (and send to trilobyte@me.com) or Save To Your Hard Disk (and then send the image as an attachment to trilobyte@me.com). If you're saving to disk and sending manually, please be sure to include your SL avatar name. That's it! If we use your snapshot, we'll send you a gift card and add it to the Customer Gallery (available on the Galleries page).

Let's answer some questions...

Can I enter more than once?
Yes, absolutely! If you've got several great jaw-dropping photos, send them along!

Can I win more than once?
Yes, absolutely! For every picture we use, you win a gift card.

Will you give me credit?
Of course! Unless you specify in your email that you'd prefer to remain anonymous, we'll put your name in the gallery beside your snapshot.

What if the photographer and the model are two different people?
There's still only one gift card per winning entry, and the gift card gets sent to the avatar that sent us the photo. But we're happy to list the model name and photographer name alongside the snapshot.

Can I crop/edit the snapshot before sending?
Yes, absolutely. While it's certainly not required, you are welcome and encouraged to have fun with this.

Can I mix/match/modify outfits in the snapshots I send?
Yes, absolutely. One of the reasons we love copy/mod clothing is so you can adjust and tweak it to our heart's content, and we'd love to see what you've come up with.

Good luck, and send us your photos!

Tags: Shoppe, Photo, Contest

The new issue of SL fashion magazine ICON is out, and BlakOpal Designs gets some attention! Mr. Ruin Quan writes an excellent article on the future of alternative clothing in SL (starts on page 109), and we are deeply honored to be among the designers he interviewed for the piece.

Click here to read the magazine on the web.

Tags: ICON, Magazine, Interview

We are very pleased to announce that BlakOpal Designs has opened a location in the new Steelhead Shanghai region. Part of the larger Steelhead community (five sims and growing fast), it explores the notion of the pacific northwest in the 19th century and adds in elements of steampunk and fantasy to create a truly unique environment in Second Life. As the name suggests, Steelhead Shanghai has a distinctive Asian feel to it, serving as the city's 'chinatown' so to speak. We designed a shoppe that would be as much fun for exploring as for shopping, but it's just one of many incredible, inspired builds. Click here to visit BlakOpal Designs in Steelhead Shanghai.

Photos from the build can be found here

Tags: Shoppe, Steelhead, Built

This little gem slipped into the shoppe earlier in the summer without any fanfare whatsoever, and it’s time to correct that oversight. Going beyond the photos and images we use in signs and notecards for the shoppe and XStreet Listings, BlakOpal has assembled a beautiful catalog of glamour photographs featuring our Ladieswear collections.

It’s a beautiful book you can peruse at your leisure, either by rezzing it in-world and flipping through the pages, or wearing as a HUD to display in your viewer window. Pick up your free copy at the Main Store in New Babbage.

Tags: Catalog

Not sure which item to get for your friend? Let them decide by getting them a gift card. Available in several denominations, the BlakOpal Gift Card can be used to purchase a wide range of merchandise from the Main Store in New Babbage or from our shoppe in Caledon Oxbridge Village. The card is extremely easy to use, and contains an instruction notecard.

Our gift card system has recently been updated, and you can now do split payments for items (when the thing you want costs more than the balance on your card). You can find the BlakOpal gift cards for sale in several denominations on the second floor of the Main Store in New Babbage or at the shoppe in Caledon Oxbridge. Also available on XStreet SL.

Tags: Gift

Steampunk gears and rusted metal parts cover these large,  flowing, flexi wings. 

Includes:
• animated flexi prim wings

More photos can be found here

This item comes with copy + modify permissions, which enable you to create your own outfit combinations, and customize the fit on your avatar if you choose. It may also be purchased as a gift from the display in the store.

Buy It in-world at our Main Store or on XStreet SL

Tags: Animated, Steampunk, Gears, Wings

Steampunk gears and rusted metal parts cover these large,  flowing, flexi wings. 

Includes:
• animated flexi prim wings

More photos can be found here

This item comes with copy + modify permissions, which enable you to create your own outfit combinations, and customize the fit on your avatar if you choose. It may also be purchased as a gift from the display in the store.

Buy It in-world at our Main Store or on XStreet SL

Tags: Animated, Steampunk, Gears, Wings