#their outfits are based on items from Gaia Online

[mothgoddesss]

HAPPY NEW YEAR, FRICKERS OF THE FRICK RACE!!

We kick of 2024 with a comic I started back in FREAKING AUGUST-!! SOLANNE CONTINUUM presents "SUIKAWARI", based on the Japanese summer activity! Which - they are playing mildly incorrectly (person is supposed to be spun around until dizzy and they whack with a stick, NOT A DIVINE KATANA!).

Also, it's been a HOT minute since I've featured our beloved Valley Elders (ESPECIALLY ELDER-KUN ♥), but lo - another Husband appears forth! He's just trying to make up with Kidde for starting off on the wrong foot back in May www

Overall, despite the compounded focus/energy/interest issues, I managed to get this done. As a Host (read: creator), there is such an IMMENSE satisfaction taking a Paracosm scene out of my head and onto paper, and it always makes the comic-making toil worthwhile.

[creaturebehavior]

Like many users, after being on Gaia for awhile and establishing online friends and a thread to frequent, I decided my avatar needed a signature look. similar to how i like to keep my blog and social media accounts recognizable, i liked being easy to recognize on Gaia too. i even changed my username from “kiko kat” to “My name is Keeks”, based off my more commonly used nickname.

i’d like to share with you all now the evolution of my Gaia avatar, circa probably 2005 - 2008?

these were two variations that i stuck with in the beginning whenever i was still kiko kat

next i chose this avatar, and once that rainbow item came out, i tended to stick to that middle avatar as my default, but as new items would release and new seasons and events would occur, my avatar would change slightly through the year

then, finally gaia released some more cat eat/tail options and the black style became my default, to match the black cat ears i wore every day in real life lol. a sakura item was also released and was often included in my outfit variations. then we have my avatar’s summertime outfit.

[sister-ruan]

Dream Royal Chaos

So, I follow Facebook’s Royal Chaos group, and there was recently an announcement of another server merge. My friends @lady-reinian​, @noble-consort-yi​, @yingyuerc​ and I started venting, and I suddenly had some ideas for how I would like it (and my friends seemed to agree with me). So I shall explain what my dream Royal Chaos would look like.

Donation Tier

User Controlled Server Switches

Elimination of payer-only abilities

Consistent Story Progression

Donation Tier

So, anyone who has played Royal Chaos is aware of the VIP rankings in the game. This has caused some... frustration, to put it lightly. Only those who shell out a lot cash regularly are able to be a number 1 VIP. And ultimately, being a VIP doesn’t do anything besides occasionally giving you... like... a new speech bubble style or frame for your picture. It basically just says “I sold part of my soul to enjoy this game a little more”.

I’ll get to that whole “pay to enjoy” thing later, but I still think this is important. Many old online servers, like Gaia Online, would rely on donations to continue to keep things running and pay the people running the site. For that, the people who donated would get one item that was exclusive to donors (in Gaia’s case, a halo). While I understand we are not on Gaia, and not in the early 2000′s, this is still a decent idea.

Many YouTubers and other people who work on the internet use Patreon as a means of asking for a little extra to give a little extra. And often times, people who use Patreon have a Donation Tier list; where your placement on the tier is determined by how much you donate. This is ultimately what Royal Chaos’s VIP list is, only you can’t tell how much you have to donate to get on any particular level until you’ve paid it. But unlike Patreon, being on a VIP list doesn’t provide anything for the people paying money to get Jade, besides actually getting Jade. It’s less of “give a little to get a little” and more “give us your first born child to get two jade”. I believe a donation tier would be... more satisfactory.

User Controlled Server Switches

To try and eliminate “dead” servers, the big cats who run Royal Chaos will periodically merge servers to prevent users from losing their process while also providing a way to up activity; which is rather irritating for those of us who like quiet servers. This also can cause you to lose a lot of progress you’ve made in promotions because people who have money to burn are better at maintaining their status. (Yes, I’m aware of the theme.)

