TaaaDaaa ...

So, if there are long stretches of time when Eschatos seems MIA to our loyal readers ... well, you know, there are other things than Second Life out there, right? Right? OK, so you won't get very far trying to sell that to Eschatos, since if he's not being rezzed, well, that's when the metaphysics kicks in.

Anyway, Eschatos is very excited that there's a new book out as of this weekend ...



... actually, this is the first in a whole series of books that will be recording the various shows at the Avatrait Gallery (LINK)!

This also comes with a new "storefront" for each in-world gallery opening, where Real World versions of the featured artist's works are available for order ... I know, it makes Eschatos' head swim as well.

All he can say is that you need to surf over to http://avatrait.com, and poke around in all those tabs and sub-tabs ... sign up for a free account while you're there and "tell 'em Eschatos sent ya!" (not that he's actually participating in the current "membership promotion" contest).

More later ...

New S.L. art site ... Go Sign Up!!!

Oh, dear ... it's another dreary picture of Eschatos standing by a computer monitor trying to express excessive excitement and enthusiasm across the electron stream. But, yes! He is very excited about the new Avatrait Web Site, which has opened its doors this week.



This is the long-awaited (yes, for those paying way too close attention to these scribblings, this is the third "new site" in a year) Avatrait "Second Life Art Site" that we had hoped to have been able to announce in tandem with either the debut of the Avatrait book or the opening of the new Avatrait island over the past few months. However, we wanted to get it right this time, so had to deal with a mountain of technical issues that took way longer to resolve than we had anticipated.

The new Avatrait.com is a special site, dedicated solely to the art of Second Life, that not only features the works of the Avatrait Gallery artists (available to order in real-world framed prints), but will also allow other users to store, show, and even sell their images on-line!

Being the SL-pixel kind of guy he is, Eschatos was an "early adopter" over at the Avatrait site ... and if you're real nice, he may even embarrass himself by posting some of his "snapshots" over there (amid all the awesome art that's on display). But do take a click over to sign up for a free account ... it would make Eschatos very happy to have all his readers on board with Avatrait!

More later ...

Ho, ho, ho ...

Eschatos was running around in-world today looking for just the right Xmas tree to serve as a background for a "festive" shot. Yes, that is Eschatos trying to look "festive".



Somebody should have suggested to him that he take off the SL-BaSE convention badge before posing!

Eschatos may or may not be much in circulation the next few days, as his typist is off on a road trip ... which always leaves open the question of internet access. So, if Eschatos doesn't have the chance before the end of the year, he wanted to make sure to wish everybody "Happy Holidays" and remind folks to get in those presentation proposals for SL-BaSE!

As there are a few hours left of shopping frenzy, Eschatos also wanted to suggest that the bestest gift ever for your favorite Second Life avatar would be a copy of AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, and for their RL associates the very cool swag available here and here!

As always, lots of Big Secret Projects in the works ... hopefully Eschatos will have exciting news to report as soon as he resurfaces.

More later ...

Waiting for "Black Friday" ...

Ah, there's Eschatos, always the eager one ... sitting in the Avatrait Book Store over in "Book Island Publishing Village" (LINK), waiting for the turkey-besotted crowds to surge over the parapets with lust for literature (or at least picture books) gleaming in their eyes!



Obviously, he's a bit ahead of things, as the traffic by the store has been less than dramatic (and yes, he does look bored). However, he wanted me to specifically mention that if you're looking for that special gift for the Avatar in your life (first or Second), a copy of AVATRAIT: From Second Life^® to Florence could hardly be beat!

This full-color hardcover "coffee table" book features the works of 47 of the Avatrait Gallery artists, and has a Foreword by S.L. creator Philip Linden ... and is available for direct order from http://avatraitbooks.com now!

Speaking of the Avatrait Gallery artists ... here's a cloud-occluded sneak peek at the new Avatrait Island:



The Grand Opening of the the new sim will be on Saturday, 11/29, at 1pm SLT ... featuring a gallery show of all the artists from the book, and a party featuring music, fun, and fireworks. The new place (while still "under construction" to a certain extent) is quite impressive, so do drop by on Saturday!

More later ...

A very proper gander ...

Yes, there is a long joke involved with the title, deal with it. Eschatos and I are very confused, however, as we thought we'd updated with the below picture on Friday, but here it is Monday and it's not there! We even remember somewhat how the title of that went, something like "A peek for all you lookie-loos!" ... how odd that it didn't "take".



Anyway, here's a picture of Eschatos, over by the soon-to-be-unveiled new Avatrait Gallery, eyeballing the "propaganda" that he set out right by the main entrance. That's a stack of in-world postcards that parallel the real-world postcards (promoting AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, natch) that we're having printed pretty much as I type.

As you can sort of see, there has been some substantial progress in the Gallery sim, with three and a half new buildings (one building really feels more like being inside a sculpture) in arcane juxtapositions requiring nearly non-Euclidean geometries to explain them (we have Avatrait Board members designing the new sim, and I'm convinced that one or more of them are graduates of Miskatonic U.!). We're due for a Grand Opening a week from Saturday (yes, you will be hearing more about it in this space ... what, are ya new?) and Eschatos figured it was better to be early with the propaganda than late!

We're still scratching our heads about this not going up on Friday, but here it is ... a peek at the gallery, and yet another reminder to wander over to http://avatraitbooks.com to take a peek at (and order) the book!

More later ...

No, it's not déjà vu ...

