Otherworldly

After a very busy first weekend of December, I am trying to slow the pace down a bit and enjoy the build-up to the holidays by slowly getting into a Christmas mood. This dress by Faida and Velvet Whip was not intended as a Christmas dress, but I would definitely like to have it for a Christmas party, especially in this frosty silver colour. The dress is will be available at We Love Role-Play when it opens in a few hours, together with a L$50 Christmas special. The earrings I am wearing are in fact the L$50 item from another vendor, Bliensen + MaiTai. Make sure to check all the stalls so that you don’t miss any of them!

My hair is a new style by Wasabi, available with and without bangs and featuring a pretty texture-change ribbon. It is out at Tannenbaum and so is the candle from the Plastik, which includes holdable versions for both your left and right hand as well as a rezzable version. A HUD provides plenty of texture options.

This weekend, Dutchie released four collar styles (plus a freebie leash handle that works with them), each packed with a carefully curated selection of bento animations. There’s 42 solo collar animations and 6 couple animations. The collars also include a bound walk, crawl walk, ankle lock and neck lock. Each style costs L$798. The best way to show the collars was with a video, so of course I brought Ran on to hold the leash and help me demonstrate the functionality of these collars. Hope you enjoy!

The current round of Romp ends tomorrow, so I wanted to squeeze in a look at two things from the event—a furniture set from Roawenwood and a pair of stockings from Luxuria. The furniture has poses for two and three avatars at once as well, but I didn’t have any extra bodies handy for these photos. The idea is that it is a “kennel” bed set (for girls, not dogs, even if my dogs would have liked the lower bed!) with solo animations that include various lays, a set of tasks (knitting, sewing, embroidering) and a set of beauty routine animations. The work animations auto-rez and attach props, but the beauty ones don’t, which I am not sure whether that is intentional or a glitch. There is also a “sisters” menu for two avatars, with hairbrushing and gossping, an adult menu for two female avatars, and a threesome menu (two females, one male) with cuddles and sex. The style of the set is pretty versatile, here I have it in a fairly rustic setting but I could see this kind of wood finish in a more modern room too.

Luxuria’s Heaven Thigh Highs (the writing on the back reads “this way to heaven”), which includes both appliers and system layers, comes in eight colours for easy matching with lingerie—or with nothing at all. ;)

I have teased it a few times already, since I have basically been wearing it all the time since I picked it up, but now it is time for a closer look at the new female skin from DNA. The creator, Brox Riaxik, is far from new to skins in Second Life and was previously behind the Signature brand. But with the advent of Bakes on Mesh he’s decided to launch a new set of skins that will take full advantage of the possibilities that BoM offers. The idea is to have skin bases, for male and female avatar, and tattoo add-ons for altering body type and facial features. Right now, you can get a pack of the male and female skin bases for just L$500, which is pretty insane considering that they include 64 tones. The pack also includes a set of “phenotypes”, variations in body type that you can overlay onto the skin bases for even more variation since these are also tintable.

Yesterday, I set about getting this post ready, uploading images to Flickr and the blog. Then, dogs and deadlines happened and here I am, a day and a half later with nothing written yet. And since the deadline is still hovering over my shoulder, this will have to be short and sweet. As I mentioned when reviewing the Quinta Palace from Fanatik, they also had a new castle out. In contrast to the palace, the Stalker Castle is a compact build with a footprint of 30 x 28 m and 170 prims.  There are three levels (plus the roof) and the castle is lit by torches and braziers. The beautiful lighting inside is what made me want to shoot it in the snow and even have it snow inside, which of course is perfectly plausible when you’re a snow queen courtesy of the latest deviousMind release.

Sometimes, even virtual floors need a good scrubbing. Of course, when your scrub bucket is made by Dutchie, you may end up being distracted from your work and things are very likely to get dirty rather than clean! Though there are two actual scrubbing animations and if you’d like to keep your roleplay safe for work, there’s a PG version. This, however, is the adult version, which has 30 couple animations and 2 sequences.