So, what’s my solution? Don’t leave it to the admins and mods to merge servers. You send out an announcement of which servers are going to be closed and warn users that if they don’t move their data to a new server before the deletion date, their data would be deleted. Providing users with a choice of where to go can allow users who prefer chatty servers to go there, and those who like quieter servers to go to the “new” servers. This would also free up the data used by inactive accounts that people have abandoned. And the players wouldn’t be so angry at the admins and mods.

Elimination of Payer-Only Abilities

For as long as I’ve played Royal Chaos, there has always been a great disadvantage to players who want to play for free. Players who can shell out cash have the ability to buy more supplies to get better heroes, pets, weapons, clothes, flowers- anything that is needed for competition (which is ultimately 90% of the game). This makes the game less enjoyable for those who don’t have the money to make it rain. Those of us who spent anywhere from several hours to several months trying to get strong enough to move to the next stage don’t stand a chance compared to those who spend $200 to make ten times the progress in a fraction of the time.

So, in my dream Royal Chaos, that would be eliminated. Completely. Sure, if you paid for stuff, you still get to keep what you bought. But progress is to be made through grinding, like the rest of us. Want to level up your warriors? Better start battling. Want to beef up your pet? Feed it. Don’t have the supplies for that outfit? Gotta start doing some travelling. Making it so everyone’s progress is based on how much time their willing to put into the game will make things more fair and equal. However, you know the admins and mods wouldn’t be happy with a completely free game.

My solution? A once a month special item for a reasonable price. How is that different from now? Well:

It’s at a reasonable price. Not $50

It’s not a gamble. Part of why these “exclusive items” are undesirable is because there’s no promise you’ll get them

What’s a reasonable price? In my opinion, $10. “But [my name], won’t the admins and mods think that’s too cheap?” Initially, yeah. But as they say, “You attract more flies with honey than vinegar.” If you give people a promised item to them for a reasonable price, you’re more likely to get more buyers. And even $10 is a bit pricey, but compared to a $50 gamble it’s nothing.

But how is this different from the Payer Exclusive items? The monthly item released is cosmetic. It’s just a costume or a new hair style. It’d be nothing that would really effect the game play. But costumes wouldn’t just be exclusive to once a month; costume recipes should come back. I’ve got more than enough of... everything... to make tons of costumes. The monthly exclusive is just one item that you don’t have to make.

Consistent Story Progression

Three months = one chapter? Uh, no. That’s silly. I’m sure it has something to do with the voice actors and the technology behind it, but it’s silly. For people like me who are primarily on Royal Chaos for the story, a lot of time is just spent doing dailies for five minutes and then signing out because there’s no update. I would much rather be spoon fed pieces of each chapter consistently than get one chapter, finish it in five minutes, and then be bored again for another three months.

I believe this one is more about time management and less about more workers being involved. Plus, these last couple chapters didn’t have voice overs. In fact, I think there should be regular maintenance done to make sure all of the voice overs still run for the chapters, so there are no bugs, and to give an option of just keeping comments turned off for the story. Chances are, it’d have to be a one or the other situation.

I’m speaking from my point of view as a player and as someone who doesn’t need to be fed ads. I feel like actually accommodating to those who are playing for free rather than excluding them is just being respectful. I know tons of people who have left because they just can’t keep paying for all of these upgrades they need just to keep up. And I think that it’s unfortunate because Royal Chaos has so much potential as a game, and it’s being thrown away for the sake of profit. Games are better when you can enjoy them without buying all the bells and whistles.

[artsyevy07]

“Desert Dancer Dreams”

Another piece based on Evaline, this time she is styled in an outfit similar to a belly dancer. I based the outfit loosely off of some clothing items from Gaia Online and the pose is from a suit on Love Nikki: Dress Up Queen. I think this is something Evaline would do if she was told to distract someone or something. She’ll channel her inner Timon and Pumba. 

