Otherworldly

Portal has a new gown out at We Love Role-Play and I am delighted to see that this relatively new brand continues to develop. Well-researches historical gowns are a major SL weakness of mine and the beautiful Isouda dress hits the right spot with a high-waisted and full-skirted model. The texturing is very nice and the choices of colours excellent. While you cannot demo all the colours, I feel that you can buy the fatpack (which is the only option available) with confidence, especially at the excellent price at the event (L$700).

I didn’t feel like switching out of Slink’s Miranda head just yet, so I found another new skin from the Skin Fair to try on her, namely Gwenyth from 7 Deadly s[K]ins. A pretty match, I think, and I also like the look of the eyeshadow and lipstick from alaskametro’s Fire collection. Very sassy, just like the Amber bodysuit from Voluptas Virtualis.

The beautiful hair is Hanami by Wasabi, which includes both a regular (second image) and windblown (first image) version. There are also add-on petals for the windblown version. The decor (rug, candle, book) is all from Libertine.

A few weeks ago, I showed off the five female heads from Slink. Now the turn has come to the two boys, Anderson (who was released together with the female heads) and Finn (who came along a little later). I brought in Ran to help me as well, since he has more male skins in his inventory. There’s not that many new Bakes on Mesh skins for male heads as of yet, but he found some nice options from Aeros and Birth among his existing system layer skins and I used a recent group gift from 7 Deadly s[K)ins.

Aeros still has their system layer skins available, both in-store and on the marketplace, and the creator (Pi Rain) states on their profile that new Bakes on Mesh skins are coming. Birth has most of their system skins still available and are currently updating various newer skins with BoM-layers. 7 Deadly s[K]ins has a few system layer skins available, including among their more recent male releases.

I spent the day doing some Christmas shopping (mostly various edible things, yum) and after surviving the crowds that had descended on Gothenburg today I decided that I wanted to setup a very tranquil-feeling scene for today’s photos. What better spot than our little northern corner of ice and snow? It was also perfect for showing off two new releases for Redeux, which is running from December 14th to December 21st, offering a great mix of designers showcasing both new exclusive items and discounted items.

But that is not all the newness that I have for you today. I am wearing the brand new Emily head from Vista, which may be my favourite so far of their heads, and I also need to tell you about a promotion from Astrology that gives you the chance to win the entire store.

After residing for a number of years in our lovely cottage from Alchemy Immortalis (a much-missed brand in Second Life), it was time for our Marquis furniture set from Libertine to move somewhere new. I thought it would be interesting to setup a little bit of a classy dungeon in the lower levels of one of our Fanatik castles and this is the start of it. Of course I had to try it out for some photos and I since I did have a lovely corset from Voluptas Virtualis that seemed like a good match. Plus, I snagged myself a new mesh head during the weekend—Logo’s Ivona.

Today’s post required a temporary gender swap to show off the latest release from the Dreaming Thicket, a classic Greek chiton. This also gave me the opportunity to belatedly show off a piece of decor from Noble Creations that I had not been able to work into a scene before. For my purposes, it works pretty well to just switch to a male body to show off male items, though it would have been nice to be able to have several avatars tied to the same inventory. If only to avoid looking a bit strange when wearing a male body and a female AO. Especially one made for gowns…

Today I am hitting the virtual dance floor in the newest gacha from Voluptas Virtualis, which will be available at the Epiphany when it opens tonight (well past my bedtime!). I found just the right prop in my inventory, this dance box from sadly defunct pose store LostAngel, which made it easy to create a little personal club space. As much as I have been shopping for builds lately, I think I need to get some more, particularly modern skyboxes that could work as clubs and similar things. This outfit definitely does not belong in a castle!

As warm as it continues to be here, a nice big pool would be fabulous. A beach would be even better. But that has to wait a few weeks so in the meantime I try to cool off in front of the computer as best as I can. Maybe I should hang out in my winter landscape instead? Not while wearing this outfit from Voluptas Virtualis, though, it is definitely made for somewhere warm and sunny.

The last Deco(c)rate shipped out a few days ago. I did not buy it this month, but I have subscribed a few times and will be sad to see it go, though it does seem like subscription boxes have a limited lifespan. I do have one item from the last crate to show you, however, namely the Vina Dining Set from the Plastik. While the theme for the crate was La Dolce Vita, I found that this rustic set of tables, benches and side table looked quite nice next to one of my medieval village houses from Fanatik. So, I opted for setting up a very rustic “garden party”, using some food props from Aisling.

It is time for We Love Role-Play again, so it was particularly appropriate that I ended up using the Roleplay HUD from Mythril to stage this scene. I have had so much use of it since the Fantasy Faire that I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who takes more story focused shots as opposed to modelling shots. In this case, the story is one of a woman looking out over the sea from high up in a castle, waiting for a ship that does not arrive. The new items featured are from Senzafine, lassitude & ennui and Wasabi.

A week of Fantasy Faire blogging did a number on my creativity, because after we’d been off to the year’s first boxer show, I found myself unable to think of a photo for several days. In the end, I decided it was time to play around with our setup of Libertine furniture and props again. That turned out to be just the right framing for the latest release from Voluptas Virtualis, a zippered little number that doesn’t cover too much.

I talk about this a bit in the video as well, but this will be a rather brief post as my typing is currently hampered by an injured finger. I will just leave it at saying that this video is a brief look at Vista’s latest bento mesh head, Zoe, as well as the latest release from Voluptas Virtualis, the Sheryl gacha set from the Epiphany. Unless my finger heals faster than I think, there might be quite a few more videos coming up.

A simple portrait today, using a lot of depth of field and a lot of haze. I wanted something a bit ethereal and having a less distinctive background helps create that feeling. The new items on display is the hair by Calico and the top by the Dreaming Thicket, to which I added a long skirt from .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Lost cities, ruins, mysteries. The past has fascinated me since I was quite young and while I know now that archaeology is rarely about discoveries like Knossos, Mycenae and Troy, it is still fun to let your imagination run wild at times. This is why I just had to have the latest add-on to Fanatik’s cave system, the Petra Chamber. Inspired by the Petra site in Jordan, but placed within a vast underground chamber instead, it looks just amazing. So, of course I had to do a video of it. Do note that this is just about the Petra Chamber, as I don’t actually own the rest of the cave system. For interiors, it can definitely be used as a stand-alone, though I am sorely tempted to get the whole system and the other add-ons too.

It is not easy to find motivation to stay at the computer when we finally have some snow outside. Or time, for that matter, since the dog would prefer to be outside playing all the time. (Un)fortunately, the snow also came with a rather cold northern wind, which makes cozying up inside a little more appealing. The dog still insists, though, and sighs in a very suffering fashion if he doesn’t get what he want.

Given the cold, I opted for a warmer scenario for this post. I had picked up this rug with massage and cuddle animations from Roawenwood during a prior 25 Linden Tuesday and it came in handy for shooting one of the new sets from Voluptas Virtualis.