Otherworldly

As I work from home, getting up early is not necessarily what I am best at. Today, a somewhat early dog training session had me up and about earlier than usual, which led to an unscheduled midday nap. Cosy, but not terribly productive, and definitely one of the pitfalls of setting you own schedule. Another is that you might just be drawn into doing something else in front of the computer, such as coming up with a new photo idea. This one, I am quite pleased with, especially the more distant shot as it came out very moody and dramatic (if I may say so myself!).

January is always a bit of an off month for me. I stay well away from New Year’s Resolutions, but the start of a new year still manages to bring along renewed pressure to get certain things done, change others and so on. This leaves its mark on my hobbies as well as I spend too much time worrying about getting things done than actually working on getting them done. I had dressed up for these particular pictures days ago, but until today I couldn’t concentrate enough to come up with a way to do them. But then I remembered that the Roawenwood sim had been redone some months ago and happened to feature an Asian-inspired build.

Time has rather run away from me this week, in part because I’ve ended up spending too much time trying to reorganize and clean up a room to fit in a treadmill for our dog. As a result, I have been waltzing around in the new gacha set from Voluptas Virtualis for a few days without getting around to doing the blog. In the end, I ended up deciding to show off some of the options included on the HUD through a video. This also allowed me to demonstrate the bento animations included with the Snowlace Cookies from the Plastik. I also took the opportunity to highlight some perennial decor favourites.

Yesterday, I received an update to one of the products I own from Landscapes Unlimited, the Sky Water. With new textures and options, it has become Sky Water and Ice, allowing for wintry scenes featuring water up in the sky. I decided to do a quick video to showcase the new hud and the options included with it. I also talk (okay, ramble) a bit about the overall range from Landscapes Unlimited, which has proven very useful for setting up multiple landscapes on a single sim.

The latest round of 4Mesh opened today and that meant the release of the latest pair of heads from LightStar: Odin and Freyja. I have already previewed Freyja a few times, but now that she’s officially out I wanted to give you another look at her. Obviously, I think she has a lovely name, but that is far from the only reason that I really like this head. The skin I am using here is Lima from 7 Deadly s{K}ins (always an excellent source of Omega-compatible skins) and I am also wearing an eyeliner from alaskametro (really helps with the fit of the lashes), also from 4Mesh, and a brand new hair from Stealthic.

Update: There are in fact idle animations for the LightStar heads available as an add-on in a small, light-weight HUD.

After two days of at least a little bit of cold weather and sunlight, its back to dreary and grey. Breeze, our boxer, is quite disappointed that he didn’t get to go tracking today as well (two days in a row counts as a new habit for him), but I had to focus on some less fun stuff such as book keeping. I also wanted to show off a recent acquisition, namely the Nicolina bathing tub from Trompe Loeil, available at the current round of FaMESHed. It went nicely together with some pieces from Libertine’s “In Praise of Bacchus” set and the Rustic Fireplace from HEXtraordinary for a past Deco(c)rate. I am not precisely wearing much, but I do want to point out the pretty crown from lassitude & ennui. I also had planned to show off the Logan head from Logo that Ran is wearing, but none of the shots turned out to be quite right for showing the head.

With the holidays truly over, I am working on getting back into a good work routine, which is always a bit of a challenge when you work from home. There’s also the risk that comes with using the computer for both hobbies and work. Writing a blog post like this one isn’t so different from writing a blog post for Westeros.org, after all, but one is—strange as it still seems to me—work and the other is a hobby.

I’ve spent most of the last four days at a big dog show in Gothenburg, leaving very little time for sitting at the computer. Which isn’t bad, admittedly, since both my work and several of my hobbies involve the computer. The dog training doesn’t, except of course for talking on dog forums, looking at training videos and so on. ;)

But anyway, I did find myself at the computer in the evening today and I finally came up with a nice idea for how to shoot this cloak from the Dreaming Thicket. I had picked up the Wood Works set in Light wood from Fanatik during their sale, and using that at the edge of our wintry woods gave the feeling of someone venturing out into the woods on their own in the deep of winter.