I currently am not taking requests or commissions, BUT I do plan to do so in the future, when I do I will be sure to post so on my art and pages. This was done by hand with pencil and paper then drawn on an app for the Nintendo 3DS called "Colors!".

https://www.deviantart.com/artsyevy07/art/Desert-Dancer-Dreams-791473809

[snickertoodles]

8 Character Creators for Writers/OCs

Update: Added Picrew, and image examples.

One of my favourite ways of wasting time while getting to call it “worldbuilding” is spending hours toying with online character creators and making my OCs with them.

Jokes aside, it’s a good way to figure out what they look like, especially if you’re not an artist (and even if you are it can help you with creating an initial outline of their appearance. It’s a lot easier to pick the hairstyle that looks “right” than to draw it yourself sometimes).

So here’s a few of my favourites. These are all free and online unless otherwise stated.

(Fair warning, most of these are either cutesy, cartoony, or anime-styled because that’s what I like.)

Picrew - User-submitted, usually anime character makers of wildly varying style and quality. The whole site is in Japanese, but you can navigate fine if you translate it. There’s animal, male, and all other kinds of makers too.

Wonder ☆ Meka

Character Creator

Girl Maker

Rinmaru Games - Various anime-styled character makers that suit both modern and fantasy human OCs.

Video Game Avatar Creator & Ascension Couple Creator - Fullbody, male and female (male in Ascension only), fantasy creators with a range of colours and options for clothes, hair, etc. In Ascension you can make humans, moon elves, and have two at the same time.

Mega Anime Avatar Creator - As it says on the tin, anime bust suitable for male, female, and androgynous characters. There’s a lot of stuff here.

Mega Fantasy Avatar Creator - MAAC but with more fantasy-based options and a less 2D cartoony style.

I’ve also found the newer Manga Creators helpful.

Missangest Games - Fantasy-based, fullbody, usually female characters like mermaids, knights, angels, etc. in cartoon/anime-like style. These have more original concepts suited for humanoid fantasy/RPG characters.

Mermaid Dollmaker

Dark Warrior Creator

Cursed Fairy

DollDivine and Azalea’s Dolls - Generally female, modern and fantasy makers, some animals too. Both of these are just pretty good resources for high-quality character makers from across the web, though some are hit or miss. Make sure you look at the “exclusive” games that are made by the site creators.

X-Girl - Pretty in-depth maker for mutants, fantasy and sci-fi, girls with magical powers, etc.

Dragon Maker - For your Western-styled dergs. You’re stuck with the one body type and pose, but this is good if you need a canvas for figuring out your dragon’s horns, frills, coloring, etc.

Azalea Scene Makers - Various fantasy races, multiple characters and customization options.

Candybar Dolls (Boys version) - Cutesy pixel art “dolls” with hundreds of different pieces. The UI is kind of difficult to navigate, and the clothes are mostly suited to modern humans, but there’s a lot of options. There are other versions of this game here.

Gaia Online Avi Builder (Requires Sign-Up) - Cutesy, chibi-style pixel art for male, female, and some animal characters. There are thousands of items, but they’re organized atrociously. If you have the patience to deal with the slowness and total chaos you could make pretty much anything. Use the search bar to find items based on keywords.

Hero Forge - Fantasy/D&D characters, multiple races. Create your character as a Dungeons and Dragons mini. Lots of poses, objects, clothing and options. However it’s all entirely greyscale; you’ll need to use GIMP or something to colour these yourself.

Black Desert Online ($10 on Steam) - 3D character maker, male and female warriors, fantasy. If you’d love to spend 5 hours screwing with your characters’ exact facial shapes, this might be worth the money even if you don’t want to play the game. You can also pose them once you’re done.

The downside is the lack of hairstyles and outfits. Plus you’re essentially locked to the body type/general appearance of the class you pick (and all the female classes are pretty much “cutesy anime girl”, so not a lot of variety there).

Also, the game is fairly intensive, and like 30+GB big. So you have to have a good computer and some space, just for a character creator with an MMO attached to it.

