A question I get asked quite a lot: “How did you become such a great SL architect, Prad?”. Okay, so maybe I don’t get it asked *that* often, but someone once asked it me. I think. Maybe I dreamt it, but dreams are fun, right? Aaaanyways..

The first key rule is easily being able to critique your own work. You need to know when something you’ve just designed sucks, and you need to know that it sucks, because frankly nobody in Second Life is going to tell you it sucks. For that, you need to go to Architecture school in real life. I’ll never forget the student who was told in their critique: “This is your work? Really? I can only compare it to masturbation.. only you enjoyed making it.”. If someone says that to you amongst your peers, there’s only two ways to take it – you cry and quit, or you become the best damn architect the world has seen.

By the way – that guy quit.

So you need to fully believe that what you’re designing and making is the best of the best. If you think there’s better examples of architecture out there, then you’re not pushing yourself to the limits yet.

So then, the next (and perhaps more obvious) step is knowing how to design. See this image to get it right:

In order to be able to design, you need to need to be riding a horse in your bikini. Hey, you just can’t make this stuff up.

You probably realised that I totally just side stepped the issue there – I’m getting good at that. Design is difficult to teach though – you need to explore, learn and expand your mind. Those who think outside the box and dare to try something different, are the ones who succeed. That said, don’t be stupid and start coming up with zany ideas that don’t make sense. Leave that to Frank Gehry.

You’re entitled to a certain amount of pride in your work, but always aim for your next build to be better than your last. There’s never a ceiling in architecture – you can always do better. And you don’t need to be a real life architect to be an amazing builder in SL. Anyone from an Illinois high school teacher, to a 14 year old Canadian slavemaster (hehe – credit to Charlotte Bartlett for that one) can do it. All you need is an open mind, a belief that you can design something special, and some know how.

Know your prims – play about with the various options and “prim torture” the prims to hell and back to see what shapes you can come up with. Then develop a style – a key to success in SL architecture is when someone can look at a design and instantly think that you were the person who built it. Your style will be unique to yourself, and it’s best when it’s what you enjoy in real life (from my own experience). If you’re a huge fan of country-style furniture, perhaps building Gor castles isn’t your thing?

Or maybe it is.. hey – I’m not here to judge.

Point is this – if it’s not you, don’t do it. Your world, your imagination.

Okay, now I’m going to say something really odd. Well, it’ll be odd to anyone who knows me: Don’t take on more work than you can handle.

No seriously.. don’t bite off more than you can chew. I’m sure a few people will choke when I say that, because I’m guilty of this. It’s not uncommon for me to juggle 4 projects at once, but I can actually handle it.

As a builder, you need to be aware of your own capabilities. As a professional architect, I’m used to being able to work on several projects at once, at varying stages of completition. Others who aren’t as experienced may not be able to.

This is how it works: you need to put time and effort into building a brand in Second Life. You need a unique identity that meets the needs and demands of your niché market. Don’t build something with texture overlaps and bad colour schemes and then wonder why it’s not selling. You know it’s because your competition are walking all over you. The key to success isn’t watching what your competitiors are doing – it’s working out what they’re not doing.

My own niché was to create high quality modern furniture that were original designs, as opposed to copies of real life furniture. I had this idea about the same time as the lovely ladies at The Loft did, so we’ve both risen to prominence as leading modern designers at about the same time. Beautiful, and well built designs are our trademarks, but because we’ve worked in different paths, we’ve both developed our own unique styles. The talented Colleen Desmoullins has a great quote in her profile from Albert Einstein: “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”. I just thought I’d throw that out there.

You then have two routes. One is easy, one is hard. The easy route is throwing a lot of your own money at SL on promoting your products – SL classifieds are probably the most effective way of grabbing attention. This can be risky though, and you need to be 100% certain that your products will sell.

The second way, which is the way I went, is to work yourself up from the bottom, and use hard work and graft to sell your wares. I started off doing free builds for myself and for friends to get a portfolio together. As I got more noticed, I started to attract paying clients – not big money to start off with, but we all have to start off somewhere.

As your portfolio grows, you need to start working on your reputation. I decided to build up a reputation that spanned many fields in Second Life – entertainment, fashion, photography, etc.. the more people who are aware of who you are and what you do, the more attractive building commissions you’ll get. It takes a lot of time and work, and you need to maintain your focus on the big picture at all times, as there will be a lot of people who will tempt you into other directions, or try to bring you down. Second Life is just as ruthless as the real world, but believe in yourself and your talents and always strive to improve yourself, and you’ll make it.

Pictures from Mirage Studio 7.