Otherworldly

Aisling is a brand I have come to notice quite recently and the Fantasy Gatcha Carnival has ensured I won’t be forgetting about it anytime soon. Trying to complete the Gaia and Faranth set has been a source of some frustration for me the last week and I am still without the ultra rare crowns. However, I really wanted to showcase these gorgeous jewellery sets, so today I am wearing Gaia, minus the crown. I am also wearing the Tiernan belt, which is one of Aisling’s releases fro We Love Role-Play and I think it goes very well with the Gaia set.

We Love Role-Play continues to provide yet more gorgeous gowns and accessories. This time, the gown is courtesy of Senzafine and the headpiece is by On a Lark. The jewellery also comes with cuffs and the whole set is matched to a dress from On a Lark, also available at the event. The Solveig gown from Senzafine is available in four colours (including the Garnet seen to the right) at We Love Role-Play and in an additional set of colours (including the Indigo seen to the left) at her mainstore. The gown consists of a sleeveless undergown and the sleeved overgown with the bands across the chest. This allows for two very different looks in the same gown.

We Love Role-Play has just opened its February round at a brand new, gorgeous-looking location. This round offers the usual mix of clothing, accessories and props to cover all your roleplay needs. It slants towards fantasy, but there are some steampunk and sci-fi inspired products as well. My tastes do run primarily to fantasy, however, so my first picks are a lovely gown from the Plastik and a striking accessory from Enfant Terrible, plus a subtle and very useful lip tint from Musa.

Despite my best intentions, I ended up trying to get the whole Faranth set from aisling at the Fantasy Gatcha Carnival. The collar and the dragon crown are still eluding me, alas, but I did end up with two spare sets of the rare pauldrons and of course a bunch of commons. So, I’ve set up a very temporary yardsale with the Faranth commons plus a few other bits and pieces (some Gaia pieces from aisling, some Deviance slippers, a Remarkable Oblivion crown). The pauldrons aren’t out just now, but if you’re interested in buying them or trading for them, just IM me. I’d love to trade for the Faranth collar and the Faranth crown from aisling, but I could also consider the Gaia crown from aisling or some of the rare Harpyia wings from chanimations. I would also be happy to trade Faranth commons for some of the common crowns from ieQED.

Regularly scheduled blogging will commence shortly—I would just love to have that whole set to blog. ;)

Edited to add: I added a page for listing what I want and what I have in more detail.

February seems to be gearing up to be Fantasy month, with several events focused on fantasy and role-play wear running at the same time. One of these is the Fantasy Gatcha Carnival and even though I am not a big fan of gatchas (for photos/blogging it is really frustrating to not get the colour you want and it is even more frustrating to try and collect a whole set) there were some things there I just had to have. So far, I haven’t been very successful at sorting out those must-haves, but I did manage to score some complimentary colours of chanimations stunning Harpyia set.

On February 1st the 2nd round of Enchantment will be opening. This time the inspiration is Little Red Riding Hood. There will be red gowns, wolves and baskets, yes, but that is not all that the participating designers have been inspired to create. Still, for my first post about the event, I simply had to feature the Blanchette gown in red from Miamai together with the Little Red medallion and ring from Bokeh.

The latest release from Zaara, the Suhina sequin gown, is one of those pieces that just exudes elegance and glamour. There’s a simplicity to it which is balanced by the little details that really make it a stand-out gown; just look at the asymmetric waist and how well it goes with the slit at the bottom. And, of course, the icing on the cake is the use of materials. Just look at the way it catches the light.

I am not really much of a shoe addict. Or rather, I love boots, but high heels aren’t generally my thing (in SL or RL, for that matter). But when I saw the latest release from Sax Shepherd Designs, the Mata Hari Jeweled Stilettos, I knew I had to get the new high feet from Slink in order to be able to wear these shoes. I can’t resists jewellery and these oh so sexy shoes really are as much jewellery as shoes. I decided to pair them with a barely-there mesh bodysuit from the Plastik and picked up the steamy new poses for today’s 50 L Friday from oOo Studios.

Have I mentioned how much I like the skins from the Shops? Actually, I am pretty sure I have, but it bears repeating. Their faces (this is Pixie, which I already owned in a lighter tone but I ended up needing a somewhat darker one for some photos) really stand out from the jungle of similar-looking skins that are out there today and with the cleavage options now included with each skin the bodies have gotten even better. I absolutely adore the natural cleavage since it works so well with smaller breast sizes and in total there’s six cleavage options, counting the default that is on the skin itself.

At first, I was curious about the new Curio skins. I was never a devoted Curio wearer, but I do have some of the less “cutsey” faces and I quite like those. However, now I find myself curious for another reason. You see, it would appear that I am banned from the Curio sim. I was completely baffled at first, and I remain pretty mystified even now. It would appear to have something to do with me commenting on the SLU topic discussing the fact that Hush wasn’t removed from the event organised by Skin Addiction. I defended the right of event organisers to wait until there’s some sort of reliable proof before removing a brand from an event and I also said that I couldn’t personally vouch for either brand involved in the dispute. Which was true then and remains true now. Unless I have seen someone created a skin from scratch, I cannot vouch for the legality of the skin.

In any case, if the above is why I am banned from Curio (and if it is something else, then I am really curious and would love to be informed), then good riddance. I wouldn’t want to risk giving any more money to someone who’d react like that. But it sure highlights why bloggers are often so cautious about putting forward any opinion other than praise. Keep in mind that this wasn’t even a critique of Curio, and certainly not an attack on the brand. Obviously, creators can ban you for wearing the wrong colour pants if they want to…but hey, then you know for sure they’re pretty crazy.

Trompe Loeil’s first release of the year is the Dragon & Orchid Home Pub for FaMESHed. It comes in a PG and an Adult version (no, the difference isn’t that the PG version only serves soda) and as usual I went with the latter. And then I had the idea of using the Ice Queen’s Coat from Junbug and, well, very little else…

Today is generally the year’s laziest (or possibly second laziest after January 1st) day for me. There’s nothing more that has to get finished in time for Christmas (we celebrate on the 24th in Sweden) and there’s lots of yummy leftovers. So its all about curling up with a book and puttering about with things like wintry photos in Second Life.

There’s a veritable cornucopia of events going on right now and I have already been treating myself to quite a few early Christmas presents. For example,Junbug’s new release for Genre’s Victorian round, Lady Mistletoe. I really like metallic detailing on this gown, it makes it very festive, though I do have to point out that the red can come out quite different with materials enabled (as in these photos) compared to when not; it all comes down to the light settings used. My favourite part of this ensemble, however, may be that it actually consists of a corset with an add-on skirt, which is a nice way of adding some flexibility into how you can wear your mesh.

I couldn’t quite get out of the lovely Snow Queen skin from Jalwa just yet, so I added brows of a different colour (browless skins are so handy) and a lip tint to make it look a little less frosty and more suited for the gorgeous Thetis gown from Senzafine, another We Love Role-Play release. I thought it went really well together with the stunning Artifact set from Eclectica at the Jewelery and Accessories Expo.

Life has continued to be more hectic than I would prefer (especially in December!), but I have at least managed a bit of reading lately. One of the books was an ARC of Mark Smylie’s The Barrow, which is quite the old-fashioned Sword & Sorcery adventure. It was just the inspiration I needed to create a look from a couple of the new releases for this round of We Love Role-Play: Jalwa’s Snow Queen skin and ieQED’s antler pauldrons.