Otherworldly

A dashing nobleman visits his mistress and gifts her with a magnificent set of jewellery. She sits down at her vanity to admire how the stunning necklace and earrings looks on her, adding a dash of perfume while she is at it. Her lover looks on admiringly.

I love how this came together, the beautiful vanity from Dictatorshop serving as the focal point for the rendezvous. The store is very generously offering group members an L$1000 gift card for L$1 to cheer everyone up. There are plenty of decor-only items in the store for under 1000 and even quite a few with PG animations or a more limited selection of Adult animations. If you want the really fancy versions, with all of the adult options, they cost more but they also include a very large selection of animations so they are well worth it. There are several different furniture series available, to cater to a wide range of tastes.

The Winter Solstice is upon us and the pagan buried deep (okay, not so deep) within me tend to stir on days like this. The veil between the worlds does feel a little thinner then, especially as you consider the significance such days held for people in the past. I would love to experience the light hitting that inner chamber in Newgrange during the solstice or visiting Stonehenge to see the sunrise there.

Not this year though, for certain. But with the Lucia gown from deviousMind and the Lucia halo and candlestick from Lux Aeterna, I can at least try to capture some of that feeling of celebrating the light in the midst of the darkness, hoping that the sun will return once again.

In just a few days, Dutchie is releasing this great-looking wooden pool table with a choice of five colours for the felt on top. I had the opportunity to take an early look at it to film a short video of the PG version and of course I had to take some photos as well. For that, however, I used the Adult version, which adds several menus of adult animations to the playing, socializing and romancing options in the PG version. Still, the images included are fairly clothed, except for some hints of nipple courtesy of the sexy Izzy robe from Salt & Pepper and some partially obscured naughtiness. There’s definitely much more to be discovered on those menus. ;)

I used a new skybox from Del-ka Aedilis called Christmas in NYC to setup the scene in. Del-ka Aedilis primarily creates builds inspired by various historical eras so this one is a bit of a departure, though a very nice one! Its sleek, modern and spacious and the snowfall outside the windows together with the fireplace makes it feel very cosy.

I also have to highlight the hairpiece & hairbase from EMO-tions. I love these kinds of hairs, they look both fabulous and realistic. Oh, and the fabulous group gift skin from Clef the Peau, here worn on the lovely Lilly, the gift head from LeLutka.

I’ve gift-wrapped myself today in this little number from Voluptas Virtualis that I absolutely adore. It seemed appropriate since so much of what I am wearing are gifts from generous creators, whether at their stores or at the Winter Shop & Hop. And while the skybox and the furnishings weren’t free, they were bought at Apple Fall’s incredibly generous Black Friday sale.

This is also my first photo on the new Firestorm release, with EEP instead of Windlight. So far, I am finding it incredibly useful to be able to flip through skies using the Quick Preferences but also annoyingly slow to import windlight settings and difficult to use the new way of adjusting the sun and moon. We need batch importing and we need to be able to get and set exact numbers for the sun.

At the December round of We Love Role-Play I came across a new and very promising creator. The brand is called Portal and they have just a few releases out so far but the focus on historical clothing captured my interest right away. Their item for WLRP is a classic medieval gown called Marguerite that is rigged for Belleza Freya, Legacy and Maitreya Lara. I hesitated a bit at first since there is only a HUD-driven fatpack available, though this makes sense since at least half the fun with this gown is how you can mix and match the six independently colourable areas (sleeves, pads, bodice, outer skirt, inner skirt and lace). The price point is a little higher than similar all-in-one options from brands like ContraptionN, but on the other hand it is a full gown. So, I picked it up.

It is the season for getting cosy, but nothing says you can’t combine cosy and sexy. The Holiday Thigh High Socks from Luxuria can go either way depending on what you pair them with. Here, together with the Quinnessa slip from Voluptas Virtualis, the vibe is definitely more towards the sexy end of things. The red of the couch from Roawenwood adds seasonal warmth and sensuality.

I have a love/hate relationship with gachas. It can definitely be a exciting to play, but it can also be really frustrating. Over time, the excitement factor has lessened, but sometimes a set crops up that brings it back. For example, Lux Aeterna’s “Feast for a King” at the Arcade. Lux Aeterna makes beautiful things that are very much in my wheelhouse when it comes to style and sources of inspiration and the two rares in this set created an immediate “must have” feeling. Fortunately for my virtual bank account, the beautiful skybox landed in my inventory almost right away.

If you’d like to spice up your Second Life a bit, there’s one Black Friday sale you do not want to miss out on this year, namely Dutchie’s 20% off on all Adult items. There’s so much to choose from, for just about every taste. I decided to bring out one of my favourites for this setup, the Pet Pillow, to also show off my new tattoo from Nefekalum (they make fantastic use of materials!) that I got at their 50% off Black Friday sale and a new chain harness from Voluptas Virtualis for the Black Fair. The tents and the fire pit come from Paper Moon, and they too are having a fantastic 50% off sale.

