Some residents may not have noticed the newly built Costa Rica Opera House. When you venture there now, most likely you will expect to see a full orchestra and a production of Madame Butterfly being performed. The realism and exquisite texturing is the work of master builder, Barnesworth Anubis. When asked by Giancarlo to take on this task he agreed.

"It seemed like a fun challenge. Plus it's always awesome to build something in Second Life that will actually be used. I work full time in SL now doing a lot of custom building for companies, schools, organizations - real life mostly - looking to invest in SL. Sadly a lot of those builds are not used or enjoyed by a large number of people. And, I would be lying if I didnt say it's good for biz. I'ts an amazing community of home owners and well, if you didnt know that is kind of my market."

If you don't know who Barnesworth Anubis is, he rezzed into Second Life June 21, 2004. He is the prefab king of Second Life with an amazing line of residential, commercial, furniture and landscaping in his sim Demersal. His beginnings were just like the rest of us.

"Just another clueless noob really. Toast Bard and Ingrid Ingersoll were good friends from another online game, The Sims Online [by EA Games TSO, which was shut down completely on August 1, 2008], along with some other people. We all came to try SL, Ingrid and I specifically to try building houses; we used to do a lot of house design contests in TSO. So it's no surprise we both took to building right away, we actually spent the first night in The Library of prims. [A self-guided and self-paced builders resource and library with sandbox aka The Ivory Tower] That's what has always kept me coming back, I love the building tools and making something out of nothing really. And the people in SL are pretty cool too."

Unlike The Sims, Barnesworth found alot more creative freedom here. "At first I found it really intimidating, I actually had very little experiance with any sort of making models or texturing things when i came to Second Life, just very basic stuff, but I dove right in playing around with all the prims and shapes and whatever, after six years i finally have a clue now."

Many of us who have ventured down the building path can empathize with that. The evolution of his work can be seen clearly and over time he has reworked alot of his older builds. In particular I mention a home my SL sister bought called 'Yakushima'.

"Now that one is realllly old. Well the original. A lot of my houses are old ideas redone over and over, its like doing drafts in writing I guess, they get better every time. The first design of that house was completed in december of 2004, one of my earliest houses in SL. The current version that is sold was last updated in 2008."

It's not just homes either. You can buy whole streets and shops as well as displays. All with the same elegant and simplistic structure. The textures are what really jump out at you.

"When I first started building i thought textures were for people who couldn't build but back then people use to just slap an image on a prim and call it a building. Along the way i started to learn texturing slowly. Now I make a lot of my textures from scratch, almost all of them really."

One of my favorites is the 'Mulholland' prefab. Straight out of Hollywood and so retro. "Mulholland is awesome, I considered that house a big turning point in my prefab biz, a big step up in quality from what I was making before. It's still a pretty cool house."

With the Costa Rica's Most Beautiful Parcel contest, Barnesworth and WK Ganesvoort were to judge residents that entered. With so many beautiful homes entered, the choosing wasn't easy.

"Yeah I just helped judge the lot contest around here, it was really fun going around viewing the parcels and meeting some of the residents. I looked for lots that had a nice balance, where the house, the land, the views etc worked together nicely. I just kind of went with my gut on it, what house felt the best to visit. It was hard to pick though; I ended up having to give Giancarlo two runners up because I couldn't just pick one house to be recognized. I saw some really nice ones that weren't on the judging list too!"

I wanted to pick his brain for some tips on setting up a beautiful space. Hey if you got the Master in your midst, use it!

"I'd say work with what you have, don't fight it. It's not as big of a problem in Costa Rica sims but I see all over the grid people trying to make their parcel what it's not. On the same level just work with what your land has, highlight the good and put a bush in front of the bad. Use some restraint - in a place like costa rica sims where overall the land and the homes are tasteful, let the view in, don't block it out. That sense of space does wonders adding depth and really making you feel like you are somewhere. A good decorating rule is to never have anything you don't absolutely love in or outside of your house. Don't settle and don't just fill space."

Even if your partner thinks the stuff you absolutely love is crap?

"I'm going to pass on giving relationship advice, haha."

Another good rule of thumb. Barnes is up to alot what with his full-time building for real world companies in SL, his Boutique ['it hasn't been updated since like 2007 haha' Don't listen to him, the clothing there is timeless and will still work for any guy] in his commercial sim, Rue DAntibes, but also, pets?

"Well there is always a ton of stuff; some prefab stuff in the pipe for Costa Rica [keep an eye out for something special he and Gian are cooking up]. Lately I've been doing a lot of cool houses and have more planned that are more designed for the SL lifestyle, instead of modeling layouts after real homes and whatever like spaces people actually need in SL. Specifically targeted at more content creators and people who run businesses in SL. Working on more of those as they have been going over well so far and yes been doing pet stuff with callie [Cline], but not just bunnies, other pets too. We have stuff coming out for horses, faries, dogs, all sorts of pets really. I know Costa Rica has a horse trail so I think people here will like them."

Yes the pets. Bunny fever all over Costa Rica sims and Barnes agrees. He and callie Cline teamed up to design a new special garden gazebo for the Ozimals™ bunnies in April this year.

"It all started with those chickens and then I think the turtles came next, but I cant promise that. I have to come clean I don't have any pets. Which is maybe really bad since I've been making pet stuff, callie has a lot though, she kind of tells me what we need to make, she's pretty creative and does a lot of the marketing and getting our stuff out there and seen."

I ask him one more thing that's been bugging me for ages. Sculpties. Yay! or Nay. "Well like everything its about using them efficiently and effectively. A few well chosen and made sculpties can really take a build up a notch and I have seen some really amazing totally sculpt builds but it's hard to enjoy them when they don't load for you, haha."

I relay my experience of failing to see much at the Hair Fair which leads me to the Anubis style he wears so well. Always dressed in a nice suit and yes, he sports Linden slider made hair.

"I still have slider hair because it looks kewl. Giancarlo was lecturing me about how I'm the face of a brand blah blah, I should be updated, but now I kind of consider my avatar classic. If I change him it looks totally wrong to me. Honestly he looks pretty good for like a 2006 avatar!"

I have to agree. Now Phillip Linden, there's a makeover that is screaming to be done. Oi! Don't look at me like that. He even admitted it on Treet TV :P

Be sure to join us for the 3rd Anniversary Ball and Awards September 19 at 1:30pm SLT where we will find out who has won the Most Beautiful Parcel contest. The winner will receive L$10,000 & a Barnesworth Anubis Home.

Peace to all,

Keshi