Caution All Skin/clothing/texture Artists

Lillybeth, I am extremely thin skinned I thought about writing you about your shop and employment post you made but decided against it because I just don't feel I could deal with it.
There is lots of hassles with any business, and from someone who has poked my toes in few times doing business in SL is incredibly difficult I wouldn't want to even try.
I am just not courageous enough as yourself and others.
Good luck I hope things just keep improving and you don't let the downsides of SL business get to you too much.
FD

No BUT you could sell your work from TRU hassle free
We have our own copyright dept checking and issuing take down orders on behalf of tru. ( This is mostly the same 3 sets of mine that someone started selling in full perm stores and now those sets are kinda all over FP stores but we keep plugging away and giving polite warnings to those FP stores that dont yet have txtrs but may find some to buy, they ae clueless aboout copyright so they actually thank us for letting them know )
Texture theft ( or reselling ) has decreased over the yrs because TRU and other stores have made a big issue of how immoral and illegal it is to distribute anothers artwork and now we get ppl asking us about our EUAL and ' Can they do ABC? ' etc which is a first for me personally. Once over pl didnt like the signs and license issues. They found it preachy.

We have 35 artists and only 1 of those artists has persistant issues with theft and thats from sets sold from his own store. And again our copyright agent does spot checks and deal with all of that very effectively.

Also were just about finishing up on the watermarking of all the sets. We are replacing the old sets with a new system that te customer has to agree to the Terms If Use contract before they can buy a set of txtrs. The vendors them selves dont contain physical txtrs they work on the UUID code only and the thumbnail strip which displays the images for viewing purposes is a large 1024 x 1204 texture with 256 thumbnail images of each texture from that set with SAMPLE written accross it.

In short, any 'texture grabbers' using software will just get a heap of thumnails with SAMPLE written all over each image.

IN addition ( and so long over due I could weep lol ) were installing word search terminals which will TP ppl direct to the set they view at the terminal following their key word input.

This is a stop gap to the bigger project of the Take Away HUD allowing builders to search and buy txtrs direct from their build and again this is all protected by watermarks and they have to agree to the Terms Of Use before a purchase is accepted. If they dont they are refunded and told they can come back at any time to buy that set again once they read and agree with the TOS.

Thats being built but with LL and the WIndlight client SL has been so buggy its kinda set us back but the in store terminal will be a major relief to many customers I am sure.

Anyhoo, want me to send you some info about joining us? There really isnt any pressure. You join you drop your sets you go about your SL we take care of customer care, marketing and all the stresses of day to day issues.

I hate to see a talented texture artist go to waste when he or she could be sharing their talents with others in SL and seeing their work on builds its very rewarding

Drop me a notecard if you want the info sending. No pressure if you dont

And thanks for your reply!

I am still learning. I am struggling right now how to learn how to do complex 3d texture map hand drawn images for specific prim shapes, and basics of Adobe.
I do hand drawn or mouse drawn textures, flowers, trees, some building, furniture, curtain and other household related and fabrics.
Biggest issue is I am very critical of my own work and I am perfectionist and somethings
I don't yet know how to do. Like if I do virtual kitchen textures I can't seem to allign the textures at right height for virtual 3d looking counters, shelves and certain more advance things with alphas or texture tricks I haven't figured out.
I also like making neat little signs. Often I put my most recent art in signature.
In real life I have some pretty severe health and cognitive challenges but I do art about 20 hours or more a week as therapy and I have been able to continue learning and living independantly. I don't deal with stress or overwhelming situations well be it in SL or RL it makes my auto immune condition more severe
I will contact you sometime Friday.
My goal would be as creator to help others decorate their homes with highly realistic or 3d look textures to create virtual spaces when they are low prims.

Can I have an link to that dvd in ebay? That sounds like a heck of a bargain and I can't find it please help!

I HOPE your joking? lol

I got the DVD and its safe! You will all be pleased to know. Well when I say its safe I mean I couldnt find anything directly from SL
Its a load of crap off the net and I mean CRAPOLA not seamless just samples of fabrics from online stores and all the usual freebie junk you can fine most no tseamless.
and some bootleg copies of Dosch basic woods, People from another commercial Co , skins ( but just flat skin not template ) signs ( from another commercial company as they all came with Alpha maps ) and about another 5 Commercial Cos

Included in the package was a slip note saying " To avoid unautherized copies of these textures, a number of select textures have been digitally "coded " for tracing purposes.
Please do NOT make copies of these textures for sale,trade, or re-distribution, especially on ebay.
I monitor ebay activity on a daily basis looking for unautherized distribution of these textures "

THE NERVE! I wouldnt mind but there was nothing hand made other than the stuff from RL sites hes taken from. The rest is just a load of junk off the net and I know most of them your not meant to distriibute for profit. I know because I know the net used to scour it before I could make my own!