Other paid/downloadable character creators to check out:

EVE Online - I haven’t checked this one out yet but it looks to have a similar depth to BDO, and it’s free. And takes up less space.

SoulCalibur V and VI

The Sims 3 and 4 (and maybe 2 with mods)

Sims 4 Create-a-Sim Demo

Elder Scrolls Online

Skyrim with RaceMenu (and other eyes/hair/etc mods)

That’s it, have fun. I might do in-depth looks at character creators in video games someday.

[misterjet]

✨ ✨  Commissions Summer 2018  ✨ ✨  

Hello Everyone, I’m offering commissions again because I am in need of money!  ✨ All commission inquiries can be sent to tapirne.art@gmail.com or DM on twitter @tapirne  ✨  

✨ THANK YOU FOR REBLOGGING !  ✨ Will Draw:  

OCs, DND characters (pls) ,  MMO Characters ( FFXIV, WoW, Wildstar, GW2, SWToR, etc.) / Gaia Online Avatars, Tarot Cards, Design References  , Nudity / Suggestive themes Won’t Draw:   MLP anything, Excessive Gore, Explicit porn I reserve the right to refuse a character / commission for any reason. Pricing: 

               Sketches:           Colored Sketch:                 Painted          Lined +color Portrait      20 USD                  25 USD                           30 USD            30 USD Waist Up   25  USD                 30  USD                          45 USD            40 USD Knee Up   30 USD                   35 USD                          55 USD             50 USD Full Body    45 USD                  50 USD                         65 USD             60 USD Please refer to the pricing matrix above for the base cost of any individual character Base Prices include : 1 character, a flat/solid color background, a high resolution and low resolution copy of your artwork, and a transparent ‘sticker’ form of your character.  Specialty Pieces +20 USD 

• Tarot Card 

• Designs from Text

• Extensive Backgrounds

Special Pricing 

Character Sheets: 100 USD minimum ( 2 fullbodies, 1 outfit (or 2 if you do not want a blank base idc) , 1-5 items (weapons, inventory, etc) , +any amount of text or notes about characters) 

 Additional characters  + 75% of base 

detailed character designs (wings, extra limbs, intricate weapons etc) - +30% of base

✨ ALL PAYMENTS WILL BE MADE THROUGH PAY-PAL ALL UPFRONT ✨

            What I need from you: your tumblr/twitter name / URLyour paypal e-mail address Visual reference (Armory screenshots, character sheets, avatars, previous art, faceclaims, body type reference etc) Brief character description including personality / interests / etcHave a specific costume idea / pose? Don’t hesitate to send reference / inspo links! ( Even music, pinterest boards etc!) 

[mollysearle24]

Final presentation and script

Charlotte –

Our brand story is, here at Gaia, we want you to feel like the true Earth Goddess you are. With our size inclusive, stylish and elegant designs made both ethically and sustainably. We aim for our loungewear to leave you looking great and feeling empowered. We are diving deep into clean production that is not only beneficial to you but for the earth as well.​

Heather –

Sustainability- All of our fabrics, yarns, trimmings and finishings are either organic and sustainably sourced or are made from 100% post consumer recycled material. This means we never deplete our planets natural resources faster than we can produce them. Responsibility- Everybody who works at Gaia are insured a competitive wage and our places of work are regularly inspected to guarantee safe working conditions. Inclusivity- We want all women to feel comfortable and confident when they shop with us. Our sizing ranges from a UK size 4-24 with hopes to increase this in the future.

Narnia-

Although at GAIA we pride ourselves in our inclusivity we do find our main customer audience to be a woman between the ages of 25 to 40 years old who are at a middle-class economic level. Demographically, we at GAIA want our customers to be economically aware, professional women earning a sufficient wage of 30k a year and above, who while wanting comfort also seek fashionable and classy loungewear that can be dressed up and worn out as well as dressed down. The psychological makeup of our customer is an art lover who is fashion conscious, a discriminating buyer, university educated with occupational accomplishment and an economic activist.The habits of our customer include shopping, reading, walking, yoga, watching movies and spending time with family. In terms of their consumer habits, our customers enjoy shopping around once every month or two months at middle to high profile retail establishments, fashionable good quality products, consciously seeks out sustainable and economically friendly brands.

