Otherworldly

While I love to put together interesting locations and blog home & garden items, it is unusual for me to not include any avatars at all in the shot. But this one simply would not come together right unless I focused entirely on the decor. Clearly, the elegant bench and planter set from The Willowinds and the lovely nature scene with flowers and rocks from .:Tm:.Creation. Both are sold as donation items for RFL at the Home & Garden Expo which is still on-going and not to be missed.

A bit of fashion, a bit of home & garden, all set against a beautiful sunset that represents a first for me—I bought this lovely sky setting and the matching water on the Marketplace. EEP has its issues, for sure, but sellable and tradeable presets are a great idea. This particular preset is Mesmer from DHS and if you want to try it out for yourself there is a demo.

The reason that I started looking at buying a ready-made sky was that I am still not as comfortable working with EEP as with Windlight and I wanted a really nice sunset for showing off the setup I made with the deck from EED Home & Garden from the Home & Garden Expo together with the boulders from Fanatik’s Land Shapes set. On the deck I have also got a few decor pieces from Headhunter’s Island, also for the Home & Garden Expo.

Froukje Hoorenbeek of Dutchie seems determined to keep everyone wet of late; last month’s hot tub has been followed-up by an outdoor shower at the March round of FaMESHed. Like the tub it comes in a PG and an Adult version, with three texture options for the wood and three for the shower itself, and it looks great togethr with both the tub and the sauna from Dutchie. I picked a reddish wood with copper and placed it a the back of the house of the Horse Ranch Homestead from RVi Design. The perfect, rustic setting for this kind of shower (it would also look fantastic on a beach) and great for getting clean after working with the horses on a hot day.

The PG shower has 20 solo and 10 couple animations and the Adult version adds 10 romantic, 25 foreplay and 25 sex couple animations. And, since this is the Adult version that I am showing off, you can get both clean and dirty at the same time. ;) NSFW pictures follow.

In my last post, I did a tour of Hope 9, one of the Home & Garden Expo sims. I teased the upcoming releases from Teegle and gave you a look at the other creators on the sim, such as RVi Design. Now the time has come for a closer look at the Horse Ranch Homestead from the latter as well as the Teeglepet Fjord Horse and Teeglepet Connemara Pony.

The Home & Garden Expo opens tomorrow, with nine sims full of fantastic creators and many, many vendors raising money for Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society. The event, running from the 27th of February to 21st of March, will make it ever so easy to get your house or your whole sim looking fantastic you give support to a very important cause.

I got the chance to blog the event and to start my coverage I did a tour of my assigned sim, Hope 9. And since Hope 9 is sponsored by Teegle, I did it on horseback. Look below for a video, a sneak peek photo of one of the two new Teeglepets as well as credits for what I am wearing.

I had high hopes for the latest Enchantment round with the theme of “Viking Saga”, but I must admit that I found it a little slim on really interesting releases. Probably a good thing for my virtual wallet, all considered. ;) And there definitely were some things that inspired me, such as Roawenwood’s “Runecasters Table”. Decor items/props that also tell a story and can be used for role-play always draw my eye and this was no exception.

For the current round of Redeux (which ends tomorrow), Del-ka Aedilis has released the first building in their new Medici series. As the name suggests, this series will have a Renaissance feel but it will also suit various types of fantasy roleplay. The Townhouse Cosimo is perhaps primarily intended for city builds, but I liked the idea of setting it up as a secluded manor house. Ideally, I would have wanted matching stone walls and a more elaborate garden, but that will have to be for later on. As it is, I think it turned out very romantic, a perfect place for a secret rendezvous.

Les Encantades has a lovely set with a tunic, pants and shoes (each sold separately) out at We Love Role-Play and to me they suggested a hunter, especially in the Olive green version with brown accents. I found the shoes a little modern-looking so I wore a pair of boots from Senzafine instead and because the pants end a little below the knee that worked pretty well. The set is available for a wide range of bodies, including Slink Physique, which always makes me very happy. There are also alphas included, something I wish more creators did these days. After all, BOM was supposed to be the end of alpha cuts on the bodies, but sadly not all body makers have gone that route.