This past weekend, Fanatik released two new builds. I’ve done a video tour of the largest of them, the fantastic Quinta Palace. At 375 prims and 52 x 52 meters it is not something you easily tuck away on a small parcel. However, if you have the space for it, it would make a wonderful centrepiece of a sim. This beautifully crafted and textured build is inspired by the Quinta de Bacalhoa palace in Portugal. In the video, I walk through the two levels to give you a good look at the whole palace. I have also included some pictures below and of course the credits to what I am wearing in the video.

I have probably mentioned this before, but I am not much of a shoe person IRL…except when it comes to riding boots, that is. In SL, I am not much better, unless we’re talking shoes for roleplay looks. Like these gorgeous, embroidered shoes with knee-high, tied-off stockings that Adam n Eve has out at the new round of We Love Role-Play. They’re the perfect shoe to wear with a ball gown, but of course I wanted to show them off so I opted for something a bit more revealing. To setup the scene, I used a selection of pieces from Libertine, which was just perfect for the boudoir feel I wanted.

A few weeks ago, I showed off the five female heads from Slink. Now the turn has come to the two boys, Anderson (who was released together with the female heads) and Finn (who came along a little later). I brought in Ran to help me as well, since he has more male skins in his inventory. There’s not that many new Bakes on Mesh skins for male heads as of yet, but he found some nice options from Aeros and Birth among his existing system layer skins and I used a recent group gift from 7 Deadly s[K)ins.

Aeros still has their system layer skins available, both in-store and on the marketplace, and the creator (Pi Rain) states on their profile that new Bakes on Mesh skins are coming. Birth has most of their system skins still available and are currently updating various newer skins with BoM-layers. 7 Deadly s[K]ins has a few system layer skins available, including among their more recent male releases.

The Plastik has a new gacha called Karynis Mage out at the Epiphany, another massive set with lots of different options and of course tons of texture choice via the HUDs. To match the pale, opalescent skin from Fallen Gods I went for a frosty, shimmering look in my texture choices as well as an almost-white hair colour. The fantastical swirls of ice come from the “Of Fire and Ice” prop from chanimations, with the fire options turned off.

Today is actually our RL anniversary, so it seemed particularly appropriate with a romantic moment in SL as well. After all, sea monsters need love too! I have also spent a few days dragging Ran over to the world of Bakes on Mesh, so now he’s fully kitted out with a Slink Physique Redux body and the latest Slink Visage head for men, Finn. You will see more of the head in a dedicated review, but first we wanted to show off a couple of cool free gifts at Slink, the Monster Ears and Monster Teeth augments. We are both wearing them in this picture and it is as easy as putting them on which automatically hides your default ears and teeth. Slink also offers (but not for free) six other types of addon teeth and three other types of addon ears. We’ve got plans for those as well, so keep your eyes on the coming blog posts.

No, I haven’t opened a new store in Second Life. The little shape collection lives happily on the Marketplace and will probably remain just there for now. However, if I were to need a new store build, MyStore—the new modular store-building set by Fanatik—would be a serious contender. Want to get a closer look at it? I made a video showing the building blocks and the five pre-made store builds.

Alia Baroque of Fallen Gods has this truly poisonous green skin out at the spooky Hallow Manor event. It is of course available for both male and female avatars, as with all skins from Fallen Gods, and it includes Omega appliers and system layers which means I was able to use it with the new Slink Visage Jacquie head which uses Bakes on Mesh. I think Jacquie makes for a very cute green girl, especially in the Halloween edition of Lil’ Miss Snow from deviousMind which fits the poison theme perfectly. I would definitely think twice about trying her apples!

Time flies and only a few days remain until this round of Redeux closes on the 21st of October. If you don’t visit before then, you’ll miss some great deals, including a L$50 special from each merchant. In this post, I am giving you a look at some discounted decor from Del-ka Aedilis plus a slip of a dress from Faida. It is not quite what a Roman kitchen slave would have worn, but we’ll call this one fantasy inspired by Rome. The Aisha dress includes sizes for Maitreya and Legacy and features nice use of materials to bring out the details in the Black Flower design.

Redeux is now open for the October round, running from the 14th to the 21st. There are plenty of discounted items on offer, including a L$50 offer from each merchant, and you will find everything from fashion to home & garden items. I decided to begin with a feature of the latter, showing some medieval buildings from Harshlands and some autumn decor by Artisan Fantasy.