As many know, I like in-world building and kitbashing and I’ve been known to bore people to tears blithering on about various versions of my main island home over the years. And I’m about to do so again 😀 .
For the last few years I’ve focused on building various homes using the Marcthur Goosson’s NO Cottage Bizar (and excellent design for considered kitbashing); but I’ve also attempted a more “subterranean” residence on a number of occasions, without ever really pulling it off in a satisfactory manner. However, following my recent re-visit to Sharon Edwyn’s, utterly stunning Goddess Temple, I found myself inspired to have another go.
As I live in Second Norway, craggy, rocky islands are not that unusual. Add to this the fact I have rock and cliff kits from Alex Bader (Studio Skye), Fanatik and – particularly in terms of this build – Cube Republic, I was well placed to start hacking at an idea.
These allowed me to take the basic form of the island on which the NO Cottage Bizar has sat for the past few years and both extend it somewhat and build it out ready to “hide” an underground home, a set of PBR textures from Studio Skye allowing me the blend the rocks from the various kits to give a more unified look to the rock strata.
For the main house structure, I used the Cyber Apartment by Sari6t. This is actually quite ripe for kitbashing in its own right; however, here I used it as a template to map out the floor layout and walls, building these from prims and mesh kits. This allowed me to gradually remove elements of the skybox apartment until only the large front panoramic window and its seating area, together with a hexagonal window were left for integration into my build.
The other element I utilised for the living space was the Empty version of the Fapple Nicolas Skybox (available in-world only), elements of which formed the wall décor (pseudo closets, drawers, etc.) in the bedroom area.
And here is where I owe the largest apology to Sharon: Goddess Temple features an absolutely gorgeous subterranean bathing area, complete with a large waterfall dropping into a pool behind it. I fell in love with it on sight, and wanted to have something similar.
I have actually converted the NO Cottage Bizar into a pool house in the past, but that wouldn’t work here, so it was back to the magic of the prim to start building and linking a swimming pool and a nook in which to relax. I loved Sharon’s use of a waterfall and statue in the design, so just had to follow suit; my excuse being I have several statues from ArtemisGreece I like to include in my home designs and the pool area seemed perfect for them (with a couple in the house area as well).
Admittedly, it took several attempts to get the pool area right, but overall it worked out, allowing it to form a space of its own whilst also linking house area with the passages to the front and rear outdoor spaces.
The water for the pool came via the Studio Skye PBR water kit, with an exclusion surface to hide all Linden Water from the pool (given it was effectively at ground level). A Small Waterfall set via Sasaya Kayo’s HPMD in-world store was used both inside the pool area and on the outside rocks as well.
As noted, external texturing large came via Studio Skye, whilst inside, the wall, floor, ceiling, etc., textures all came from ARTSY PBR by Aria111, together with various furnishing items (I think I have about half her store sitting in inventory!). As everything I use is Modify (I almost never buy No Mod items!), the retexturing was relatively easy, other than the monotony of calculating repeats and offsets so that those needing it (floors and ceilings) looked seamless.
Also for the exterior of the island I turned to a mix of Cube Republic and Krystali Rabeni for plants and trees.
These, together with another idea I “borrowed” from Sharon, allowed me to build up a woodland over much of the island that wasn’t exceptionally LI heavy. The trick here being to plant a fair number of trees (I chose wild elm from Krystali) and then filling out the ground under them with foliage taken from other trees and linking it with ground cover to construct large “mats”, as it were, of undergrowth to give the impression of a dense wooded area with underbrush.
Of course, I had to include the Studio Skye Zen Garden, again with some of the rocks repainted in PBR and at least a part of the TLG Chapel Ruins by Marcus Inkpen (in fact the latter might actual see the re-inclusion of further elements!). These almost always form a part of my island / home designs.
Furnishing throughout came from different sources; suffice it to say we all have our own preferences, and I’m not going to bore you further with mine. All I will say is I skimped on the photos to a fair extent by using those from my own SL travels.
The complete LI for the house structure + pool comes to 131, which includes all pictures, wall hangings, bookcases, bedroom and wall panelling, rugs, water, etc., which I’m pretty pleased about, having only just over 1219 to play with (and around 200 of that goes on my favourite boats alongside the quay.
So, having bored you to death with this, I’ll now wander off to find something worthwhile to do 😀 . Once again, my thanks and apologies to Sharon Edwyn for the inspiration & blatant stealing of her ideas!
Key Elements Used
- Cube Republic:
- Cavern building kit.
- Large Mesh Oak Tree (parts of)
- Old Oak Tree (parts of)
- Studio Skye:
- Fanatik: Cliff Covers (there is now a PBR kit available as well).
- Fancy Decor: Classic Wall Panel Kit.
- In-world stores for other major bits:
- ARTSY PBR (interior PBE materials).
- Fapple.
- Love (trees + ground cover).
- Artemis Corner (statues)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 