Santa Sack Hunt 2 Begins Today!

Long time no see! I’ve been busy IRL with home and work activities, but a number of hunts are coming up over the holiday season so expect to see some great new products from SFW Industries. Today marks the beginning of the Santa Sack Hunt 2, administered by iTouch Hunts. This is a big hunt with over 70 participating locations. Each hunt gift osts L$1.

Visit the hunt website for gift previews and list of hunt landmarks.

Store remodel is finished!

It’s been over 1 1/2 years since SFW Industries was first launched, and I’m pleased to say that business is doing well. I’ve been carefully tending it with a tightly focused business strategy, which includes regular product releases, and finally the store is regularly covering it’s own tier (plus a little extra for R&D activities).

The old building came with the land when I purchased it early in 2011. It was a simple brick structure with a minimal layout, originally designed to be a residential structure. Making changes to the architecture was one of my first lessons in how the permissions system works in SL when objects are transferred. I immediately deleted everything I considered non-essential, as I needed every prim I could get and I had not yet purchased the extra parcels in the region across the street.

Original SFW Industries building, 2011

Earlier in the year I was starting to get bored with the business’s inworld presence and I began idly considering moving the whole works to a rental location on a managed estate, to further reduce my monthly costs and increase overall profit. I spent a long time trying to find a location I liked but every place I looked either had too many restrictions (I couldn’t run a bot, for example; I don’t run one currently but I like the option to do so in the future) or — more frequently — obnoxious neighbors that didn’t support my company’s desired brand identity. I didn’t want my customers, who may be newbies fresh to SL, to walk out my front door and be confronted by women in scanty lingerie. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that moving the store brought with it many problems and things I’d have to deal with, not the least of which was repacking all my inventory with a new landmark. I didn’t want customers to arrive at an old LM and not find my store!

I decided instead that I should stay on my original parcel, on the Mainland continent of Jeogeot, and instead change buildings. I tried out several structures, both purchased and homemade, and found one that I was able to work with that had a functional layout and floorplan. It was a time-consuming process that took about two months of my free time in the evenings and on the weekends.

Finally, it is finished; or at least finished enough to tell you about it. I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Most of the products are out on the floor now, and several more are on their way. Please stop by if you get a chance and let me know what you think! I have a lot of new enhancements and promotions planned, and we will continue to participate in hunts: hell, I may even organize one!

The Great Melting Pot Hunt begins today!

This one should be good. Another fine hunt administered by Gina Redangel, of Redangel Hunts, this gridwide hunt centers around the the unique multicultural roots that come together inside of SecondLife. I expect to see some really creative, ethnically-inspired gifts on this hunt and I will certainly be doing the hunt myself when I return from my trip!

Visit the hunt website for gift previews and list of hunt landmarks.

The “Swimming Pool Blues” Hunt starts today!

When I first heard about the “Swimming Pool Blues” hunt, I was intrigued about the challenge of creating a hunt gift which both fit the color scheme and was worthy of the price of L$5. I’ve been learning how to create mesh models so I used this as another learning experience (I figured out how to bake ambient occlusions, if that means anything to you, and I’ve been going a little AO crazy lately.)

The beautiful photography in the frames comes from Elena Kalis, whom I found on Flickr. Her work is Creative Commons licensed, so I was able to use it in this piece. Her work is dreamy and breathtaking, and I highly encourage you to check out the rest of her photostream.

Anyway, Mauricette Morane has handpicked a select list of 24 participating locations so you should come away with a great collection of gifts from this hunt. Enjoy!