Narnia and Zhante-

For our brand we decided to call ourselves Gaia. Gaia was venerated as the goddess of earth or land in ancient Greece. We think the name clearly reflects our goals of being sustainable and inclusive- supporting women empowerment through the use of a goddess accompanied with our ‘all goddesses welcome’ tagline. The logo is formed with Amalfi coasts cursive text that projects a feminine tone overall. Partnered with that is the alchemical symbol for the earth element, which further helps us to be identified as a sustainable brand. Both elements are identifiable to our brand and can be separated and used as standalone logos across our collection and promotional front. We decided to keep the colour palette quite simple as the black and white creates a more refined, elegant and professional look as it reflects our target audience of professional women aged 25-40 and we also want our collection to speak for itself.

Charlotte -

Our trend is a combination of the colour palette from the spring summer 22 euphoric and the concept of home comforts from spring summer 22 connected, both from WGSN. The concept of home comforts is based around comfy, loungewear home styles lasting long after lockdown. Loungewear isn’t just about comfort anymore it also needs to look into wellbeing with health being a consumer priority. Home comforts is relevant for loungewear and sets with cocooning adaptable silhouettes and adjustable features including elasticated closures and button-down finishes. The recommended materials for home comforts are organic fabrics including hemp, linen and cotton with hypoallergenic, rejuvenating and deodorising benefits. We have taken away aspects of home comforts for our brand including the loungewear home styles, organic materials and adaptable and adjustable silhouettes with elasticated features and tie-waist closures. With a future plan to look into smart fabrics.

Molly (me) -

The reason why we decided not to keep the home comforts colour palette is because we wanted something bolder and brighter. We went with the forecasted trend euphoric and the colour palette is inspired by the trend board colour me happy.

The colour palette consists of lavender Silk, Fresh Ginger, Nectar, Daylight Blue, Turquoise Tonic, Orchard Flower and Red Glow.

Charlotte -

The first loungewear collection for Gaia consists of three outfits designed for release in the spring of 2022. We’d like to consider ourselves as an inclusive brand to all and offer all of our products in sizes XXS to 4XL. The first outfit in our range is a plunge V neck sleeveless full-length dress, with an elasticated ruffled waist. The dress is paired with a collarless full length quilted coat with wide sleeves, complete with a long sash belt. The second outfit consists of three items including elasticated paper bag style lounge pants, a sleeveless tank in the same style as the dress, these are paired with a quilted wide sleeved crop jacket with a tie waste. The third outfit is a pair of elasticated paper bag shorts with a cropped square neck t-shirt with ruffled sleeve detailing matching that of the bottoms and dress. All of the outerwear and bottoms from this collection have seam pockets and there is a paper bag style detail running across all three looks of the collection.

Lisa -

Looking at the garments we create, we plan to use recycled polyester and organic cotton. Which would be coloured through a natural dye process and use of sublimation for the polyester fibres which wouldn’t be as harmful or wasteful. And with the jackets and coat we would use cotton batting.​

Heather –

Our first clothing line is priced from £47 - £428. Being a sustainable and ethically inspired brand it is expected that our products may cost more than less ethical companies on the market. As an example we pay all of our employees an average wage of £12 an hour including everyone involved with the production of our garments. Compared to one of our main ethical competitors girlfriend collective, who pay the living wage for seamstresses in Vietnam, our employees earn over 10x the amount they do. We believe that this will not deter our customer base as they care far more about the impact they have than how much things cost. Our pricing is based on a direct to customer market. We hope to operate a circular economy in the future so at this time we are not taking on wholesale options to keep things simple.

