Otherworldly

Right now, I seem to be moving from room to room in the Dungan Castle by Fanatik, setting up different scenes in different locations. This one started with the excellent Gothic Bench & Chair set by Fantavatar & Moonstruck for We Love Role-Play. Those pieces just had to be shown off in a castle, but I needed a bit more decor to make the scene come together. That’s when I turn to Paper Moon, especially the sets of tapestries. Those are superb for hanging on your castle walls and making rooms feel a bit more inhabited. You also see a glimpse of a piece from the gacha set “The Songs Ephemera” which are excellent little table settings for different characters.

Without any help from cute cartoon animals, this Cinderella has to sort out a gown for the ball on her own. I just love the kind of scenes you can setup with well-made roleplay props and some of the best definitely come from Roawenwood. The latest set is out at We Love Role-Play and offers not only a few different work animations but also options for rezzing different in-progress garments on the dummy. The top and skirt seen here is one such option, the dress shown in the background another.

Working hats into my usual looks is often a bit of a struggle, so when the lovely Willow hair from Wasabi was released I did not have an immediate idea for what to wear it with. But then the Plastik released their new set for Collabor88 and that is how this go-go girl with a Western twist came about. Both poses are from one of Serendipity’s 30L Saturday offerings.

Today’s post required a temporary gender swap to show off the latest release from the Dreaming Thicket, a classic Greek chiton. This also gave me the opportunity to belatedly show off a piece of decor from Noble Creations that I had not been able to work into a scene before. For my purposes, it works pretty well to just switch to a male body to show off male items, though it would have been nice to be able to have several avatars tied to the same inventory. If only to avoid looking a bit strange when wearing a male body and a female AO. Especially one made for gowns…

I promised you would be seeing more of the new castle from Fanatik, so here is a view by one of the windows. I really like the wistfulness created by someone gazing out a window like this and I thought it made for a nice contrast with the fiery textures of the new gown from Senzafine for We Love Role-Play. I also added in a further light source in the shape of a brazier from Fantavatar & Moonstruck, also from We Love Role-Play. Which reminds me, there’s a few things I would love to see in terms of decor for medieval houses and castles. Number one on that list? Rushes for covering the floors, that would give a great, rustic look. Storage chests are another nice decor item that is great for filling out a room a bit with.

I’ve had a bit of a crazy week with entirely too many long trips for various activities. It has all been fun (well, mostly) but it hasn’t left me with much time to relax and play around with Second Life. Yesterday, I managed to sneak in some photos, though I ran out of time to post them. I found a couple of nice new seated poses at Serendipity’s 30 Linden Saturday sale and they were just right for showing off the new corset from Voluptas Virtualis and the Samantha hair from Wasabi.

I have a thing for castles, which meant that when Fanatik announced their latest release, the Dungan Castle, I pretty much knew I would have to get it even before I checked it out. I have already had plenty of mileage as far as photos goes from their previous castle, the Arkaig Castle, and the new one looked sufficiently different that I felt it would be a great addition to the photo locations on our sim. To give a sense of what it is like, I have done a video walk-through. Expect to see more of it in photos in the coming weeks!

A couple of weeks ago, I took notice of a new (or at least new-to-me) brand called Hotdog thanks to the stylish coat that Ran is wearing in this photo. Around the same time, I also spotted them participating in the Pose Fair with a pack of male poses. It did not take me long to send Ran shopping, though it took us a bit longer to get this post together. But at least the frock coat is available at the Dark Style Fair for a few more days and the same goes for the poses at the Pose Fair. Afterwards, they will presumably find their way to the eclectic Hotdog mainstore which already houses a small collection of releases showing off their unique aesthetics.

Before sending me this outfit, Chandra Meehan of deviousMind asked if I was up for it, given what I said in my last post about spiders. I assured her that as long as the spiders weren’t animesh and crawling all over me, I would probably be fine. That said, there are a lot of spiders in this outfit! And I am not even wearing all of them here; there are a few more flexi add-ons, some applier layers (with or without blood) and some other hair/head ornaments (with spiders, of course). Additionally, there’s a nice accessory available for the Once Upon a Nightmare hunt.

Just the other day I had reason to discuss the use of green as a colour to indicate the presence of magic, so it seemed fitting that I would make use of it here as I am showing off the latest fantastical gacha from the Plastik: Spidela. I have mentioned before what I think about spiders—and about having them all over my avatar!—but this is a pretty darn nifty set. It is very sword & sorcery, Spidela could have stepped right out of a Conan comic, and I think it went very well with this Necromancy pose & prop set from chanimations, an old favourite of mine. I also made use of the Petra Chamber add-on for Fanatik’s cave system as the backdrop for a suitably ancient and epic feel.

Every witch needs a familiar—a cat, a raven or maybe a rat? In this case, two of them, a cuddly companion on my shoulder and a cheeky little fellow wandering on my worktable. Both come from Jian’s gacha at the Epiphany, with the shoulder companion being the rare item. Jian has been doing almost exclusively animal gachas or animal sets of late and are a great source for pets and companions. I hope they move into animesh when that is released, that would be really interesting.

I might be getting ahead of myself seasonally, but I couldn’t resist a wintry landscape for the very grey-themed look I had created with Lumae’s Elentari skin, Grier from Wasabi and the Fiona dress in grey from lassitude & ennui. As it happened, I had a couple of very nice bargains from Redeux to show off as well, one being the Winter Castle modular set from Mushilu (just L$100!). The other? A lovely pose set from Serendipity.

Today I am hitting the virtual dance floor in the newest gacha from Voluptas Virtualis, which will be available at the Epiphany when it opens tonight (well past my bedtime!). I found just the right prop in my inventory, this dance box from sadly defunct pose store LostAngel, which made it easy to create a little personal club space. As much as I have been shopping for builds lately, I think I need to get some more, particularly modern skyboxes that could work as clubs and similar things. This outfit definitely does not belong in a castle!

Time ran away while I was doing these shots, so the post will be on the briefer side. The whole outfit I am wearing is from Noble Creations, the Wraith Protector ensemble for We Love Role-Play (they also have a male outfit out at the event), and it really needed some kind of post-apocalyptic setting. This abandoned fairground at Silent Rane seemed just right, especially since we spent yesterday evening at Gothenburg’s amusement park Liseberg, currently all done up for Halloween with creepy clowns and zombies roaming the grounds.

I just got the opportunity to start blogging for Lumae and since they are currently having a big sale and a photo contest it seemed like a perfect time to introduce the brand here on my blog even though there is no new release out right now. You can read more about the sale and the photo contest on Lumae’s Facebook page.

Lumae releases faces for a range of different heads, including Omega, and provides both natural and fantasy skin tones. The skin I picked for this post is made for LeLutka and she is called Deia, here shown in T6 (out of 8 in total). At the end of the post, I have included a list of what is included with a purchase of Deia.