Otherworldly

“Of Fire and Ice…” is the second discounted—and updated!—Sourceress pose prop from chanimations for We Love Role-Play. This epic scene depicts a battle between two magic-users, each wielding one of the elements. The poses are suitably dramatic and the options for changing the look of the scene gives you many different possibilities.

While technically a set for two female avatars, the poses can largely pass for unisex, so we took this opportunity for Ran to show off his amazing new mesh armour from Silhouette Warfare. I, on the other hand, decided to go with rather less; I am wearing the lovely Naamah body jewellery from the Plastik, which definitely adorns you but doesn’t exactly cover you.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I’ve spent a little too much time yesterday and today butting heads, so time to focus on something else instead. Such as the Scandal dress from Volstead, released for the World Goth Fair (now finished) and now available in-store and on the Marketplace. This gorgeous lace dress shows that it is possible to make partially see-through mesh, you just need to make the fit a little loser. This vintage shape is ideal for it, as well as being ever so decadent. It also comes with clothing layers, to add a bit more modesty and help out with breaks resulting from movement. For these static photos, however, I opted for no additional coverage, though it would be needed for wearing the dress out and about.

Yesterday, I was in Egypt (or well, in an Egyptian-inspired gown, anyway). Today, We Love Role-Play has helped transform me into something more fantastical. Perhaps a woodland creature, worshipping in a strange underground cave?

Round 2 of We Love Role-Play has opened. There’s a wide array of clothing, accessories and props on offer, covering a number of genres. And, there is stuff for the guys, too.

I am starting off with the fabulous Egyptian-inspired Tiye ensemble from Arwen’s Creations, a store full of gorgeous gowns. This one uses a very nice mesh gown as its core component; I was very pleased with the proportions.

Adam n Eve has just released a new skin, the lovely Brooke, as well as set of foot jewellery for Slink’s mesh feet. sachi Vixen is definitely not new to making skins—I dare not guess at how many different skins from her that my inventory contains—but mesh jewellery is something new.

I am also wearing one of the gowns from Pale Empress for the World Goth Fair as well as one of the newest hairs from Exile.

Have you been to We Love Role-Play yet? This event offers a wide selection of clothing, accessories, weapons and props for role-playing in Second Life—or for simply taking photos that aren’t just about the latest fashion. For myself and Ran, it lets us indulge in bringing something that’s very much on our minds all the time into Second Life. Most of you probably know it as Game of Thrones, but for us it is always A Song of Ice and Fire. We have a particular fondness for the history of Westeros, not the least for the many colourful Targaryens from its past. Thanks to the Muses we now have all sorts of very appropriate clothing for portraying some of them. If you know a bit of Targaryen history, take a guess at who these two are.

A touch of something more modern before I disappear fully into a world of fantasy. HANDverk has a new furniture release out and I am quite thrilled by their decision to opt for a more realistic size from now one. I have always tried to create my shapes to more reasonable heights and I often find myself a bit dwarfed by the furniture in Second Life. Not so with these new pieces from HANDverk.

New is also the Patrice skin from Adam n Eve, which of course fits with sachi’s hand and feet appliers for Slink.

From one kind of fantasy to another, with a closer look at the re-release of Tuli’s Eva skin, the glove and stocking appliers for Slink’s hands and feet from Adam n Eve and a new hair from Alice Project. Plus a sexy rigged neck corset in leather from Perception and one of the sinfully gorgeous beds from Trompe Loeil, packed full of poses for all sorts of occasions.

Slink has an exciting new update to their fabulous mesh hands and mesh feet: an applier system (if you use mesh breasts, you are likely already familiar with this) that allows other creators to create textures for these add-ons. In addition to allowing feet and hands that perfectly match a skin without the need for any tinting, appliers can also handle other things. Or how about mesh feet with actual stockings or panty hose on or mesh hands with more nail colours than you can shake a stick at?

One of the very first brands to deliver some goodies for Slink’s hands and feet is Adam n Eve. I decided to pair some of these new goodies with some sexy poses from Elymode.