My apologies in advance for my voice in this video. A persistent cold is keeping my company since the holidays, which is anything but ideal when trying to do a video. However, since the fifth Shadow Box in the first series of six from Death Row Designs came out on January 1st, I didn’t want to wait too long before showing it to you. This time, I had to break out a large villa from Trompe Loeil to fit in both the Light and Dark kitchen sets that made up the fifth box.

To learn more about Shadow Box and how to subscribe, make sure to visit the DRD website linked above. And remember, if you get all six boxes in a series, you will get both a Light and a Dark bonus build. Just one more box to go now!

There’s not many hours left of 2017 now. I am taking a little break before preparing the rest of tonight’s dinner (a quiet thing at home; my mother was the one who always did the big parties, and I find I cannot quite follow in her footsteps) to make what likely is the last post of the year for me. While there are a lot of other things competing for my attention right now, Second Life continues to be a nice outlet for my creative impulses, and I am looking forward to what 2018 will bring. I am particularly excited about Animesh, but I am also hoping for some nice surprises since LL has said that they will be making considerable investments in SL over the next few years.

I am also going to give Sansar more of a try. So far, we’re not getting along when it comes to the controls and the character customisation options are too limited for my tastes, but it does look gorgeous. I have also downloaded and setup the trial of Marvellous Designer that was offered to all Sansar account holders, to see if making clothing for Sansar is something I could learn. In SL, I will stick to shapes, but I do plan to try and do some more as well as rope Ran into making male shapes, now that he’s got a few mesh heads.

You may be seeing horses in a lot of upcoming posts, thanks to the new bodies for the Teegle Bento Horse Avatar. Here, I couldn’t resist pairing the baroque horse with a black coat with this striking red outfit created with a Senzafine gown and accessories by Noble Creations. I love the effect of those strong colours against both the snow and the pale skin from Imabee.

While many of you are celebrating Christmas, the 25th of December is the second laziest day of the year in Sweden, with most everyone recovering from food-induced coma after eating way too much Christmas food on the 24th as we celebrate on the eve rather than the day. This left me with plenty of time free today (leftovers for dinner, yay) and after visiting the stables where I ride I decided to continue with the horse theme in Second Life to review three of the five new full body mods for the Teegle Bento Horse Avatar; the Baroque Horse mod, the Light Horse mod and the Pony mod. Please note that you do need to own the base avatar to use these body mods.

I had also planned to review the Spanish Walk and Spanish Trot from Teegle, but I wasn’t able to get these working with the riding system, only with the horse moving on its own. I just haven’t messed around enough with the AO to know whether this is something you can work around or not, but since the horse is more geared towards being used as a stand-alone avatar as opposed to a riding horse, some things don’t work when it is being ridden.

I’ve spent the day cooking food for tomorrow’s julbord—Christmas smorgasbord—and just managed to get everything finished before midnight. My brain is feeling a little overcooked, though, so I’ll be keeping this brief. I am continuing the farewell to genre with a piece from Noctis, combined with a lovely new skin from Fallen Gods and a gacha hair from Analog Dog. My winter nymph is accompanied by an arctic fox from Jian and sits on the elven throne by HEXtraordinary.

Alaskametro has recently released several, sparkly festive new items that fit the season perfectly. One of these is the shimmery Kristal bodysuit, here worn without the optional underlayer to make it less sheer. To make myself feel a little cosier, I added a cardigan from Cynful; the size I am using is actually for Physique Hourglass, but for a loose fit like a cardigan it worked fine on Physique Original too. The decor in the scene comes from Noble Creations, Senzafine and the Plastik.

I will have to keep this short and sweet with all the holiday preparations going on, but I do want to urge to to visit the very last round of Genre with the theme of Fantasy Winter Role-Play. The lovely gown from the Annex that I am wearing is from the event, as is the pretty necklace from Sn@tch which is a gift at the event. Also featured in these photos is hair from Stealthic and new decor items from Paper Moon.