On the Silk Road

When one thinks of the silk road, that famous path to untold treasure in the orient down through history, I'm not sure that Victoriana springs immediately to mind. Huns... Camels... Nomads... Intrepid explorers.. but townhouses, tearooms and the Great Exhibition? Interestingly, though the pathways for traders had been worn for thousands of years, it was Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen who coined the term "The Silk Road" in 1877 to describe the routes he was taking.

Perryn Peterson of Second Life's Mieville Sims and organizer of (what I consider to be) one of the most concise Steampunk hunts, organized a Silk Road hunt, and while I don't particularly participate in Hunts, for Mr. Peterson, I do. I try to make things specific for the hunt and while CFF is a more neo-victorian store, I felt it was well within keeping to the themes to add a more flavored piece of furniture. To that end, the Kneeling desk was created.

Now that the hunt is over, and I've placed the item on the show room floor for sale, I thought it's probably time to mention it. I really wanted to create an item that would.. be a seperate place. Someone asked me, "why the screens?". Well, especially for a roleplay item, it would be good to have a barrier, a room divider that states Here is a sanctuary for this avatar. I made very restful kneeling animations that lend to that meditation feel. Touch the cushion and you go into a seamless painting animation, completely with holding either your wrist or your sleeve out of the way of the inks.


Because not everyone has room for all the accroutements that go with it, I wanted the desk to be versatile. All the objects can be rezzed or cleared from the desk via a touch menu. That makes the entire set at 17 prims without the objects rezzed, and just 38 with everything in place.


I have several sumi-e brush sets in my RL, so I called on those to try and provide a implication of realism. You have the brush stand, a brush that dispenses a wearable brush for the avatar upon touch, the ink bowl, a jar of water to pour into the bowl, the parchment and a box of ink sticks. These are all custom sculpted and textured. I was very proud of the brush stand and the jade texture.

The painting is a very famous sumi-e painting, very old and I thought, very reflective. You can touch the parchment and (again for roleplay purposes) you can set the "progress" of the painting from blank, through quarter, half, 3/4 done to complete.

All in all, I wanted to create a lovely little item that had a definative asian feel without being too oriental. I hope you enjoy it.

Available Here at the Marketplace for 800L.