Yes, its another blog/vlog with a horse. I just can’t help myself, it is so much fun to show them off in motion rather than just in static images. This time, my Arabian is wearing the gorgeous Emperor Tackset from Cheval D’or. Plus, I have a really cool hair from Mythril (which I may have called Magical Unicorn Hair instead of Mythic Unicorn Hair in the video) which also needs to be seen in motion as it is animated AND includes a HUD with hair poses. Now, as you will see if you check out the video, the riding around part did not work out so well on a somewhat laggy sim with fairly narrow passages. But you never know until you try! Well, I suppose I could have figured it out in advance, but since I did it at 11 pm, I wasn’t at my sharpest. ;)

As usual, I have included a couple of stills below and also the full credits. The sim I used was Ahiru, inspired by the Japanese Edo-period. Its quite lovely!

It is only November, but I am starting to crave snow—especially instead of rain, rain and more rain! Right now, I have to settle for the virtual kind, however, so when Del-ka Aedilis sent out a blogger package with a wintry theme, I changed over one of my sky landscapes to match. Fortunately, Studio Skye recently released a 4 Season Bolt-On for the Woodland Path, which came in handy for this scene. The gown from Senzafine may not quite be warm enough on its own, but I rather like it in combination with this cape, an older release from Stitched.

Mythril has released some fantastic animation sets for the Teeglpets for The Horse Show (open until the 24th of November) and the best way to take a look at those was of course with another video. This one is pretty talky, so I think it says everything you need to know. Oh, except that the issue I had with triggering the bottlefeeding animaton was because I had HUDs turned off for a cleaner interface, so I missed the riding HUD being attached. I should also add that the beautiful sari is of course from Zaara. You’ll have to excuse the mix of Indian and Arabic elements, Teegle hasn’t released any Marwari horses yet. ;)

I’ve also included a couple of stills and the credits are at the end of the post as usual.

I love the train on this gown by Faida & Velvet Whip, it gives it such a sleek and classic look. I think that is what made me choose a lighter colour than usual, option for the pale ice-blue option. The delicate Calla jewellery looks fantastic with it and I was pleased to see that the diadem goes very well with the new VIP group gift hair from Truth. The overall look is quite regal, I think, so it is only fitting that I used the Quinta Palace from Fanatik as the setting.

It has been a bit of a crazy day, in more than one way. Fortunately, it also involved a visit to the stables in RL, which always works to distract and calm me down. I don’t knit (not since school, anyway), but I can imagine it would be pretty soothing to sit and work like this, with the comforting sounds of the horses in the background. The classic wooden rocking chair is one of two rocking chairs from Dutchie (the other is a mid-century style that goes well with Dutchie’s other furniture sets) released for the November round of FaMESHed. The rocking chairs have 10 female and 10 male solo animations each, including knitting and needlepoint. The props are auto-attaching with the AV-sitter experience and the animations are of course Bento-enabled. The wooden rocking chair includes several wood choices and paint options and the mid-century style offers different fabric options.

As I promised, I have a lot of things to show you from The Horse Show. This time, I thought I would focus on four new releases from Teegle that enhance your interactions with your Teeglepets, as well as some accessories for prettying up your horses. I am also featuring a new set of riding boots from Eudora 3D.

Now, before you dive into this video, I want to point out a couple of things about the hitching post and the grooming add-on. I attempted to use both of them at the same time but was unsuccessful in doing so. I thought it was because the horse needs to have the hitching post set as an animation partner to use that one and for the grooming to work I needed to be set as the animation partner. However, I was told in chat that it should be possible for a horse to be partnered to two things, so I am not sure if a) these add-ons were not setup to allow that or b) I was doing something wrong. I will update accordingly when I know more.

La vie en pose, that is. The current round closes today, so get yourself over there if you haven’t already been. There are quite a few props and poses with a seasonal theme, so if you need to pose in a witchy way, you don’t want to miss checking it out. For this post, however, I went for something sweet and seductive. Creative StyleZ offers a set of five poses (with mirrors) that include strawberries as props in various positions. I picked two of them to showcase and decided to wear the latest two releases from Voluptas Virtualis, the Tania hair ornaments and the Zasha outfit. The hair is a new release from Wasabi for Logo’s 15th anniversary. And speaking of that, the head I am wearing is Chelsea, which is one of two free heads from Logo during the anniversary (the other is Chase, a male head). Its a lovely gift that you do not want to miss out on and make sure to check out all the fabulous releases for it from various merchants (as well as Logo’s own new skin, of course!).