Otherworldly

Chandra Meehan of chanimations is offering two of her awesome pose sets/scenes at a discount for this round of We Love Role-Play. The first one is “An Alchemist’s Tale”. For this scene, I am also wearing the Gypsy outfit from the Lounge, also from We Love Role-Play.

The September round of We Love Role-Play is now open and my first item of choice is the Miriel gown from Evie’s Closet. I am very happy to see Evangeline Miles move into mesh gowns—mesh gowns, thankfully, are much more forgiving of non-standard sized shapes than, say, mesh pants—and this is a lovely high fantasy design. I’ve paired it with the Curiata jewellery from Illusions and the latest release from Wasabi Pills, Robin. I am also wearing yet another newly acquired Skin Shop skin.

While still in Beta according to their website, The Shops has now been around for a few months. This new brand brings together the brands previously launched by the same team—including stores such as the Abyss and the Body Co—and adds a new store, the Skin Shop. More is supposed to come in the future, but for it is just the skins, though “just” isn’t the right way to put it. Since launching, the Skin Shop has released over a dozen male and female skins, all of the very high quality that Second Life has come to expect from these creators.

Despite being a big fan of the skins from the Abyss and the Body Co, I had actually not picked up a skin from the Skin Shop until yesterday. I’ll get into why in a bit, but for now, lets just say I am very glad I finally did; the Pixie skin was just what this particular shape of mine needed.

For this post I am also wearing a brand-new hair release from Eaters Coma and I am absolutely in love with the soft cascade of hair in front. The waviness is perfectly done and it is so flattering around the face as well. My dress for the first picture is the stunning Margaret dress from the Muses in Purple.

At the moment I feel as if the pose selection is the hardest part of any photography session. In part this is due to my inventory being in serious need of some organising, which means I reach for the same poses over and over again. However, I am also finding myself a touch disenchanted with static poses and quite a bit more inclined to be inspired by animations. As a result, Ran and I have found ourselves investing in quite a few pieces of furniture; the combination of a nice piece of mesh furniture with a set of—quite often—themed animations has proven rather irresistible.

Our latest acquisition is a collaboration between Maxwell Graf of Rustica and Froukje Hoorenbek of Dutchie. We already had several lovely pieces from Rustica, but this is our first Dutchie item. We have been very tempted by several previous releases—Dutchie always seems to do fabulous themed pieces that really tell a story—but not quite felt that we could justify the price for “just” photography. However, La Signora Della Pazienza—the Lady of Patience—proved to be something we just had to get. This stunningly crafted mesh cage—which Maxwell Graf created based on a drawing in a Renaissance manuscript—comes with an intriguing set of animations, perfect for a particularly dark sort of fantasy.

Needless to say, the images within aren’t precisely SFW.

This is one of those days when I am feeling rather jealous of my avatar because she has three new gowns from the Muses to play with and she can dress up like a medieval lady whenever she wants. I suppose I could technically do so in RL too, but gowns aren’t the most practical garments for everyday life. So, Second Life to the rescue.

I am also wearing some new hair styles from Alice Project, Calico and Amacci; changing hair style and hair colour with a couple of click is another of those enviable traits of Second Life.

Not everything has to be mesh. The Veritas tops from the Plastik certainly shows the viability of texture clothing and the peacock pattern made for a fortunate match with Volstead’s accessories from Collabor88’s birthday round. Slink hair and Slink avatar enhancements round out the look together with the shoes from lassitude & ennui, made to go with the Slink medium high feet.

For a while, mesh made it very hard to find nice clothing for roleplay looks. This has all changed rather drastically in the last few months and now there are several stores producing high quality roleplay-oriented clothing in mesh. And, of course, there’s the We Love Role-Play event, which is a great way of getting familiar with both established and new designers within the field.

This month’s lineup includes three outfits from FATEplay, Damien Fate’s latest venture. Some of the outfits made their debut during the Fantasy Faire, but they have been updated since then and now feature materials. I thought that made the Wende dress a nice match for the poet shirt from bastard (Maxwell Graf’s new male clothing line) since that one also utilizes materials.

