Otherworldly

I don’t often impulse buy skins, but a charming face and a good cause sold me on Zlata by Leronso, a Ukranian creator, at the Skin Fair. The creator will be using all profits from selected products (such as the Zlata skin) to support help organisations in Ukraine and that is of course something I am more than happy to contribute to in the current situation. Zlata is a pretty, subtly freckled skin that comes with red brows or without brows. Since I rather like red hair, I kept her as a redhead, but these brows are the new ones from alaskametro. I also went over to their main store to pick up a body skin; these come in fatpacks of all the tones and there’s a few different variants to choose from depending on the type of shading you prefer.

Wasabi’s new Coconut hair is cuter than my usual style, but I really love it with this face. Coconut comes in two variants and with optional, unrigged bangs.

The saucy, inviting pose is the latest from Be My Mannequin and it is out for the Limited event, which means only 120 copies will be sold. Also available at the event and limited to 120 copies are two special fatpacks: The Boss Is On A Roll and The Fall Of A Rebel Angel.

Be My Mannequin has released three single poses meant for gazing up at the sky; a stand, a sit and a lay. I loved the mood of them but struggled with finding the right setting. That is, until I recalled the Utaraa set from deviousMind for We Love Role-Play. These faceted crystals made me think of reflections and so I went and setup the lay pose, Vastness, in the water and started playing around with the EEP settings for both the sky and the water.  I am very happy with the final result, I think it conveys the sense of Vastness very well, almost letting water and sky merge into one.

I’ve featured the Ludus Magnus from Del-ka Aedilis before, but what better build to use for a bad-ass battle pose? This is another pose from Be My Mannequin?‘s set of poses for Enchantment’s Iliad and Odyssey round, this time using the included prop sword. The Ines set from deviousMind for We Love Role-Play is perhaps not standard-issue gladiator wear, but this leather-and-feather set has such a fierce attitude. The hair from Analog Dog is currently a free gift in the mainstore, in the Freeball (you need to cam around a bit to find it). I also like how the Ashlynn head from Slink came out with this expression from Vista’s Facial Bento hud.

To show off the Ludus more fully, I built up a small mountain with the help of Fanatik’s Lofoten set and placed it on top, with one of the sim surrounds from Landscapes Unlimited providing the dramatic backdrop.

The current round of Enchantment gives me creative anxiety. I love (read: am completely obsessed with) the Iliad and the Odyssey, which means that I want anything I do inspired by that to be especially nice. Hence I have spent days trying to decide what to do!

Then an idea presented itself as I tried out the set of “Build-a-Battle” poses from Be my Mannequin (available as singles or a fatpack at the event). I wanted to portray one of the Amazons, who came to the aid of the Trojans later in the war (after the death of Hector) under the leadership of their Queen, Penthesilea. With the hunt-gift helmet from Whymsical Marketplace and an earlier release from deviousMind inspired by the goddess of the hunt, Diana, I put together my look and went in search for a good location. Once there, I couldn’t resist this night-time windlight, just look at that wine-dark sea.

Dreaming Thicket has a wonderful set of Venetian carnival masks available in a NextUp vendor at the Secret Garden event, in a variety of styles and colours and all for a very low price. I opted for a classic Columbina from my blogger set and managed to grab a Volto off the vendor for Ran. A bit of digging into our inventories produced some suitable Renaissance-inspired pieces from the Muses and Stitched, as well as hair for me by F&M Oblivion and boots for Ran by lassitude & ennui. The couple poses come from Nanta and Be My Mannequin and represent a couple of rare entries into the category of couple poses suitable for scenes of courtly love. More of these, please.

Cheval D’or has a gorgeous, circus-inspired harness out as a limited set for Valentine’s. I picked it up for the Pegasus and colour-coordinated it to my outfit via the HUD which offers both some preset textures and the ability to tint on top of these. The set also comes with two types of reins, static ones and a set for using with a cart.

Speaking of my outfit, that is another NextUp release from deviousMind, the GoodFortune set which has a bit of an Asian-inspired feel to it (though perhaps not so apparent with the pieces I am using). I am finding that this type of gacha-replacement works pretty well, though admittedly deviousMind has always had very fair sets where its easy to get useable items without needing every piece. For example, the SilkBlouse and Panties are in the same set and are perfectly wearable without anything else.

My hair is Wasabi’s latest release, out now at Anthem. The Pink hair is unrigged (and thus resizeable) and includes an optional hair clip. The skin is Selene in Milk from Poema’s Rahra-line which I really like on the Zora head from LeLutka.

Both of my poses are from Be My Mannequin; I have blogged these particular poses before but they suited the scene very well. The horses are using poses from Mythril.

The ancient ruins, perhaps the last visible remnant of a long-lost civilization, were surrounded by towering ice bergs and miles upon miles of frozen ocean. Whatever else the people who built them had left behind was buried deep beneath the ice, erasing almost every trace of them.

Fanatik has continued their winter-themed releases (which started with the Ice Plates) and added Glaciers (which include cliffs, chunks and paths) and Icebergs (which include both regular and scripted versions). As with the Ice Plates, the scripted version of the Iceberg falls apart, though not from collisions but rather over time. With these three sets, all with beautiful textures and materials, you can create fantastic winter landscapes. The ruins are also from Fanatik, the older set which comes in a summer and a winter version in separate packages.

The pose comes from Be My Mannequin’s Matrix-inspired set and includes a bullet wall prop, but the outstretched hand was just what I needed for the astronaut carefully touching the ancient ruins. The spacesuit is an older release from Anachron,  a former brand from the Dreaming Thicket.