Molly (me) -

Our clothing will be predominately sold online and you can purchase the items through our website or through our Instagram shop. We decided to open an Instagram shop as well as just our website because Instagram is a massive social media platform where we can gain a large following, we will also be able to reach a bigger target market of customers. One other reason why we wanted to promote and sell through Instagram is due to the current pandemic, as more and more people are now shopping online and turning to Instagram to pass the time so we hope our brand reaches a wider range of customers through our posts and advertisements. we also plan to set up a pop-up shop in the bull ring in Birmingham city Centre, where we will also sell our products.

Pranil –

As for our pop-up store, we had scouted out a location that we had deemed perfect for our brand, and we had found an open and well-lit store for hire in the heart of the Birmingham, within the Bullring. This store is ideal for our brand as the Bullring is a highly populated area, and we feel customers going in and out the building will be inclined to help local businesses in the area, and our demographic will surely be around the building. The price for this renting out this store totals out to £132/day and we all agreed that having the store up for a month would be enough time for people to notice us, which come to final cost of £5,160, for 31 days.

Zhante –

Looking at the ways in which we can get Gaia as brand out there and create a sense of validity around us, we will be using such means as reaching out to sustainable fashion bloggers like the sustainable edit and magazines such as KeiSei and more commercial magazines like vogue for featured interviews so our consumers can get to know Gaia as a brand better and to answer any unanswered questions as well as write and review our products spreading our message across a wider audience. We will also be looking at future collaborations with other sustainable brands which support our ideals, such as girlfriend collective as an example to help gain international recognition. We will also be hiring out billboard spots across the UK to visually promote our collection and to create further interest eventually moving this worldwide. In addition to this, we will also be working with the fashion of nature exhibition to display our collection within a live event as well as taking part in the first ever sustainable fashion week, sporting our collection on the runway later this year in autumn 2021. In the near future we will be looking into partnering with campaigns and charities surrounding the idea of sustainability and slow fashion and hopefully create our own campaigns and produce panel talks that support and help spread our message even further.

[puephung-fy]

[2.20] Final Presentation + Script

For the final presentation we’ve all prepared something to say about the brand in our respected places we worked on.

^ Charlotte – Good Morning, we are group one, and throughout this presentation we will be introducing you to our new brand Gaia.  

^ Charlotte – Our brand story is, here at Gaia, we want you to feel like the true Earth Goddess you are. With our size inclusive, stylish and elegant designs made both ethically and sustainably. We aim for our loungewear to leave you looking great and feeling empowered. We are diving deep into clean production that is not only beneficial to you but for the earth as well.​

^ Heather - Sustainability - All of our fabrics, yarns, trimmings and finishing's are either organic and sustainably sourced or are made from 100% post consumer recycled material. This means we never deplete our planets natural resources faster than we can produce them. Responsibility - Everybody who works at Gaia are insured a competitive wage and our places of work are regularly inspected to guarantee safe working conditions. Inclusivity - We want all women to feel comfortable and confident when they shop with us. Our sizing ranges from a UK size 4-24 with hopes to increase this in the future.

^ Narnia - Although at GAIA we pride ourselves in our inclusivity we do find our main customer audience to be a woman between the ages of 25 to 40 years old who are at a middle-class economic level. Demographically, we at GAIA want our customers to be economically aware, professional women earning a sufficient wage of 30k a year and above, who while wanting comfort also seek fashionable and classy loungewear that can be dressed up and worn out as well as dressed down.

The psychological makeup of our customer is an art lover who is fashion conscious, a discriminating buyer, university educated with occupational accomplishment and an economic activist.

The habits of our customer include shopping, reading, walking, yoga, watching movies and spending time with family.   In terms of their consumer habits, our customers enjoy shopping around once every month or two months at middle to high profile retail establishments, fashionable good quality products, consciously seeks out sustainable and economically friendly brands.