I will be writing to this person and informing him I am passing his RL details onto all the commercial texture companies and artists hes " distributing illegally " and claiming their his to make threats about.
This isnt a 2 buck deal here. They are selling for $35 each!

Anyway the good news is nothing of SL's was found but prolly only because he hasnt found his way here yet!

Hi.

Yes your not alone with health issues I and a few of the artists have health issues. Infact my health and inability to work in RL is how I came to SL and why I am where I am today

I understand completely about stress and how it can REALLY have a negative impact on a weak immune system. I have systemic candida, Malignant melanoma and 'other' issues.
Addicted to Benzodiazepines ( Valium ) which over a 5 yr period Ive reduced from 30mg to 12mg and trust me I couldnt do it any faster. Anyone who knows about addiction to tranquilizors will appreciate just how violently addictive they are mentally and physically and its my Docs fault for prescribing them when I developed some stress related insomnia.
He just kept on prescribing them on a repeat prescription basis and I didnt know any better. Until I stopped taking them after 8 mths and had a nervous breakdown and lost my job.

Long term use of these drugs results in tolerance and that means your brain stops making the natural anti stress chemicals ( because the tablets have taken over that role ) and then you become tolerant to the pills and they no longer work and so your very effected by stress. The slightest thing sets me off.

Im lucky I know ppl who developed agrophobia and all kinds of anxiety related phobias.
I also did a cold turkey off another pill at the same time I tried to come off Valium. And I didt go back on that so for 18 mths I was a mess! A REAL mess.

Im stable now but its lead to secondary issues like the Candida which is brought on by stress/ too much sugar/ anti biotics and that took over the health issues of the Valium tolerence

I cant eat sugar, yeast , alcohol , vinager , bread, cakes, biscuits, chocolate, milk or anything dairy in short my diet is porridge with rice milk, Jacket potatoe with Prawns and salad and organic meat with veg NO treats at all. NO caffine no coffee or tea. I drink Barley cup ( coffee wanna be ) with rice milk and Christmas is a miserable time for me.

I went away a few mths ago and was naughty. Took me 2 weeks of ill health to pay for that as the wrong foods feed the candida bacteria which lives inside my bowls, lungs, stomach ( i have leaky gut too ) ears , mouth etc and it thrives and multiplies then I go back onto the diet and all that extra bacteria growth dies which releases dead bacteria ( toxins ) into my blood making me very ill and weakens my immune system and I usually then get a virus which will hang around for mths at a time.

Its a crappy thing to get and Ive had it for 3 yrs almost.

I am going to go back on the program and start taking the anti fungals ( which really make you ill ) soon. I just needed to deal with some RL issues first.

So I completely understand how stress can make an ill person iller and I promise you, stress at TRU is limited as an artist.

Also, we provide access to paid online training at Apex which has thousands of Video Tutorials on hundereds of software applications ( not just graphic ) so you can learn the things you are struggling with maybe from there ?

I will send you the info now

I sent you some textures very few people own them or even seen them. Only 2 were used with other type of photo sourced textures but only in very small ways all were painted by my mouse.
If I use photo sourced images they are only tiny partial images and I always try to use public domain and if on rare occasion I do you can't recognize the original image.
I have thought one thing I don't see discussed about textures because of the profit thing but most are anti-group.
I don't have or see why group of builders who are building for non business purposes can't pool texture ressources yet most texture artist are against that because they lose money if people don't buy every texture they own.
What do you think about this?
Thanks for sharing about yourself.
I have similar things going on including several autoimmune disorders and I developed diabetes due to the medication they were treating me with.
I have struggled with various problems including sleep, memory, emotional,learning and developement type problems I really never understood what was wrong with me but I spent years feeling like something just was wrong with me.
I never understood what was happening and felt just useless, still sometimes do.
I don't know if my artwork is ever good enough,etc.
My doctor thinks I may have been Austistic for most of my life but I don't know I don't have all the traits.
I have personal caregiver who helps me several times a week and I have fought to live independantly in spite the suggestion I should move to assisted living several times.
Look forward from hearing from you. I hope things have improved for you.
I have struggled with similar thing it can make me quite out of it right now I am suffering from really severe skin infections.
The diet thing I tried it just got to hard because I like to eat and it got to point I couldn't eat anything without getting sick.
Edit: I wonder is any of textures I sent good enough for TRU?
I got your notecard let me figure out what I have that would be a good set.