Otherworldly

Of course the heatwave hits a week after we return from our vacation right by the sea, making me wish I was some kind of mer-creature living in the actual ocean. Maybe not so nice in wintertime here in Sweden, but right now it would be glorious. If you too have a craving for the waves, you might also want to slip into the latest release from deviousMind, Meerilyn. I am also wearing Wasabi’s latest release, the pretty Sora hair, which is available at Anthem.

Thanks to the Second Life Destination Guide, I found Voodoo Land when looking for a spot to photo the Solitaire dress from Adam n Eve. The dress is out at the current round of the Liaison Collaborative which happens to have Viva Las Vegas as its theme. Voodoo Land isn’t quite Las Vegas, but it has a lot of great spots for city life photography.

It is too bloody hot so my brain has melted (apart from the part worrying about global warming, which always works just fine) and this will be rather brief. I am having cravings for a swim again and as a result I keep doing beach/ocean photos in Second Life. This time I am out on a cute raft by Nomad for Fifty Linden Friday, lounging around in a gift skin from the Plastik/Petrichor for SL17B and a mermaid bikini from Aleutia, plus the latest hair style from Wasabi.

Redeux opens today at noon SL time and there you will find the Townhall from Del-ka Aedilis at 50% off. This is quite a large build (footprint is 26 x 27 m
and land impact is 174) with an open arched gallery, a spacious courtyard and several rooms both on the first and second floor. In one of the rooms on the second floor, I setup the Scribery Alcove from Roawenwood for the current round of We Love Role-Play. Both Ran and I are wearing new outfits from the Muses and these can also be found at We Love Role-Play.

I’ve had this build, using components from Jammin, sitting around half-finished for ages. But this week I tired of that corner of the sim looking less put together than the rest and with considerable help from Ran with the alignment of the pieces it finally got sorted out. The decor might still get a few things added to it, but I am pretty happy about where it is at now. Not so coincidentally, it turned out to be the perfect spot for showing of some new pretties from Skin Within, deviousMind and Stealthic.

A somewhat eclectic mix today, with everything from decor to new eyes. We’ll start big, though, with another building from Del-ka Aedilis. This one is from their medieval series, so it seemed to fit well with wearing a Viking-inspired gown by the Muses. The kitchen garden on the side is a separate item from the same series and can be combined with most any of their houses. The jewellery is more fantastical, a fairy-delicate set from lassitude & ennui that comes in a range of beautiful, shimmering mixed metals.

The braids are the latest style from Wasabi, which comes in a straight and a slightly windblown version where both the bangs and the braids have swung to one side. And then we have the eyes, the Oculi from FATE. Damien Fate calls them spiritual successors to the FATEeyes and that is fair enough, though they are quite different in many ways. The HUD is sleek and easy and even with just the included textures they are highly versatile as they tint beautifully. The HUD also allows very easy positioning vertically, horizontally and depth-wise.

There is also a free developer kit for making your own textures, something I am eager to have a go at. Their biggest new feature is properly speaking the realistically dilating and contracting pupil; it is perhaps not what excites me the most, though I need to play around with how it can affect expressions in photos and how it looks on video. Either way, I like these eyes a lot. They may not be the ultimate mesh eyes (for that, I would like BoM as well as appliers, but because these use special textures that won’t work), but they get close in that they offer both excellent positioning and easy customisation.

I recently reread Judith Tarr’s Alamut (which I cannot recommend enough if you like history, fantasy and romance) and it put me in the mood to do some desert scenes. Fortunately, Aisling and Bliensen+MaiTai had just the right items out at We Love Role-Play.

A few days still remain of the Fantasy Faire, but I am taking a little semi-break to sneak in some other items as well. With this saucy Faida & Fallen Gods collaboration from the Epiphany, I decided that some lounging about on the opulent Justine couch (also by Fallen Gods) would be just the right environment. The hair, however, is actually from the Fantasy Faire and by Wasabi Pills.

Mesh heads are generally Not My Thing. Or rather, I don’t mind playing dress-up now and then, so I sort a mesh head into the same category as elf ears or a drow skin; they can be cool to create a look around, but they’re not what I like to wear on a regular basis. However, as a result of nagging sachi Vixen to make new skins for Adam n Eve now and then, I’ve found myself with the Jessica head from Catwa. Because I am not very familiar with mesh heads (though I do have the Slink heads as well), I won’t be offering an in-depth review of the head, just showing how it can look with the Kirsten applier which is available at the Skin Fair as well as in the Adam n Eve mainstore. What I will look more closely at, however, is a new eye gadget from Damien Fate.