The Alphaville Herald

Blumfield Residents Get Their Doodle On

by Alphaville Herald on 03/04/06 at 12:36 pm

by Jeannedellalune Prudhomme, Special to the Herald

Patch Lamington at his Doodle House in SL’s Blumfield sim

BLUMFIELD — Sometimes a scribble is just a scribble. Other times, it’s a doodle and a way of life.

So it is for Patch Lamington, preeminent SL doodler and popular founder of the Blumfield Residents Association (BRA).

Patch, who wears his doodleness openly and proudly, has made his mark on the SL scene — literally. His distinctive doodle craft appears in Blumfield and at several vendor locations, and avies can be seen all over SL tootling around in Doodle Cars.

He also has left a legacy of community in SL by forming one of the more unique groups in our fair world. The organization of the BRA, created in December, brought together a bunch of hapless newbies for fun and recreation and gave their community a voice that was actually heard by Linden Lab. (Full disclosure: J.L. Prudhomme is a former BRA officer and still owns property in Blumfield.)

The SLuburban streets of Blumfield

“The forming of the Blumfield Residents Association did not change our policy,” Lauren Linden acknowledged when asked about the impact of the BRA, “but served as a reminder that people, not paved virtual streets, shape a community.”

Friend and fellow Blumfielder Molly Montale put it this way: “Patch envisioned a real residents’ association with which we could begin a dialogue with Linden Lab about the future of Blumfield,” she recalled recently. “Patch gave us the leadership that I don’t believe we would have had otherwise. He organized meetings with Pathfinder Linden and Lauren Linden and invited in other interested SL residents. I believe the ideas that came out of our residents’ association, under Patch’s leadership, influenced LL’s thinking about what to provide for residents of SL.

“Things may well have gone very differently for Blumfield if we hadn’t had Patch to provide focus,” she said.

The BRA, with 26 members, seems particularly to have been a force in bringing zoning issues to the forefront of Linden awareness, even in the creation of the new residential sim of Shermerville, which contains a number of features, such as communal space, lacking in Blumfield and its sister sim, West Haven.

Patch, who has been in SL a little more than five months, first became aware of SL by reading New World Notes, by Hamlet Linden’s (now Halmet Au), and following mainstream game press coverage of SL.

“It seemed a nutty place and I figured I had to see what it was like,” he said, relaxing at his Doodle House in Blumfield. “Despite reading a lot, I still couldn’t get to grips with what it would be like. That’s what drew me in.”

Patch admitted that at first he was just a “very, very standard” avi, a bit lost like all newbies with no home base and looking to do some scripting. The Lindens’ offer of a 512m piece in Blumfield to new premium accounts came by email, and after a “good chat with a bunch of nice people in the bar of the _blacklibrary,” Patch “reckoned it would be a good time to pay up.”

The soon-to-be doodle guy moved into the Levittown-like community sight unseen, but soon started to make friends. “At first I thought it a little dull,” he said. “I’ve come to value dull in SL now. It’s got its place, though Blumfield is certainly less dull now.”

A regular forum reader, Patch, who describes himself as a Blumfield SLuburban, began to see “some pretty pissy comments” about his ‘hood, “stuff about how in three months it would look like a wasteland.” He found he was worried about “First-Land-gone-bad development,” as he put it, and knew that a good group of neighbors wouldn’t let that happen and also could have fun together.

“I really just wanted someone else to organize stuff, but I know that everyone waiting around for someone else to start is pretty typical, so I burned my L$100 and set up a residents’ group, then told everyone I met in Blumfield and invited them,” he recalled.

Even residents of next door West Haven joined the group, though many since have organized into their own association.

“It has helped make friends, which was the real agenda for me, not for myself but for the area, for the neighbors to know each other,” Patch said of the BRA. “It has helped some of the residents value the area more, which has helped maintain the area better.”

Climbing into the front seat of a Doodle Car with Patch, who drives about as well as one would expect a doodle to drive, a tourist would note that Blumfield now has a number of popular spa spots, a coffee shop, a casino and several discreet stores created by residents. Post boxes also can be found scattered around the attractive neighborhood, though there does exist on one street what locals fondly call “the crack house,” a dilapidated, boarded-up structure.

It is doodleness, however, that makes Patch what he is and what he wants to be. He admits to being a major doodler in real life.

“Whenever I’m attending a meeting, I usually come away with a copy of minutes or proceedings covered in little happy, angry and sad faces,” he said. “In real life, I must have drawn thousands — tens of thousands — of variants of the Doodle Pad happy face. I think that, plus children’s drawings and the Maisy books by Lucy Cousins are all big inspirations to my work.”

Molly Montale recalled the advent of Patch the Doodle , which took place during a visit by friends to Lamington’s sky borne residence.

“Everyone was so impressed with the Doodle House, and we all began making jokes about other doodle items that Patch could make,” Molly said. “He began to make and import doodle clothes on the spot as we were all talking. First the shirt. Then the pants and finally the hair. Except for the later addition of the “Just Doodle It” shirt, I believe this doodle avatar that he threw together so quickly is the same one that he still uses.

“He may have already been thinking about it, but it looked as if the whole doodle thing was born spontaneously right there in front of our eyes.”

Then there was the maiden voyage of Patch’s Doodle Bus. After a particularly raucous pool party, the Blumfield gang climbed into the double-decker bus — driven by Lamington himself — and toured a number of sims and conspired to moon newbies in the Welcome Area.

“We were crashing across sim boundaries, spinning nearly out of control and losing avatars all along the way with the Welcome Area as our final destination,” Molly said, rolling on the floor and laughing at the memory. “That night was one of the best times that I have had in SL.”

Doodle fans have since become legion and enthusiastic, and responding to their support, Patch has made about a dozen doodly items, including the Doodle Pad, excellent for reporter’s note-taking, and the Doodle HUD, for unusual picture-taking. His favorite doodles are, however, “the ones I’m planning to make next. All of the doodle stuff is at its most fun for me when I’m making it,” he said.

The Patch Lamington Doodle Pad

Talking about the future of doodledom, Patch acknowledged that he’s thinking about a Doodly Night Club, and some hardcore doodlistas even want him to build a Doodle Isle.

“Naturally, they haven’t offered to pay for it,” he laughed.

[UPDATE: Grab the SLurl to visit Blumfield in the 3pointD.com SLurlPane while it lasts.]