^ Narnia/Zhante – For our brand we decided to call ourselves Gaia. Gaia was venerated as the goddess of earth or land in ancient Greece. We think the name clearly reflects our goals of being sustainable and inclusive- supporting women empowerment through the use of a goddess accompanied with our ‘all goddesses welcome’ tagline. The logo is formed with Amalfi coasts cursive text that projects a feminine tone overall. Partnered with that is the alchemical symbol for the earth element, which further helps us to be identified as a sustainable brand. Both elements are identifiable to our brand and can be separated and used as standalone logos across our collection and promotional front. We decided to keep the colour palette quite simple as the black and white creates a more refined, elegant and professional look as it reflects our target audience of professional women aged 25-40 and we also want our collection to speak for itself. 

^ Charlotte - Our trend is a combination of the colour palette from the spring summer 22 euphoric and the concept of home comforts from spring summer 22 connected, both from WGSN.  The concept of home comforts is based around comfy, loungewear home styles lasting long after lockdown. Loungewear isn’t just about comfort anymore it also needs to look into wellbeing with health being a consumer priority. Home comforts is relevant for loungewear and sets with cocooning adaptable silhouettes and adjustable features including elasticated closures and button-down finishes. The recommended materials for home comforts are organic fabrics including hemp, linen and cotton with hypoallergenic, rejuvenating and deodorising benefits. We have taken away aspects of home comforts for our brand including the loungewear home styles, organic materials and adaptable and adjustable silhouettes with elasticated features and tie-waist closures. With a future plan to look into smart fabrics. 

Molly – The reason why we decided not to keep the home comforts colour palette is because we wanted something bolder and brighter. We went with the forecasted trend euphoric and the colour palette is inspired by the trend board colour me happy.   The colour palette consists of lavender Silk, Fresh Ginger, Nectar, Daylight Blue, Turquoise Tonic, Orchard Flower and Red Glow.   

^ Charlotte - The first loungewear collection for Gaia consists of three outfits designed for release in the spring of 2022. We’d like to consider ourselves as an inclusive brand to all and offer all of our products in sizes XXS to 4XL.  The first outfit in our range is a plunge V neck sleeveless full-length dress, with an elasticated ruffled waist. The dress is paired with a collarless full length quilted coat with wide sleeves, complete with a long sash belt. The second outfit consists of three items including elasticated paper bag style lounge pants, a sleeveless tank in the same style as the dress, these are paired with a quilted wide sleeved crop jacket with a tie waste. The third outfit is a pair of elasticated paper bag shorts with a cropped square neck t-shirt with ruffled sleeve detailing matching that of the bottoms and dress. All of the outerwear and bottoms from this collection have seam pockets and there is a paper bag style detail running across all three looks of the collection.

Lisa - Looking at the garments we create, we plan to use recycled polyester and organic cotton. Which would be coloured through a natural dye process and use of sublimation for the polyester fibres which wouldn’t be as harmful or wasteful. And with the jackets and coat we would use cotton batting.​ 

^  Heather – Our first clothing line is priced from £47 - £428. Being a sustainable and ethically inspired brand it is expected that our products may cost more than less ethical companies on the market. As an example we pay all of our employees an average wage of £12 an hour including everyone involved with the production of our garments. Compared to one of our main ethical competitors girlfriend collective, who pay the living wage for seamstresses in Vietnam, our employees earn over 10x the amount they do. We believe that this will not deter our customer base as they care far more about the impact they have than how much things cost. Our pricing is based on a direct to customer market. We hope to operate a circular economy in the future so at this time we are not taking on wholesale options to keep things simple.

^ Molly - Our clothing will be predominately sold online and you can purchase the items through our website or through our Instagram shop. We decided to open an Instagram shop as well as just our website because Instagram is a massive social media platform where we can gain a large following, we will also be able to reach a bigger target market of customers. One other reason why we wanted to promote and sell through Instagram is due to the current pandemic, as more and more people are now shopping online and turning to Instagram to pass the time so we hope our brand reaches a wider range of customers through our posts and advertisements. we also plan to set up a pop-up shop in the bull ring in Birmingham city Centre, where we will also sell our products.  

