"The Fae" event area closed

The other day we closed our specially themed event center for "The Fae" at Zanzo. The whole area stayed up for about a month, which is a fair bit less than we planned. As a new brand, there is a lot of trial and error with what we produce - luckily for us, most of our stuff so far has worked well and been popular, but after three months working on "The Fae", it didn't garner much interest and used almost a quarter of the prim allowance for our main store.

Most of our sales were to men and even then it was the "Basics" (Bare, Freckly, three eyeliner variations) that sold, rather than the makeup styles. Oddly enough, people have queued up at the Lucky Chairs for the two Fae skins in them, which both have makeup. I don't know if this means we promoted and branded the concept wrong, or if its just the idea of getting a $950L skin for free that has caused that.

Despite the lack of interest in "The Fae" as a concept at large, we're really proud of our work on it. In downsizing it, we've removed a large chunk of the makeup variations (some may go in the Lucky Chairs over time) and kept only the best ones, plus the "Basics". In total, male and female, there are still 120 skins from the range on sale, plus the optimized shapes we made. The men's skins have a small area added to the skin section, while the shapes are over in the shape section. The girl's skins and shapes are combined in their area, upstairs.

A post featuring "The Fae" by my friend Takeshi Ugajin at his blog, Shop With Takeshi, will hopefully open some eyes to the concept, even if a little late for some to see the original vision, story and all.

It certainly was an experience for us creating a fresh spin on a popular race and we learned a lot by it. Hopefully in future we can create more cool themes for the event center!

Zanzo joins the LE.LOOK! sim

We recently had the honour of being invited to be part of the new LE.LOOK! sim. LE.LOOK! is a new high concept, very exclusive project to bring together many top designers from around Second Life. Its pretty amazing that we've been given the honour of display our stuff alongside the likes of Aitui, Aoharu, Damiani, Find Ash, Truth, and UncleWeb Studio - the sort of places Dru and I love to shop at and who now we can show off some of our stuff alongside with. A lot of effort and money has and is being invested into the project, justifying rental costs that not every designer could afford.

We are privileged enough to be at the front of the men's skin area on the men's fashion wing of the sim. We made a special display of our Fae skins, featuring a select range of makeups (and basics) from what we believe are our highest quality skins yet. We don't expect enormous sales, as this range is very much niche and specialty, but we hope it can show people what we can do.

We've come along way since our little store in Diagon Alley earlier this year. Not only have we made more products - far more than we ever imagined - but the quality of our work has improved massively. We now have a big following, lots of new customers, and we continue to grow. We're hoping to get to the point sooner or later that we can buy our own full 15,000 prim sim for our store and maybe some other projects.

Our growth and quality improvement is the reason that we have two new skin ranges in development that follow up on two existing ranges.

The first one is "Generation Y", a new range for teenage/young adult avatars. "Androgyny" has been our best selling range, as it offers a flawless, beautiful look for avatars in a world somewhat starved of non-mature looks for avatars who aren't kids, but don't want a fully mature adult look. "Generation Y" will offer an alternative style look. Very much a teenage style skin, but less "perfect" and more "authentic", with lots of subtle details on the face and body. We'll offer four shades, the basic ones - pale, medium tan, heavy tan - along with a new Asian style pale. The variations will be Bare, Freckly, Blush, Light Eyeliner, Heavy Eyeliner, and Dense Eyeliner. Each pack will come with two versions - smooth and pubic hair. Depending on if the range catches on, we might add special concept skins. This range is well in development and should be out in the not-too-distant future.

Coming up in early 2009 is an untitled second range of full adult skins. "Machismo" is our only mature male adult range, but again we've learnt so much that we can now offer a different, more refined and authentic style of skin.

We're really hoping next year can be big for us, as we've only just scratched the surface of what we can do. Please keep supporting us and send us any suggestions you have!

"The Fae" @ Zanzo!

The gate has opened at last on Zanzo's special exhibit that we have been working on for about three (grueling) months now. Titled "The Fae", this offering was created with several things in mind.

Shopping is one of the coolest things to do in Second Life. In this world, we have the chance to look -exactly- how we please at a low cost. But often, shopping is a repetitive experience and there is little more to it than teleporting to a store, grabbing what you want, and leaving.

At Zanzo, we put great effort into presentation. You may have noticed how we theme so much, to the point that we sub-brand our products in special areas. We think shopping should have a certain ambience to it in order to make it more than a point-n-click experience.

"The Fae" is our most ambitious attempt to do that yet. It is a story-driven area where, yes, you can buy things - skins, shapes, and eyes - but you can also immerse yourself in an environment created to enhance these products. We have developed a concept and tried to put a new spin on a popular race that has many stories.

We hope you enjoy "The Fae" and would love your feedback and suggestions on it.

- Theodore & Drusus