Rezit Sideways

Rezit Sideways is an owner and Lead Designer of Designs of Darkness along with her partner Infiner Morigi.  Rezit originally wanted to name the business "Sidetwats" but Infiner wouldn't let her.  Being a generous kind of man, and some would say more sound of mind, he offered to let her use his real life music project name "Designs of Darkness" (.D.o.D.) in its place.  Rezit sometimes feels a deep sense of unrequited shop naming and plots to use "Sidetwats" to make sex coffins and force Infiner to script them for her.  If you see her with her hands clasped in front of her with her head bent and sly look in her eye - she is thinking of sex coffins.

Second Life is Rezit's home and has been since early 2007 when she occupied the body of her business partner Deni Morigi. She joined Second Life after feeling creatively stiffled and bored with a 3 month long binge in Star Wars Galaxies.  "I played Star Wars addictively for 3 months and when I would gather the materials to create things would feel a huge sense of disapointment at the limitations using their library assets.  I thought 'This is a waste of time, I'm not making anything unique or original.'" By some miracle, she was able to download and install the Second Life client on her aging computer and so began the demonic possession of her busines partner, Deni Morigi.

When asked how does it feel to be possessed?  Deni replies, "At least I got some action!" She then spins into nostalgic reverie about her first Deviant Kitties hairs, free pure white Vampire Skin from the Shelter, and mistake purchasing an ad farm land with her stipend thinking she could build a liveable home upon it.  "It was on the water, so I thought this is great!  But how come I cannot rez my free nap pillow?"

At this point Rezit's partner Infiner became fed up with her being on the computer all the time and not giving him attention.  He wanted her to cook steak and go buy toilet paper (she being the admitedly biggest consumer of it).  Rezit cried and pointed at the screen at her little ad farm plot, "I can't even put a block down! All my Lindens are gone!"

Infiner felt sorry for Rezit and said "What are Lindens? What? Nevermind. Fine, I will help you."  And so he did.

Their first month or so was spent figuring out how land works.  In order to create they felt they needed land and space to build on.  They shopped a lot once their spending limit was dropped they spent a lot of time studying other designers by finding out what they liked and admired.  "I feel even though it is cliche to say so, you truly must create what you love.  Not for Lindens, but for the enjoyment of it.  When we buy things  from other designers we are saying 'Hey we like what you have done, we enjoy it.'  It's really very simple and since this time we do not really ever expect to sell a lot or to be very popular, we just want people to have fun," she remembers.

"We spent a lot of time at Deviant Kitties at the lucky chair. At the time it was a fun hang out as well as store. We met so many people, it was a great time!" she says.  They built many building structures and started a small boutique under the name Warped Axis and sold clothing, accessories, and piercings.  Infiner got a job as a DJ at Club Industry, and soon found himself the Head DJ and did so for about a year.

This first year was a big learning experience for them both.  Rezit says, "Mostly for me, I can only speak for myself, but I found it is so important to keep focused on my goals.  I can't be distracted by dramas or other kinds of social things. But it is very difficult to make a successful business in Second Life alone due to the sheer amount of stuff one must create in order to be noticed or remain fashionable.  When Infiner worked for the club, this was great experience for him - it is different than creating, but it is very good business experience.  He's one of those people that is multi-talented and can make anything he sets his mind to.  For me, I spent my first year figuring all this out, how I need to work to be successful.  I made some cool things, but 2008 has just bloomed for us both.  We're both very excited about the future."

On style, Rezit comments, "Our style is eclectic, but it has a heavy gothic and punk flavor, with some cyberpunk thrown in.  Lately we have been making some more horror themed things, or stuff that is creepy, but any of it could change in the blink of an eye, however I think the overidding genre just calling it 'Dark' will always prevail in some fashion.  I love black, but if you see my tattoos you can see I have a love of color too.  There's some 'fantasy' themed items in our shop -- that's mostly me (laughs).  Infiner's style is his own, it is very artistic and he amazes me with his intuitive understanding of architecture and art forms.  He is an advanced scripter and this has added a lot of value to our creations by making them have an element of interactivity."

Rezit uses mostly Photoshop CS3, AV Painter, Blender, and real life paper and pencil.  She tells her tools, "I pimp out CS3 with some essential plugins that help specifically with Second Life.  AV Painter is probably the best $10 bucks I ever spent, hands down.  I am still learning Blender but I think it is very powerful and will be a great workhorse tool for anyone.  Infiner is expert at many tools and is quite advanced with Blender. For me, it is complicated and not easy, but most high end software is. Infiner and I live together in real life at dinner time you can often find us sketching on sticky notes or whatever scraps of paper are close by while we eat.  I hand draw all the tattoos I make and I'm proud of that. I paint in real life with gouache and acrylic, and love to bring those creations or parts of them into Second Life.  I also support artists in Second Life and we maintain an art gallery on the 3rd floor of our shop."

While exploring Burning Life, we paused and were lost in thought. Rezit: are you ok? Endless: i'm sitting on a slug with a santa hat looking really burnt, and you ask me if i'm ok