(Also, if you haven’t read The Book of the Ice by Mark Lawrence, do. But maybe start with everything else by him first, they read best in the order they were written.)

She took the ancient stone stairs down into the deep, descending from her mother’s realm above the waves to her father’s below. Leaving the surface behind, she started to swim instead of walk, gliding as easily through the water as if she had fins instead of arms and legs.

Chronicles & Legends: Deep Blue Sea opened yesterday and I fell in love with the gorgeous skin by Fallen Gods, a new entry into the Oceanica series which sports subtle scales and hints of colour that remind me of bioluminescence. An older set from deviousMind, Lorelay, was the perfect outfit for my deep sea Princess, and the extravagant hair from Mythril completed the look. The hair is actually animated and looked perfect when underwater, making it seem as if it was swaying around in the water like kelp.

Finally, we have the pose from Be my Mannequin? Exploring is a unisex pose that works both for legs and for certain mer tails. Its confirmed to work with Cynefin Nemissa, likely to work with Cynefin Lorelai and also confirmed to work with Cove’s Tidal Tail. I don’t own any mer tails so legs it was for me. Be my Mannequin? also has one more single pose and a couple pose out at the event, plus an entry in the hunt.

Since underwater locations are sorely lacking on our own sim, I went looking for recommendations and found the lovely Lost Gardens of Thera, which offered some beautiful underwater scenery.

It started with the second of the two images popping into my head when I tested the “Little Drummer Boy” pose from Be My Mannequin. I liked the idea of showing that amidst a waterfall, and fortunately I was sitting on an excellent one from Fanatik. No clothing needed meant I could break out my favourite body, Slink Physique Original, and I am wearing an older DeeTalez skin since it is so hard to find good skins for an SL UV mesh head. The hair Yelena, the latest style from Wasabi which you can get an Anthem. Yelena also includes unrigged bangs which I am not wearing for this photo.

Both Ran and I did some shopping when LeLutka had their Black Friday sale ( I picked up Zora and Inez while he got Paxton and Skyler), but with December being so busy we’ve not had a chance to play much with making new shapes until now. But here I’ve got a nice combination of Nar Mattaru’s Delphine on Inez while Ran is wearing Clef de Peau’s Evan on Paxton. I also picked up some new pieces on Salt & Pepper’s current retirement sale, where selected releases are at 80% off and the Miya dress struck me as a great one to wear for this intimate and possessive couple pose from Be My Mannequin?

Snow is still on my mind and while it likely will disappear in a few days, it is still snowing outside my window tonight. So, I made it snow in SL as well, using the Shimmering Snow from Dysfunctionality as the final touch on this scene. It started with the “It Pours” pose from Be my Mannequin, part of a set of dynamic poses for The Grid event. I placed it in front of the dramatic Ice Portal from RatzCatz, another item from the SL Christmas Expo and left myself staring up at the thick snowfall. The very cute and Christmassy outfit is Dancer from deviousMind, available in the new NextUp “gacha” format.

With a touch of magic from Enchantment’s Nutcracker round a winter saga of a beautiful princess and a dashing prince comes to life. The fairytale gown in luscious holiday-red is Louise from R3D Studio, with lovely rose ornaments anda lace drape over the arms and down the back. The hairstyle is from F&M Oblivion, an ornate updo called Star Empress. The prince wears the elegant Marquis outfit from Last Ride and his pose is one of the offerings from Be My Mannequin for the event.

I am still enjoying my new, spicy self thanks to the Cinnamon body. Siddean Munro has a very nice starter wardrobe out at the Cinnamon & Chai store and I thought this little casual crop top and hotpants set was perfect when putting Cinnamon through her paces with some Nutcracker-inspired couple poses from Be My Mannequin. These are available at the current round of Enchantment; the second couple pose (Perfect Balance) and the two single poses (not shown) can be purchased individually or as a fatpack. The first couple pose (Pas de Deux) is only available in the event-exclusive fatpack, so make sure not to miss out on it if you like it. We did need to adjust our heights a bit for Pas de Deux, too large of a height difference was particularly noticeable in this pose, but that is unavoidable in that position and no fault.

The spooky season may be over, but since October was a busy month for me, it seems I still have some darkness to work out. Or perhaps it is just a result of being inspired by some nifty releases such as the Arch to Hell from Fantavatar & Moonstruck and the Blind Prophet headcovering by lassitude & ennui. The latter is available at the just-opened November round of We Love Role-Play and features a peculiar kind of headcovering that covers your eyes and sports a pair of horns. In fact, it makes it look like the horns are part of you and the cloth draped over them and decorated with metal symbols. Its truly weird and unique.

It is high time for some seasonally appropriate witchery. The Come, Behold Me! pose from Be My Mannequin? is suitably dramatic and here it is embellished with little flames in each hand and a magical aura swirling up from the ground. The altar behind me is from ContraptioN and was acquired for a mere L$50 last Friday, quite the bargain, and it features several texture options for the altar cloth as well as on/off switches for the lights. The build is from a previous Nomad gacha, a stone building with tall windows that works great as a small chapel.

The striking Morticia hair from Magika got even better when I realised it offers the option of a separate colour on a small section of the hair. By picking the multitone white and black texture for that section I was able to get this effect of white streaks at the front of the hair, which I absolutely love and really wish that more styles had. In this particular case, it also sets off the Herne Crown from Bliensen + MaiTai beautifully. You will find this lovely piece at the Narrative even and it offers several metal options via a HUD.