About Wonderland Globes, Wonderkins & Palace In Wonderland
by Cybrea (Cyberia)
The History
Once upon a time back in 1995, in the early days of chat
programs and internet discovery, I came upon a brand new chat program called The
Palace. Fascinated on how it all worked, I began to experiment and created
my own chat world. Looking for a theme to make the experience more interesting,
I thought for a bit, then it came to me. "Palace In Wonderland". I
would base the world on a new Alice adventure.
It was important to me to create original backgrounds for the
rooms, to make my world unique. But I had no graphic art experience. Over the
coming months I taught myself how to use Bryce 3D & Photoshop. My
original rooms were made up of my Bryce backgrounds with old classic artwork of
characters added in. I eventually got better at Bryce and now have over 200
graphics of many types displayed there. Most are displayed only in the Gallery
of Make A Rooms, which can only be visited using the Chat Program.
About Dolls & Avatars
By mid 1996 Palace In Wonderland was finally up and running on a live
server with a fast connection (thanks to a generous mad hatter I met along the
way). It's been running now for almost 10 years, and is still very popular,
although with the with the end of the palace software several years ago, the 300
users at one time have been greatly reduced. In 1995 most people were new
to the internet and were enchanted by this new way or chatting live on the
internet using their own custom designed avatars. At first people edited
cartoons found on the web, but within a year so called "Dolls, Preps,
Sk8ters" were being hand drawn and edited and widely distributed and
re-edited over and over, among the Palace Community.
(See
Evolution of the Sk8ter) I added hundreds of these little edits to the
"Avatar Generators" for people to wear on the Palace.
I've watched the beginnings of just about every new avatar-doll style, long
before it became a fad on the web.
Wonderkins and how they began...
But the most interesting memory was watching a group of people one morning
editing some Precious Moments cartoons into a whole new look. The hundreds
of edits that followed in the coming days, I collected and added to a new
avatar generator. But !!! I needed a name for these new creations, they
were different from the regular sk8ters and prep dolls. So I called the
generator, Wonderkins ! Since they were first edited and discovered at
Wonderland, the name just seemed to fit the unique style.
I'm still amazed how the name "Wonderkins" that I
thought of so long ago, became popular, and was adapted by anyone making this
style. To this day, even the editors on the web call them Wonderkins.
Just search the web for the name Wonderkins and it actually brings up results.
What an adventure!
Wonderland Globes
I always wanted to make my own globes after seeing them on many graphics
sites, took the time to learn! These pages are the end result. Hope you enjoy
them.
Poser
In November 2004 I discovered Poser and continue to work in this
medium.
These globes are the property of
Palace In Wonderland & lag.com