Yes, the last three pics in here have looked remarkably similar! However, most of the recent "news" has dealt with stuff on the web ... so Eschatos has been doing nice shots with computer monitors in various locations.

Eschatos has looked approvingly on images of the http://avatrait.com site (which keeps getting better and better ... with a new update just today!), and the new http://avatraitbooks.com, which now features ordering directly through us (which should speed things up as opposed to everybody ordering the book having to wait 2-4 weeks!). Well, now he's sitting having some quality time with the Second Life web site! The book, AVATRAIT: From Second Life To Florence, just made it onto the "Recommendations" page, in (naturally enough) the "books" section.



So, it's not that Eschatos has done nothing but surf the web over the past few weeks, but most of the "news" has been coming from that front ... and, don't be fooled by Eschatos' dour expression here, he's understandably thrilled that Linden Lab has put us up on the site ... and he's fervently hoping that all and sundry will head on over to order a copy!

Oh, yeah ... hopefully Eschatos will have some Big News (with more interesting pictures) to report about the new Avatrait Gallery in just a few days!

More later ...

Oops ...

My, how time flies ... I can't believe that it's been TWO WEEKS since we last checked in on Eschatos! Frankly, in the wake of all the news around the Florence trip, there's been very little to report. Somehow something like "Eschatos went here, here, here, and here to pay his in-world rent" doesn't have the post-worthy ring to it that we're looking for in this space!

There has been one reasonably significant change to update y'all on ... we got blind-sided by Lulu (the print-on-demand place that we're using to do the Avatrait book), first with a fairly substantial price increase on the printing (after we got locked in to the $49.95 cover price), and then discovering that they only print the hard-cover books in the USA, which has been resulting in insane shipping charges being quoted to our European artists and friends ("insane" as in €71 ... well over $100! ... to ship book that weighs under two pounds).



Obviously, "that would NOT do!" ... and may have seriously cut into the potential orders that we would have had from the Festival della Creativita. So, we have opted to pull all orders in-house, and are hopefully setting up a system where we order the number of books that we guess we'll need over the next month, and have them on hand to send out, and then re-order (due to this being a print-on-demand, large-format, hard-cover, full-color book, the printing costs are very high, and we have a razor-thin margin) as the money comes in.

So, please go to http://avatraitbooks.com, and take a look ... there is now a little green "ORDER" button which takes you to a page with twenty payment options (19 via PayPal, and one via Lindens) in everything from Euros to Zlotys to Yen! Also, once "the system" gets rolling, it will be MUCH faster, as we'll be doing the 2-3 weeks of waiting up front, and will be able to just shoot the books out as you order them!

Everybody with an interest in Second Life, and Virtual World art should get a copy! It really IS a "landmark" in the field of "Digital Impressionism". You can also visit our in-world storefront (LINK) for previews of the art.

Oh, yeah ... one more thing. The Avatrait Gallery is temporarily closed at the moment allowing us to make a "clean move" between the long-running site on Simuality Island to its new home on Avatrait Island ... look for the Grand Opening announcement soon!

More later ...

Here it is!

Frankly, Eschatos is exhausted ... the new book, AVATRAIT: From Second Life^® to Florence is finally available, and he's been beating the Internet with press releases and other propaganda ... all while still trying to get everything together for that trip to Florence!

He still needs to update everything with the new links ... but is relieved that one big thing is crossed off the to-do list!

More later ...

Still waiting ...

Well, Eschatos got some decorating done in the Avatrait Book Store (LINK) over in the Publishing Village on Book Island. Those framed pictures on the back wall are new, and give a low-res preview of all the images that are going to be in the Avatrait: From Second Life to Florence book.



We really had hoped that this would have been available by now ... we were taking pre-orders for it at the SLCC, where the Linden folks suggested that we could get an "official" Foreword for the book ... but they've had the materials for that since 9/10 and we're still waiting for approved copy to come back ... bummer!

Anyway, the big sign in the shop allows folks to still pre-order at this point, which will be shifting around to a link to the order page as soon as we get that last bit of the book. In the meanwhile, though, folks can come by and sort of "flip through it" (albeit without the accompanying text) via the new pics!

More later ...

Opened a store ...

I'd mentioned a week or so back that we'd "premiered" the new Avatrait book at the SLCC, and were very encouraged that there were lots of pre-order sales. Well, things are moving along with that (we're just waiting on a Foreword by a Very Famous Person) and the idea hit me that Eschatos should go check out the "Publishing Village" over on Book Island.

Back in the day when Eschatos wasn't working in Second Life, he used to hang out over on Book Island, Info Island, and some of the other "bookish" places (having followed the LibraryThing.com crowd into SL for the weekly get-togethers). The Publishing Village has typically been hard to get into, and Eschatos wanted to see if there were any storefronts open ... he was so excited to find one right on one of the squares!



The Avatrait Store (LINK) isn't much to look at yet, but we've got the basic stuff set up. Aside from the real-life hard-cover "coffee table" book that we're working on, we're also going to be producing an in-world version. Needless to say, things will be more interesting in the store when folks can come in and flip through a virtual copy, and then buy one to keep!

By the way ... if you're wondering about the "Eschaton" on the signs ... that's actually where Eschatos got his name ... much like how Iggy Pop was named for his earlier band the Iguanas, Eschatos' typist used to be publisher of Eschaton Books (which has been resurrected, with its over 900 unused ISBNs, to be the "publishing arm" of Simuality/Avatrait), and when thinking of an SL identity, chose "Eschatos" as a name!

See ... not only do you get content today, but a nice story too!

More later ...