Otherworldly

I’ve tried doing portrait series before, but I always get too ambitious and too caught up in making them feel similar. So, we’ll see where I end up with this one. The genesis of the idea was to do some nice portraits for our game to spruce up the website a bit. Here, I am trying to portray Melissa “Missy” Blackwood, one of King Aegon IV’s mistresses.

To create her look, I am using LeLutka’s Erin head with alaskametro’s Ingrid skin (using the flat chest add-on since Missy was supposed to be quite slim and flat chested), which I think gives her a sweet sort of beauty that suits the description of the character. The hair is one of F&M Oblivion’s releases for Hair Fair, a style inspired by Giulia Farnese, also a famous mistress. It is a very elegant, ladylike style with a silk cap at the back. The raven jewellery is a nod to the arms of House Blackwood and I thought that the Heloise gown from Junbug could fit into Westeros well enough.

I was supposed to be on vacation and thus a blogging hiatus. But our car broke down last week as we were on our way to our summer cottage, so for a few days more I am stuck at home with much less to do than I had planned. Hence, blogging. Fortunately, there are some great events right now, including a new round of the Epiphany. I couldn’t resist the SultryGarden gacha from deviousMind, which features a ribbon harness with intricate lace appliqué. I tried out the first colour that I won and said to myself that there was almost something bridal about it. I gave it another try and fortunately it gave me the Pearl next time, perfect for my idea!

Of course, this would definitely be something for after the ceremony, unless you are having a very unconventional wedding. ;) I am still wearing that ridiculously pretty hair from Stealthic, Lavish, and my favourite skin and head combination even though they’re far from new: PXL’ss Ava on LeLutka’s Cate.

She had come to the ancient ruin, half-buried by the desert sands, to learn if the tales were true. Did a dragon of flesh and blood still roam the deep desert? The bones of such creatures, bleaches by the sun, were occasionally revealed by the shifting sands. But no man, or woman, had gazed upon a living beast for centuries.

The single pose “Hurt” from Be my Mannequin? immediately suggested to me someone looking upwards with a sense of wonder on their face. What an excellent opportunity to bring out our wyvern avatar from Prehistorica again! I had also had my eye on Zaara’s latest release and decided to appropriate it for a desert fantasy look, beautifully completed by the latest release from Stealthic, Lavish. The scene was set using the a sky landscape from Landscapes Unlimited and the Ruins kit from Fanatik.

The latest release from Dutchie-creator Froukje Hoorenbeek is one of her most luxurious-looking creations. The leather of the tub chair looks deliciously touchable and it includes eight rich, gorgeous shades. I opted for placing the chair in the corner of a private library, making it a pleasure room in more than one sense. As you might surmise from this, this is the adult version of the chair which features 100 maledom-oriented couple animations, some with auto-attaching props and some with automatic tilting for Aeros and the Physics Cock. 

I’ve tried to give a sense of the flavour of the chair through eight images that feature a selection of the animations from across several of the different menus. There’s so much more to this chair than “just” the sex, with animations capturing both tenderness and dominance.

For these photos, I am wearing the new Aqua hair from Wasabi, which includes an optional hat that I have not included here. The underbust corset from Salt & Pepper offered just the right amount of naughtiness, further emphasized by the Sweet Talk stockings from Luxuria. And Ran is looking stylish in Deadwool, always a good choice for a classy look.

The countryside inn is rustic but reasonably clean, with a more pleasant odour than its city cousins. Even so, the woman in fine linen of bright colours and with her hennaed hair elaborately dressed looks out of place. A high class meretrix, perhaps, meeting with a man where neither of them will be known?

The Civitas series of buildings and decor from Del-ka Aedilis are fantastic for creating Roman or Romanesque locations, whether just for photos or for roleplay. For these photos I have used the Tavern and the Stable, plus the Tavern Table and various decor pieces from the Culina series to fill out the first floor of the tavern further. There’s also a second floor with rooms for travellers wishing to stay. The Stable can accommodate two horses in stalls and a couple tied outside. The build includes three horse props but if you want to use your own horses you could unlink and remove these.

The dress is from the Dreaming Thicket and the hair from F&M Oblivion. It is actually a Game of Thrones-inspired hairstyle but looks remarkably close to some Roman styles; I had never really reflected over the fact that some of the styles featured in GoT drew inspiration from what a Roman woman might wear. But given their (odd) decision to make King’s Landing Mediterranean, I suppose it fits.

We’re almost halfway into Hair Fair 2021 and now is a great time to visit. There’s gifts out in most booths and all of the sales donate a percentage to Wigs for Kids, so it is a perfect type to stock up on some new styles. Wasabi has two new styles out, each with styling options. I accessorized lightly with a couple of pieces from Cae’s retirement sale.

Hair Fair, one of the oldest events in Second Life, is back again after a hiatus last year. Just as before, the event raises money for Wigs for Kids; a percentage of each sale is donated to the charity. The event runs for two weeks, untill July 4th, and covers a total of six sims. The layout this year is super easy to browse through and the sims are very low lag as well. There are gifts from many of the creators and there were quite a few styles for men available.

