Cherry on top

This week the already beautiful Francogrid just got even more beautiful. Terra Mater is now home to Cherry Manga, one of SL's top visual artists. Look in the sidebar for a page of instructions on how to visit, via hypergrid.

 For those of you who still hang out in SL sometimes, never fear, Cherry's store and showcase Mysterious Wave on sim Dark Swamp, a space she shares with fellow artist Anley Piers, is not going anywhere.

Here in Francogrid, she's sharing with another fine builder and lover of prims, her RL husband, Archael Magic, who she met in SL and married a couple of years ago. After just four days in Francogrid, Cherry and  fellow builder (or, as he prefers, 'cube maker') Archael are cautiously optimistic. 

This is still 'just a try'. The high prim limit and the free uploads are still delightful novelties. It's a place where both will be able to build side by side, which may slightly ammortize the sense of loneliness that most expats experience when
first venturing into Opensim. While they've met with kindness, both already feel the lack of 'community', in the bulk sense that we generally think of in SL.
Cherry Manga: For now I'm learning how it works here. I crash the sim here once a day, building. It's quite surprising when arriving to see a place that recalls SL in 2007. It's weird to see a lack of graphical candies, without mesh.
 Archael Magic: No money is a great thing here.

Cherry Manga: Yes, I have already put out some freebies myself. We came to Francogrid because of a friend, yann Minh, who stopped his sim on SL, because of money issues of course. I knew he was here, so I came to see, because he's really good in all geek purpose, so i thought there was something to look at here. I must admit that it's a bit hard starting here, because there are so few people to meet and to ask how it works. Even searching informations on the net is hell. But - the no prim limit can be a good argument. I'm used to my homestead, 3750, which I share with Anley, so 15000 is luxurious! I have been importing older works from SL, and we just ate more than 4000 prims in just 4 days, though!

Archael Magic: ... and I didn't begin my work yet, either!
He's planning a Planetarium. Can't wait to see it!

Open Sim is definitely not for everyone. It will help to have each other, rather than adventuring out here all alone. One has to have the pioneer spirit, not just be capable of making ones own hair and shoes - although that goes a long way to feeling whole. A certain mental self reliance is also essential. There are no accolades in Open Sim, certainly not on the scale you'd find at a big opening night, or competition, at a gallery like Metales or Pirats or UWA. 
And while Open Sim gets better every day - heck, we got Mesh, and Voice and Everything! - it's a far cry from the kind of spectacular sim-sized art builds that SL has become famous for. That's really why Cherry thought she'd come over.

Cherry Manga: I am not here for applause, but emulation. I mean, in SL having my name known gave me opportunities to meet people, to work with them and besides the applause, recognition made a lot on my self confidence. I hope my art here will inspire people to make their own. I want to let people go away from reality, open their mind, build their dreams, not only houses or such. There are many education programs here. We don't want our children to be disgusted of future, it doesn't look like futurist enough to my taste when children see movies like Avatar, they should laugh when arriving here. Maybe looking to sculpties and such, looking to surreal things, people will tilt :))

Cherry doesn't set herself up as some kind of Blender maven, she's quick to point out that her sculpties are alsmost all Full Perms purchases, and she is conscientious about the way she uses them.
Cherry Manga: I respect the rules, I never sell the packs, I modify them a lot because they are included in my work.  All new stuff is modelled by me I'm a noob with modelling but you see the birds in vase here on the boat? They are mine. The boat itself was a bought sculpt, but what it became is far from just the bought map.
It is lovely to see her sophisticated work and, while Francogrid is no 'noobs paradise' grid, far from it, it is full of elegant sims, this is definitely something different. 

And what about the success imperative of Second Capitalism? Hard to say. In SL, Archael  points out, Cherry's sales more than pay for tier, whereas in Francogrid, membership would entitle them to two sims for 120 Euros a year. That sounds like very little, but it's more than nothing. And other factors come into play. But in any case, the jury's still out. It's been less than a week, after all.

Cherry Manga: What I do here or in SL, is creating, so I need a public. In SL I just put my avatar in busy mode, when I want to create, and not be interrupted. But it's fun to see that I can give emotions, feelings to people. It's like everything, there's a double side to it.  In SL I made collaborations, special exhibitions with other artists. Here, I had proposals, but it's less exciting to me.  I'm still getting used to this place, I'll have a true opinion later. The hardest things so far have been the repetitive crashes and bugs. The very strange reaction of prims when attached on the avatar, the lack of sculpts/mesh in the landscapes, the lack of people, the hard way to travel.

Archael Magic: The search option doesn't work and users who purpose freebies and forget to make good rights on the objects.

Cherry Manga: The good thing is the fact that people give to others free, but I didn't travel enough yet to see if there are good things shared.  I don't think the commercial thing is an excuse for the lack of creativity and skills ;) arrogant Frenchie, yes, I know ahaha!

Visit Cherry and Archael any time at sim Terra Mater, on Francogrid. They'll be glad you stopped by. And so will you!