When I saw this outfit by AsteroidBox at Midnight Order, I knew I wanted to photo it and snapped it up right away. It was easy going pairing it up with the Cosette hair (hairbase and attachment combo) from EMO-tions, but then I couldn’t quite decide on the setting and the mood for the photos. That is, until I recalled our house from Rustica and the Empire furnishing set, also from Rustica. I have had it setup on the sim for ages but it has been a while since I used it for photos. But now it provided just the right touch of gothic.

This is a most definitely NSFW look at Dutchie’s latest release, a wood-fire heated hot tub. It does come in a PG as well as an Adult version, but…well, you know me. ;)

This style of outdoor hot tub is quite popular in Sweden and sees use all year around. I knew I wanted to shoot this in a winter surrounding, contrasting the steaming hot water with chilly, snow-covered surroundings. Given some of the activities in the Adult version, it might have gotten a little cool at times; you would generally prefer to submerge as much of yourself as possible in the hot water. Then again, if things heat up in a different way, you might not notice the cold for a while!

The hot tub is available at the current round of FaMESHed and you can read the details of the functionality and included animations on Dutchie’s site.

It is Friday, after all, so how about a bit of spicy romance? Heart-shaped seats and pillows, rose petals on the floor and a hint of dominance & submission. The heart-shaped ottoman and the heart-shaped pillows are recent releases from Roawenwood, whereas the rose petals are from a previous Roawenwood set. There are several texture options for the top of the ottoman and the pillow with the animations and then there are additional decor-only pillows with preset textures. The ottoman has some single poses but is mainly for couple poses, the pillow has only single poses.

Both Ran and I are wearing the latest hair from Wasabi, Asia. It is unrigged and works very well for both male and female avatars. Not shown here is the windblown option of the style.

The Midnight Order event is threatening to create a bit of a hole in my virtual wallet as it features a very good selection of creators and said creators have done some particularly fine work for it. The Descent dress from toksik, for example. It created an immediate “must have” reaction in me. Of course, I had to decide on a colour, which was easier said than done. In the end, I steered away from the black and the gorgeous red and went with this amazing purple. Its not quite as dark as the black and less vibrant than the red, which worked perfectly for this sort of moody, slightly dusty-feeling shot.

Carpe Noctem has a sweet set of five bento poses (with mirrors) at La vie en pose, each with a pre-positioned rose prop. I really liked the proportions of these poses, they worked very well with my avatar, which is not always the case. Arm length especially tends to be an issue but here it worked really well.

I definitely wanted to embrace the “boudoir” part of the name so I used the room where I have a selection of Libertine furnishings setup, including the Marquis set. Lounging on the floor among some pillows, candles and trays of wine and fruit seemed appropriately decadent. The strategically placed tray also allowed me to skip clothing while still keeping a little modesty. The beautiful Clarity style from Stealthic and features a lovely curl texture and a very natural fringe that effectively takes the place of a hairbase. It fits well on the LightStar Maya head, though the closeness of the fit does mean that there are some heads that it doesn’t work with, so make sure to demo.

Sassy Sweet Poses has a nifty set of very saucy poses out at La vie en pose. Behind the Door includes five poses (with mirrors) in a pose stand or in a door prop (and the door prop comes as a stand-alone, with a white wall or with a black wall). While some of the poses look their best using the included props (because those feature a half-open door), I found that using the stand to fit the poses to an existing door also worked very well. Here I am using the door into the bedroom on Dutchie’s New Amsterdam houseboat. I am also using the Photo Pro HUD and attachment to provide some extra light from the side and from within the room.

A new round of La vie en pose is opening tomorrow, on the 10th of January. This is the “naughty” edition, so expect some sexy poses and props. Like this sinfully red motel room backdrop from Lacrime dell’anima and the sultry “Welcome Back” poses by Nya.Gore. To go with it, I picked up the latest release from Salt & Pepper. The light setup (including the EEP setting) is handled via the PhotoPro attachment and HUD. Now that I have started using EEP I will definitely be setting up some more EEP & light combinations to have on hand.