Otherworldly

I don’t have much in the way of mesh items so far—in part because, as usual, the huge women’s fashion market is getting a lot more attention—but two or three pieces have snuck into the wardrobe, and thanks to Adam n Eve and Wasabi Pills, I’ve a notion for just how to go about it…

I am definitely in a mood for mostly roleplay-related looks these days. Of course, it could be that this is helped along by the sort of new releases I’ve been running into, like the latest hairs from Calico Creations. I have been a fan of Calico’s hairs since I started in SL and the Emily hair was my favourite flexi-curl hair for a long time.

Previously, I’ve featured a mesh hair from Alice Project. Now, there’s another store with mesh hair as well, Wasabi Pills. This store first came to mine and Ran’s attention for being one of the few to offer long hairs for men and for a bit of a focus on styles suited to roleplay looks. The first mesh release fits very well into this pattern. In fact, it started out as Sebastian for the guys and then became Sebastianne for the girls as well.

Another bit of A Song of Ice and Fire-inspired photography, this time featuring my main character in Dorne. Rather than trying to represent the whole of Westeros on Blood of Dragons, we’ve built two very different cities: the royal capital of King’s Landing and Sunspear, which at the time we’re playing in basically is the capital of the independent realm of Dorne.

Fortunately, the gorgeous Kingdom of Sand roleplay sim offers a great place to shoot Dornish-inspired photos.

There are few things I enjoy as much in SL as a new skin. I love finding skins that fit my existing shapes and I love being inspired by a skin to create a new shape. Fortunately, working for Adam n Eve means that I get to try out a lot of new skins since sachi Vixen loves to make them.

This time, I’d like to introduce you all to Ariadne, who may just have the best body of any skin that sachi has made. I am also showing a variety of jewellery from Bewildebeest, a store full of very original jewellery designs.

While LL has disappointed (at least for the time being) those hoping for rigged mesh that conforms to our avatar shapes, mesh can be a pretty cool thing unrigged as well. The latest release from Tekeli-li, the Crystalism set, is a non-rigged mesh set which weighs in at ... very few prims indeed. The necklace is one prim, the top and the bottom three prims each.

One reason behind the redesign of our blog and the rest of the site was a closer integration between our two virtual pursuits: Second Life and MUSHing. We are still very much active MUSHers and have been running our own A Song of Ice and Fire-based game called Blood of Dragons for several years. Text-based gaming is hardly a booming hobby these days, but for some reason, this little TV show called Game of Thrones has resulted in a lot more interest in the game this year…

In any case, today’s little photography and post-processing exercise started out as an attempt at illustrating one of my characters from our game, Lady Aisling Ryswell.

The first mesh hairs are slowly cropping up and so far I am pretty thrilled. Its early days still and no doubt plenty of room for further evolution, but that hasn’t stopped myself and some others making a particular style wish on Plurk:

Really, really long mesh hair.

We’re talking hair that Lady Godiva could be proud of, perfect for those dressed-only-in-my-hair photoshoots as well as for various roleplaying purposes; no self-respecting medieval maiden would have less than knee-length hair, after all.

What I am thinking now is, why not make a design challenge out of it? Put forward some guidelines, try to reach as many hair designers as possible, and see what they come up with? Then feature the resulting hairs in a series of blog posts, perhaps in a dedicated Flickr group as well. I don’t know that it needs to involve any voting or scoring of the designs, but a constructive look at the pros and cons of each style might be a good resource for future mesh hair developments.

So…any thoughts? Any interest?

For today’s Moody Monday, Elysium Eilde of elymode dives into mesh with a mini skirt as an optional add-on to her Evolu set. You still have some hours left to head over there and try a demo before these limited colours disappear.

A final look at the Jewelry Fair (it ends today!) with a lovely set from Bliensen+MaiTai. I’ve paired it with a new partial mesh dress from PixelDolls, a skin from the massive sale at Dutch Touch and a pair of gorgeous new eyes from Poetic Colors.

Yesterday, Ran provided a guide to what you’ll find on each of the Jewelry Fair 2011 sims. Today, I thought I would pick out a favourite from each sim (in addition to the stores I’ve blogged earlier) to give a little more information about what they have to offer.

The stores in question will be CentoPallini from the Air sim, Ashira’s Aerie from the Earth sim, Studio Sidhe from the Fire sim and LOGO from the Water sim.

As seen by Freyja’s posts these last days, Jewelry Fair 2011 is in full swing. As usual there are many sims (four in total) and many, many stores to visit! Below you’ll find a guide to where all the shops are, and a few thoughts on the design of the sims, as well as on the charitable efforts of the fair organizers and participating designers.

This year’s theme is the elements, and each of the four sims are inspired by one of the four elements. The organizers for the Fair have done a fine job keeping everyone informed about who’s participating and listing all the participants, but I thought it might be helpful to point out which stores can be found on each sim. See below for a full, detailed list—with SLURLs (either to distinct sections of the sims which are easily navigable, or with individual store sims in those cases where there’s no straightforward navigation).

So, have you made it to the Jewelry Fair yet? If not, what are you waiting for? Its not as busy as one might fear right now (or as it ought to be), so browsing through it should be a pretty pleasant experience.

In case you need some more convincing, take a look at these goodies from Dark Mouse (whom you will find on the Air sim).

I’ve already shown some of the sensual poses included in 1001 Dreams from chanimations in a post focused on the photography rather than the reviewing. But with such a large set, there’s definitely room for a second look.

The Jewelry Fair is here again, with four sims full of goodies to temp any treasure-hoarding dragon…or jewellry-obsessed blogger. Benefiting the Oxfam International charity, via a charity auction, special charity pieces from each designer and gatcha machines, it opens to the public tomorrow. Then you will be able to explore sims inspired by the four elements—Air, Water, Fire and Earth—and see some great pieces from a large selection of SL jewellers.

My first post on the fair features a striking statement piece from Kunglers which is paired with an equally striking hair from Wasabi Pill and a lovely skin from a new brand called RocoQue.