ADELE, RUMOR HAS IT… - Luc Fray Reporting... ~ The SL Enquirer

It’s amazing how time can pass by quickly. Sometimes you still keep the people you meet. Often, however, you’d lose them. A busy schedule either in RL or SL can do that, but I’m happy to say Adele Bumblefoot belonged in the former rather than the latter category.

Three years ago, I first met her in one of the RP sims I frequent. It had been a very long day for me. I was already sleepy to begin with. I should have gone straight to bed and probably shouldn’t even have logged in in the first place.

I remember I accidentally fell asleep in the middle of our RP and then waking up 6 hours after to realize what just happened. I was horribly, horribly embarrassed. I apologized profusely to her and to our now-common friend, Petunia, who was in the RP too. What made it worse was that they waited, and they were still there standing next to me when I woke up. I felt like kicking myself after that.

Luckily, they took it well. More RP grew from that encounter. I didn’t mind joining plotlines with them as they were talented role-players and possibly two of the best I’ve ever encountered in the grid. They became two of my closest friends in SL. Although our interactions were mainly through IC, they taught me a lot of things OOC too. They were incredibly funny and creative and smart, and I would never forget how they showed kindness to me.

I was going through a lot that time. I was on my own and was just kind of drifting around. I didn’t really have any SL family like most of the people in the game do, but they were the closest thing I could call one.

Although I rarely talk to them these days, when I do manage to find them online, I like to chat with them just to catch up on things. Such was the case a few days back when Adele popped up in my contact list.

Stitched’s Verra Silken Coat* for Maitreya Lara.

Luc Fray: So Adele, how long have you been in Second Life? How did you first find out about it?

Adele Bumblefoot: Now this is going to sound silly but someone told me about Second Life as another game like Sims 2.

Luc Fray: And? *laughs*

Adele Bumblefoot: So I checked it out! It wasn’t Sims 2, apparently, but I explored and found out about role-play communities. Those were weird at first, but I liked medieval stories, so I remained on Second Life anyway! It is nearly 8 years now!

Luc Fray: Wow! Is this the first account you've created? How did you come up with the name?

Adele Bumblefoot: No, this is the third one I think.

Luc Fray: What happened with the first two?

Adele Bumblefoot: My first account was a fairy; my second account was a drow; then this account was for an elf. I didn’t think of having multiple characters on one account at the time!

I was searching a name database on the internet, and I liked the sound of Adele. Then I chose Bumblefoot from the list of existing last names; I thought it was a bit funny and went with it! Never took myself too seriously, so why not? Then I said, I'll use that as a flaw for my character, so I did. I gave her the trait clumsy or something similar.

Luc Fray: *laughs* So, you only created accounts for the RP.... Tell me, what were your newbie days like?

Adele Bumblefoot: Fun! Even as a newbie, with prim and flexi hair, it was fun. I was role-playing in a sim called Terabithia back then. People were nice and it felt like a big family.

Luc Fray: Do you still RP there?

Adele Bumblefoot: Naaah. I don’t really RP anymore to begin with. I moved on from Terabithia years ago, went to multiple sims, and expanded on the genres I role-played at. I started with medieval but I also did sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, urban, and star wars, just to name a few.

Davos Doublet* from Stitched.

Luc Fray: It was through role-playing that I met you. *laughs* How do you get ideas for your characters?

Adele Bumblefoot: The Universe. And I observe what everyone else is doing so that I can do the opposite. In a way, it’s my effort to be special, paradoxically by playing very non-special people with very usual traits. Most people go for the extraordinaire. I enjoy playing the everyday people and still getting good stories.

Luc Fray: What kind of role-player are you and what usually gets you interested in a scene?

Adele Bumblefoot: I don’t know how to label myself, but I enjoy scenes that leave me wondering. So, for the most part, I don’t want to know more than I need to know, and I want to find out more as the story progresses; otherwise it’s not too exciting, right? I think that’s the most interesting thing in a scene for me, the thrill of discovering and having all the questions the reader/player wants answered but can’t have the answers yet.

Luc Fray: I understand that some players have limits; what are yours? What usually turns you off a scene?

Adele Bumblefoot: That depends on the scene, but usually I am not okay with my character getting killed—unless my character has killed some other character, of course, then that's only fair!

Luc Fray: Are you currently active in the RP world right now? And which sims are you frequenting?

Adele Bumblefoot: I am really not active in RP right now, but when I get some time, I check out sims, usually medieval ones or Game of Thrones ones.

Luc Fray: You mentioned earlier that your career in SL is on its third year. How did you start out in the business?

Adele Bumblefoot: It started out like a hobby. I first gave Blender a go 4 years ago, so around summer 2012, but I didn’t have an easy time with it. I was trying to make a mermaid tail, but it was really hard for me. Almost precisely one year after that, summer 2013, I tried Maya instead, though that time I didn’t try to make anything particular. I just dabbled and then it went on from there.

EPOS hairs in display at Adele’s main store (http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/AMERICAN%20BAZAAR/31/62/1994).

Luc Fray: Tell us something about EPOS, Stitched, and Daire.

Adele Bumblefoot: EPOS is the mesh body brand and the hair brand. I created it as a separate brand from Stitched later on since it has to do with a different field. Daire is the brand of furniture (whenever I feel like making something like that!) and, of course, Stitched is my main thing, where I make clothes and shoes and accessories, mostly for medieval and fantasy! All my brands—but primarily Stitched—are focused on creating products that are customizable and easy to mix and match. They are products that people ask for. I really love fulfilling my customers’ wishes and that’s why I often get contacted to customize some of my releases with special patterns or colors or some role-play sigil for their characters and such, which I honestly love. People being happy with what I make is my primary source of inspiration.

Luc Fray: *grins* I’m glad to hear that you’re one of those kinds of creators. Which one usually takes up most of your time? Do you do everything for your store? Like managing the financial aspect, making builds, making textures, marketing, etc.?

Adele Bumblefoot: I manage everything, yes. Each product I make is my own—from the mesh to the textures to the advertisement pictures (save for a few times when I have other, more talented people help me out with that!). But if you are asking which one of all these activities takes up the most time, I would say, depending on the item, it could be rigging or it could be texturing. If the item is a clothing piece for a mesh body, the rigging needs a lot of work to grow and shrink and bend like the body it is meant for. Otherwise, the texturing, I’d say. My favorite part is meshing, starting with a box and making it something different every time.

Adele’s meshing for an armor*.

Luc Fray: How do you get ideas and inspiration for your creations? Do you have like a favorite book or movie or TV series that just lights the bulb up? How do you improve your craft?

Adele Bumblefoot: I usually get inspiration from TV series, movies, books, actual history, and whatever sources for real outfits that existed in our past I can find. I collect those in a Pinterest board, so that once I find something I like, I always have it there for later use. Now for the improvement, that’s something that comes natural for me, cause I always want to make this other new shiny thing (which is usually harder than what I've done up to that point), so I have to find new ways to work, or more efficient ones, or try new software to see what it can offer me in my pipeline.

Luc Fray: Art inspiring art. What’s next then for the very wonderful Adele Bumblefoot? Any plans for the future?

Adele Bumblefoot: Right now, I am finishing up the details of my main store—which I’ve built all by myself—and finishing with making all the purchases easier, installing scripted vendors, gift cards, redelivery terminals, and all that but, from October 4th onwards, I’m releasing products again in some sale events, gacha events, and the like, so I’m back into production! In 2017, I have plans on expanding on another field too, but that’s a secret for now, you’ll have to wait and see!

Luc Fray: *laughs* And that concludes our interview. Thank you so much for your time, Adele! It was lovely talking to you again.