The first hair that I am going to show off is the Everly updo from EMO-tions. I had already decided that I wanted to put together a vaguely 17th/18th century inspired look for the couple pose “To Live” from Be My Mannequin for the Anti-Event. An elegant updo suited the look very well. Other than that, I decided to raid my inventory for my outfit and the decor, the latter being a mix of items from Rustica and Libertine.

The ornate chamber basin from Fantavatar & Moonstruck, with two different washing animations, was the starting point for this scene showing a somewhat voyeuristic glimpse of a lady in her chambers. The “fire eater” fireplace is another great decor item from Fantavatar & Moonstruck. I sized it down somewhat to fit in this room in the Townhouse Cosimo from Del-ka Aedilis and I think it makes for a fantastic centerpiece for the room. The rather sheer gown is an older release from Junbug which sells the idea of a thin undergown very well I think.

A new round of Redeux is opening today and running from June 14th to June 20th. Remember the full Laketown build from Del-ka Aedilis that I showed off a few weeks ago? Now they are starting to release the individual builds from this set and the first one out is the Laketown Tavern and Inn. Available together with it at the event is the Tavern Table Set and the Medieval Dishes Rezzer and all three releases are at 25% off for the duration of this round.

Also shown in this post is the Sam hair from Wasabi, a unisex style that can be worn with and without a cap and that is available at the current round of Anthem.

Night has fallen over the desert. By the fruit trees and date palms of the oasis, a large, striped tent has been erected. There’s no sign of activity outside of the tent, but inside someone waits…

Beaches, in my mind, are best enjoyed in solitude or as a couple. Not the least because it means clothing is highly optional and that beats a wet bathing suit or bikini any day. So when Dutchie released a set of beach essentials for FaMESHed, I headed up in the sky to my Kingdom of Islands Solid Sky Landscape from Landscapes Unlimited to get comfortable with Ran on a very private stretch of beach. The clothing we left in our inventories, so there is some nudity in the images.

The sand storm delayed her and left few tracks to be followed, but eventually she found the site of the battle. But she was too late.

Be My Mannequin? is a pose store that I discovered quite recently and then was fortunate enough to get accepted as a blogger for. They offer single, couple and group poses of the “storytelling” variety, meaning they are great for building a scene around. That suits me perfectly, since I rarely have much of a need for straight-up modelling poses but instead want to show a moment from a story.

This particular pose included two variants for different shapes and I found that even though mine and Ran’s shapes tend to differ a bit from the SL average, the fit of the alternate version was very good. I also wanted to show how different a single pose can look depending on the angle, so I setup two similar shots from different angles.

Alia Baroque went all out with Renaissance decadence for the Ice & Fire event, bringing three gorgeous pieces from this Libertine that go beautifully together; the Optimo Dierum Throne, Gianicolo bench (free-standing and wall version) and Tales of Might divider. I cleared out one of the grand rooms in Fanatik’s Dungan Castle to make room for this setup and then Ran and I dressed in some of our favourite pieces from the Muses. Though not from the Ice & Fire event, I thought F&M Oblivion’s Sansa Stark-inspired hair was a suitable choice to go with my Lucrezia gown and my Fair Lady jewellery from Old Treasures.

Both the throne and the two versions of the bench offer several texture options for the seat, including marble and stone versions for the benches which allow them to be used in a garden as well. There are solo as well as couple animations and the latter include both cuddles and adult animations. The only thing I would have liked to see as far as the animations go are some more sits that work with long dresses, apart from that it is a fun selection. I particularly like the couple pose I used for the bench, which portrays them arguing.

Synergy Lab is currently running an Ice & Fire event, which naturally meant I was over there to check things out as soon as possible. Creators are allowed to use both the books and the show as inspiration. I would have liked to see a few more items that were clearly inspired by either (without infringing on any copyright) rather than being more generic fantasy/medieval, though that is always welcome as well!

Two creators that brought some very nice decor items were Del-ka Aedilis and Fantavatar & Moonstruck. The former has created a set inspired by the furnishings seen in Stannis Baratheon’s study on Dragonstone whereas the latter has made a safe that might even suit the Iron Bank of Braavos!

After the Fantasy Faire, one thing stuck in my head: the dragon (or, more specifically, the wyvern, since we wanted to be able to portray a Targaryen dragon properly) from Prehistorica would be a very neat avatar to have for fantasy photos. But should I wait to see if it would be released as an animesh instead of a bento avatar? I did start with the bento avatar horse from Teegle and I still think it is fantastic, but the animesh horses are easier to use for photos since they do not require me to have an alt on playing the horse. But after inquiring and learning it could be quite a while before any animesh dragons see the light of day, I decided to take the plunge and sent one of Ran’s alts shopping.

For the first outing with our new wyvern, we went to Del-ka Aedilis Laketown build, a whole town in a rezzbox. It is currently available at an introductory promo price for the whole build but the buildings will also be on sale separately soon. I definitely recommend visiting the display build, its beautifully setup. And despite what my pictures might suggest, it escaped the visit by the dragon without any fire damage or crushed roofs.