Now that I am back home from our vacation—which means back on my regular computer and fast, steady connection—the blog should be getting some much-deserved attention again. I have a lot to catch up on, including several gorgeous releases from this month’s We Love Role-Play. For example, a chain maille doublet from Maxwell Graf of Rustica, released under his new clothing label, “bitch”. And don’t fret, guys, because the “bastard” label is also represented with a set of poet shirts in different materials. And yes, all these releases have materials, for that extra-spectacular look.

I am also wearing a new skin from the Plastik, released for yesterday’s 50 Linden Friday. Eren is part of the Astrali line and I have to say this may be my favourite face from the line so far; it feels very natural. It also comes with a toned down body that suits smaller breast settings very nicely.

For the upcoming round of We Love Role-Play (opening later today, the 4th of August), the participating creators have produced some really striking pieces. My instant favourite has to be the Penghel armour from the Muses, but there’s plenty more to choose from when it comes to outfits for both ladies and warrior women.

Of course, the right skin is also a crucial part of a roleplay look, and the Plastik has some great options for fey, otherworldly looks with their Elven skins; my favourite ended up being the Moon tone.

Hair Fair is still going strong with about a week to do, but it is not the only fair in town right now. There is also the Food Fair, featuring decorative food items as well as other items with a food connection.

Generally, you don’t want hair in your food, or food in your hair, but for this post we’re mixing things up. From Hair Fair, we’re showing hairs by Wasabi Pills (female) and Amacci (male). From Food Fair, we’re showing a gorgeous corset by Perception and a lovely, materials-ready necklace by Weather! or not?

Hair Fair is in full swing. I decided to battle the lag right away and managed to get out alive and with some nice new hair. My very favourite hair will be featured first, the Freya from Calico. And no, I am not just biased because of the name; this style is right up my alley and I don’t think there’s anything quite like it in SL. Such glorious braids. With it I am wearing the latest skin from Adam n Eve, the sultry Marnie, and the backdrop for these photos is a brand new ruined tower set from Botanical, available at this month’s Collabor88. The tower is beautifully crafted and textured and it will be the perfect addition to our plans for the next mini island on our sim. My dress, so perfectly suited to this hair and to the ruined tower, is the lovely Wolf Maid from the Muses.

We Love Role-Play’s new round is now open and today I wanted to show both a dress and some furnishings; as always, the event includes much more than just avatar accessories. The dress is my second one from Senzafine, a store that continues to impress me with their mesh clothing. The furnishings are from Rustica; Maxwell Graf has released a set of candle-holders that makes full use of the new materials options and they look amazing in the official viewer.

Get ready for another round of We Love Role-Play, starting tomorrow. Among the pieces on offer for this round is this elegant mesh gown by the Library. The Asia gown really shows how you can combine mesh with clever texturing to create a style that is more complex than the base mesh. It has a vaguely Grecian or Roman feel and would suit well for roleplay in a setting with a warm climate.

With it I am wearing the newest hair from Wasabi Pills, Tanya, and a set of gorgeous bangles from Maxi Gossamer, both out for this month’s FaMESHed. The San Remo bangles utilize materials so should be seen in the latest official viewer for the best effect.

Just as sachi put the finishing touches to the fabulous desert island in mesh that she’s created for the sim we rent from her, Zaara Kohime released a mesh bikini and a mesh coverup. The timing could not have been better; now we could photo both the new release and showcase a bit of the new landscaping at the same time. Even better, both the sim and the clothing uses materials.

To dwell a bit on the sim itself at first, this is the first of four mini-areas inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire (which most of you probably know as Game of Thrones) that we hope to have built on the sim. Ran and I are both huge fans of Dorne, so having our own little desert region in Second Life has been on our wishlist for a while. But with the limit of four textures per sim, desert seemed very limiting in terms of providing other photography opportunities. With mesh terrain, however, we hope to have both desert and snow all year around, plus a more temperate area as well. That should make for quite a lot of photography opportunities—plus a nifty home sim, of course.

Strawberry Singh has revisited the “What’s your Digits?” challenge once again and while I don’t think I have made any changes to the proportions of the shape I used for the last challenge, I did want to take part again since the topic of avatar proportions is near and dear to my heart.

The shape I picked for the challenge is one of my favourite personal shapes. Fitting into Standard Sizes with this shape is not an option, so I am using a system layer lingerie set from Zaara.