Otherworldly

The first round of We Love Role-Play for the new year comes with some serious attitude courtesy of brands such as lassitude & ennui, Eudora 3D and Calico. It made be grab a trusted spear from Tekeli-li and set out to conquer some new land, which I happened to find among the sims of the Arcipelagus of Fallen Gods Inc such asAnnon and Athan Selidor.

I tend to be the kind of person whose mind turns to endings rather than beginnings, so even though we’re at the start of a new year, I found myself drawn to using this pyre from Artisan Fantasy for my first blog of the year. Of course, for those who are more of the “glass is half full” mindset, a pyre might just call to mind the phoenix, rising reborn from the ashes.

Skadi, the huntress of Nordic mythology, is a most appropriate guise for the depth of winter. The lush dark gown, brightened by a scattered fall of snowflakes, and the collar adorned with arrows are the creations of Axi Kurmin of Pale Empress. This brand is without a doubt one of the best in Second Life at taking a theme and an inspiration and interpreting it in a unique and wearable way. A gown might not be the first thing you’d imagine for a huntress and skier like Skadi, yet surely every goddess needs a chance to be festive? In Skadi’s case, perhaps she’s celebrating that her husband Njord, whom she selected based on his beautiful feet, is off somewhere else…

Zaara has finally created a new traditional Indian outfit and one in mesh at that. The beautiful Chandni Lehenga is available at Mystic Realms Faire and that is also were you will find the Lynessa hair by Calico.

I promised more of a proper skin review for the Serene skin from Imabee and that is what you’ll be getting today, enhanced by a just a small part of the extensive jewellery collection released by aisling for the jewellery fair as well as an example of the massive set of manicures and pedicures recently released by alaskametro.

We’re back home again from the WorldCon in London (where we had a fabulous time) and even though I picked up a bit of a cold as a souvenir, I really wanted to start catching up on some of the events that I did not manage to cover enough before leaving. To start, I am revisiting the current round of We Love Role-Play as well as adding in a dash of La Metallique, a special round of L’accessoires.

Today’s post is taking its title from the Spellbound pose & prop set from Picture This! I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to create something with it, so I started piecing together an enchantress from the great variety of releases at this month’s We Love Role-Play. I did “cheat” a bit with the hair; this style is actually a Hair Fair release from Calico, but it is similar to the style available at We Love Role-Play, but without hair framing the face, which allowed me to show off the jewellery better.

August 1st is almost here now and with it the new round of Enchantment, inspired by Bluebeard. In this version, the curious princess has decided that a bloody key is likely to lead to bloody murder, so she makes sure to be ready for her husband’s wrath.

This opulent gown by aisling was the perfect reason to head over to Venexia for some photos, and I had the perfect accessories in the rose wreath by ieQED and the boots by lassitude & ennui. Not to mention the gorgeous hair by Calico.

The June round of We Love RolePlay is open and it is, as always, a feast of fantasy garments, accessories, skins, hair and so on. So I thought a little feast of my own would be appropriate, courtesy of the Feast gacha from 22769‘s furnishings line, bauwerk, as well as Leto from Nephilaine Protagonist. But of course I am also showing a selection of We Love RolePlay pieces, from brands such as Kahli Designs (their Exalted line), The Forge, Calico and the Plastik. The final touch is the new roleplay applier for the Taliya skin from Adam n Eve.

This is an exceptionally good month for fantasy events and I can only apologise in advance to all the creators who have sent gorgeous review copies that I may not have time to cover. I want to showcase as many as possible, but work isn’t leaving me time for more than a post or so a day at the moment.

One of the events on the table for May is We Love Role-Play, as always opening on the 4th of each month. The quality has really been on a steady upwards trajectory and the variety across different genres tends to be quite good as well. For this post, I am wearing one of the event gowns from The Muses together with a hair from Calico (also from We Love Role-Play) and jewellery from Sax Shepherd Designs (for the Fantasy Gatcha Carnival).

I may be suffering from a slight house addiction in Second Life of late. I suspect I will never get our sim fully landscaped and finished since I can’t avoid rezzing out new shinies rather randomly to setup for photos. Such as this Oakside Bungalow from Convair at the Home Show.

Once you step inside, you’ll also get to see a couple of the new releases from Miamai’s Luxe collection, which launched this weekend.

The Secret Affair opened yesterday, featuring both brand new gatchas and brand new non-gatcha products. I have some concerns about an event themed around a copyrighted property and about some of the merchandise on sale, but I’ll stress that it is largely a matter of personal preference and of holding to the same rules that we apply on Westeros.org about not allowing any unlicensed A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones products to be advertised. Actually determining what would be considered a product based on A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones is a tricky matter (is it appearance, names - and if so which names - or a combination of elements?) and it is very possible that I am erring on the side of caution.

But, enough about that. I did go to the event and fortunately I found that the one item I just had to have wasn’t a gatcha! The Wyrmling from Alchemy is my new favourite item in Second Life and I don’t ever want to detach him. Alchemy has put out some really cool-looking attachable, animated pets before such as ravens and wolves (now kicking myself that I missed the latter at the Red Riding Hood event), but the Wyrmling definitely takes the cake.

Also in this post, also from the Secret Affair, a stunning gatcha gown from Junbug and a lovely braid from Calico.

Today is generally the year’s laziest (or possibly second laziest after January 1st) day for me. There’s nothing more that has to get finished in time for Christmas (we celebrate on the 24th in Sweden) and there’s lots of yummy leftovers. So its all about curling up with a book and puttering about with things like wintry photos in Second Life.

Long mesh hair is finally getting a bit more curl and bounce and Calico Ingmann of Calico is one designer who is exploring these possibilities. I’ve paired her latest style, Penny, with the Bard top from the Muses for We Love Role-Play.