A slightly experimental clip, shot on location at The Wastelands in Second Life. Features the Barbary Pirate Outfit (in black), and shows off dynamic shadows, shadow smoothing, global illumination, anti-aliasing, and depth-of-field effects in the SL Viewer. Music: "Wrath (Version 3)" by Future Funk Squad.

Tags: Barbary, Pirate, Black, Wastelands, Video

Our Habsburg Suit, as seen on the runway at Fashion Week in Second Life. Shot on location at The Kensington, in Virtual London, on 26th February 2011. Outfits shown in black & wine and black & blue. Virtual London Fashion Week produced by Opium Fashion Agency. Models - Locked Semaphore and Marcus White. Special thanks to Anastacia Markova, Federica Galtier, Jessii Warrhol, and Debs Regent. Music: "Drive It Like You Stole It (Mirko Kosmos Remix)" by The Glitch Mob.

Tags: VLFW, Habsburg

Our Josephine Outfit as seen on the runway at Fashion Week in Second Life. Shot on location at The Kensington, in Virtual London, on 26th February 2011. Outfits shown in red and purple. Virtual London Fashion Week produced by Opium Fashion Agency. Models - Jezzixa Cazalet & Lulu Breuer. Special thanks to Anastacia Markova, Federica Galtier, Jessii Warrhol, and Debs Regent. Music: "Wrath (Version 2)" by Future Funk Squad.

Tags: VLFW, Josephine

Our Compass Rose Outfit, as seen on the runway at Fashion Week in Second Life. Shot on location at The Kensington, in Virtual London, on 26th February 2011. Outfits shown in Indigo and Sage. Virtual London Fashion Week produced by Opium Fashion Agency. Models - Jezzixa Cazalet & Lulu Breuer. Special thanks to Anastacia Markova, Federica Galtier, Jessii Warrhol, and Debs Regent. Music: "Wrath (Version 2)" by Future Funk Squad.

Tags: Compass Rose, VLFW

We are very pleased to announce the opening of a new shoppe location at The Portofino, a tranquil and romantic club space in Second Life. The Portofino describes itself as “a meeting place where you can feel comfortable, with soft music and without hassle. Richness and some elegance.” And we agree, it’s a beautiful build with relaxing, romantic spaces. Click here to visit our new location, and explore the space for yourself!

Tags: Shoppe

We’re very excited to announce a shoppe location at the amazing Holiday Hill event. It’s a spectacular build, and has a number of great events planned from today through January 15th. Come take a look!

Tags: Shoppe

BlakOpal Designs is very pleased to announce a new shoppe in SL Amsterdam! It’s a beautiful multi-region build that captures the feel of one of Europe’s great cities, and we’re excited to have a small merchant space on the main thoroughfare, showcasing some of our favorite pieces. Check it out!

Tags: Shoppe

A wonderful top hat for men and ladies, festooned with boughs of sculpted green holly leaves with bright red berries, and encircled with twisted branches. This sculpted 'John Bull' styled low-top black hat is wrapped with red satin and lace ribbons and fixed with a large bow at the front. The perfect way to dress up any holiday outfit! Resizable to fit most heads.

Includes:
* Top Hat

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 the web at the Second Life Marketplace

Tags: Holiday, Top Hat, Red, Green

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 the web at the Second Life Marketplace

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.





Buy It in-world at our Main Store or on the web at the Second Life Marketplace

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

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).

Buy It in-world at our Main Store or on the web at the Second Life Marketplace

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 the web at the Second Life Marketplace

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 the web at the Second Life Marketplace

Tags: Animated, Steampunk, Gears, Wings