Pranil – As for our pop-up store, we had scouted out a location that we had deemed perfect for our brand, and we had found an open and well-lit store for hire in the heart of the Birmingham, within the Bullring. This store is ideal for our brand as the Bullring is a highly populated area, and we feel customers going in and out the building will be inclined to help local businesses in the area, and our demographic will surely be around the building. The price for this renting out this store totals out to £132/day and we all agreed that having the store up for a month would be enough time for people to notice us, which come to final cost of £5,160, for 31 days. 

^  Zhante – Looking at the ways in which we can get Gaia as brand out there and create a sense of validity around us, we will be using such means as reaching out to sustainable fashion bloggers like the sustainable edit and magazines such as KeiSei and more commercial magazines like vogue for featured interviews so our consumers can get to know Gaia as a brand better and to answer any unanswered questions as well as write and review our products spreading our message across a wider audience. We will also be looking at future collaborations with other sustainable brands which support our ideals, such as girlfriend collective as an example to help gain international recognition. We will also be hiring out billboard spots across the UK to visually promote our collection and to create further interest eventually moving this worldwide. In addition to this, we will also be working with the fashion of nature exhibition to display our collection within a live event as well as taking part in the first ever sustainable fashion week, sporting our collection on the runway later this year in autumn 2021. In the near future we will be looking into partnering with campaigns and charities surrounding the idea of sustainability and slow fashion and hopefully create our own campaigns and produce panel talks that support and help spread our message even further.

^ Narnia – As Instagram is a big platform to promote brands and is the easiest way to garner attention, we will be reaching out to Instagrammers, sending PR so they can review and promote our collection through Instagram stories and reels to their audience which will create more traffic to both our website and Instagram page. Through this we can then run giveaways and competitions. And as Gaia gains more and more attention we will be looking into eventually expanding our group of influencers which can eventually lead us into celebrity brand endorsements and possible collaborations. 

^ Zhante – We tried to be as thoughtful about the materials we use for our packaging as we are with our collection and are constantly looking for innovative ways to minimise the use of single-use packaging. We recognise that single-use packaging exerts an impact on ecosystems at their extraction point, during production and in disposal. Therefore, we have worked with companies like TIPA and Iggesund who are manufacturers known for their bio based, fully compostable, flexible and sustainable packaging solutions to create the perfect blend. Our BPI certified packaging is 100% sustainable, 100% eco-friendly and is 100% good for the planet; made from a selection of paperboard box packaging which can either be recycled or composted. Our garments will be protected and wrapped in clear TIPA plastic made from vegetables, which is designed to breakdown into compost, replacing the overuse of industrial cast film packaging. This is great as it allows us to be consistent with our sustainability without compromising on the aesthetics.  Our thank you notes that will be inside every packaged delivery will be made from 100% recycled and plantable flower seed paper as well as our tags for both our bags and clothing. The bags will then be a combination of sustainable paperboard and again coated with a plastic film wrap-created using things such as cellulose and compostable gloss. And our Gift cards will be plastic free and made from a similar material called invercote paperboard. 

We have consciously decided not to include any unnecessary extras within the packaging such as tissue paper as we believe this will just create more unnecessary waste and recycling in the long run.

We recognise that this is a more costly approach than typical packaging and would likely have to bump up the delivery prices to help compensate for this, but we believe that the cost of this is cheaper than the cost of damaging the planet.

^ Lisa – After establishing our brand, in the short midterm we plan to open a physical store including the expansion of our range for a more inclusive collection through sizing which we plan to use CLO3D technology which would allow us to reduce the waste in pattern making and thus being more sustainable. In the long-term we aim to use self-healing fabric as it would reduce the damage on the garment and less waste as well as encouraging customers to return the clothing that we would then recycle into new clothing so that this creates a more circular ecosystem. 

^ Heather - Thank you for listening. Are there any questions?