With new and old items from the Dreaming Thicket, a tattoo from Fallen Gods and a pose from Be My Mannequin? I created this scene of a guardian of an enchanted wood. The gown as well as the tattoo are from the Age of Avalon event, which inspired me to think of a secret haven which not everyone could reach. The amulet—available in sun and moon versions—went well with the priestess/enchantress image and the forbidding stance of the pose makes her seem like she’s not going to let just anyone pass. The landscaping consists of items from Fanatik and Studio Skye.
Journeying alone, she keeps to the less known roads, always with her bow and arrows within easy reach on her horse. The slight, elegant mare is a little too fine to pass as a common traveller’s horse and her own garb might also arouse too much interest. On this evening, she passes near the eastern shore of the peninsula. Some distance out into the water, a pair of houses on tall stilts are visible, their lights beckoning in an inviting fashion.
Still on vacation and on a laptop, so keeping things a little simple. But it suddenly struck me that this pose from Be My Mannequin? would work nicely together with the latest Experience Portal from Fanatik. I wanted something eerie for the EEP setting and green is always a good choice is the colour of sorcery. To match this, I edited the crystal heart prop included with the pose to be glowing green rather than red. I also raised the poseball off the ground, making it seem as if the magic is levitating my avatar.
I picked up both my hair and the outfit from the Wanderlust Weekend sale last weekend; that’s what I call great finds! The hair is by No.Match and the robe from 1313 Mockingbird Lane. I love the fact that No.Match has so many unisex hairs and longer styles for men, I definitely have to get Ran to shop there soon.
Fanatik has one recent and one brand new set out to help you build cool medieval/fantasy structures. The first is the Breakable Gates set, a collaboration with LR Weapons that provides physics-enabled gates that can take weapon damage and break down. The second is the massive Castle Builder set, with walls, towers, columns and other massive stone structures (as well as some wooden elements that integrate with the stone).
You can preview both sets and what can be done with them on the Fanatik sim, linked above. I have also done a brief video, just showing some of the contents of these packages as I haven’t had time to build anything of my own as of yet. Read on to take a look at it.
I’ve tried doing portrait series before, but I always get too ambitious and too caught up in making them feel similar. So, we’ll see where I end up with this one. The genesis of the idea was to do some nice portraits for our game to spruce up the website a bit. Here, I am trying to portray Melissa “Missy” Blackwood, one of King Aegon IV’s mistresses.
To create her look, I am using LeLutka’s Erin head with alaskametro’s Ingrid skin (using the flat chest add-on since Missy was supposed to be quite slim and flat chested), which I think gives her a sweet sort of beauty that suits the description of the character. The hair is one of F&M Oblivion’s releases for Hair Fair, a style inspired by Giulia Farnese, also a famous mistress. It is a very elegant, ladylike style with a silk cap at the back. The raven jewellery is a nod to the arms of House Blackwood and I thought that the Heloise gown from Junbug could fit into Westeros well enough.
I was supposed to be on vacation and thus a blogging hiatus. But our car broke down last week as we were on our way to our summer cottage, so for a few days more I am stuck at home with much less to do than I had planned. Hence, blogging. Fortunately, there are some great events right now, including a new round of the Epiphany. I couldn’t resist the SultryGarden gacha from deviousMind, which features a ribbon harness with intricate lace appliqué. I tried out the first colour that I won and said to myself that there was almost something bridal about it. I gave it another try and fortunately it gave me the Pearl next time, perfect for my idea!
Of course, this would definitely be something for after the ceremony, unless you are having a very unconventional wedding. ;) I am still wearing that ridiculously pretty hair from Stealthic, Lavish, and my favourite skin and head combination even though they’re far from new: PXL’ss Ava on LeLutka’s Cate.
She had come to the ancient ruin, half-buried by the desert sands, to learn if the tales were true. Did a dragon of flesh and blood still roam the deep desert? The bones of such creatures, bleaches by the sun, were occasionally revealed by the shifting sands. But no man, or woman, had gazed upon a living beast for centuries.
The single pose “Hurt” from Be my Mannequin? immediately suggested to me someone looking upwards with a sense of wonder on their face. What an excellent opportunity to bring out our wyvern avatar from Prehistorica again! I had also had my eye on Zaara’s latest release and decided to appropriate it for a desert fantasy look, beautifully completed by the latest release from Stealthic, Lavish. The scene was set using the a sky landscape from Landscapes Unlimited and the Ruins kit from Fanatik.
Alia Baroque went all out with Renaissance decadence for the Ice & Fire event, bringing three gorgeous pieces from this Libertine that go beautifully together; the Optimo Dierum Throne, Gianicolo bench (free-standing and wall version) and Tales of Might divider. I cleared out one of the grand rooms in Fanatik’s Dungan Castle to make room for this setup and then Ran and I dressed in some of our favourite pieces from the Muses. Though not from the Ice & Fire event, I thought F&M Oblivion’s Sansa Stark-inspired hair was a suitable choice to go with my Lucrezia gown and my Fair Lady jewellery from Old Treasures.
Both the throne and the two versions of the bench offer several texture options for the seat, including marble and stone versions for the benches which allow them to be used in a garden as well. There are solo as well as couple animations and the latter include both cuddles and adult animations. The only thing I would have liked to see as far as the animations go are some more sits that work with long dresses, apart from that it is a fun selection. I particularly like the couple pose I used for the bench, which portrays them arguing.
Synergy Lab is currently running an Ice & Fire event, which naturally meant I was over there to check things out as soon as possible. Creators are allowed to use both the books and the show as inspiration. I would have liked to see a few more items that were clearly inspired by either (without infringing on any copyright) rather than being more generic fantasy/medieval, though that is always welcome as well!
Two creators that brought some very nice decor items were Del-ka Aedilis and Fantavatar & Moonstruck. The former has created a set inspired by the furnishings seen in Stannis Baratheon’s study on Dragonstone whereas the latter has made a safe that might even suit the Iron Bank of Braavos!
I love well-researched period clothing and accessories and with this hennin Old Treasures has really hit the mark. A hennin is the classic “princess” headdress, a cone or steeple, often with a veil attached. They are associated with the late Middle Ages, particularly with Burgundy and France, which is why I opted for a Burgundian-style gown from the Muses to go with it. This is an older release, so it has two general fitmesh sizes rather than fitmesh for specific bodies, but that works fine for gowns.
This time around, Enchantment offers us a look at the magical and whimsical world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To create a portal into this realm, I setup the Oberon’s Gift statue from Fantavatar & Moonstruck as a guardian by the Dolmen Experience Portal from Fanatik. For my outfit, I opted for Dreaming Thicket’s Fairy Ring dress and added some flowery antlers from Acios.
What is an “Experience Portal”, you might wonder? It is a new line of products from Fanatik that you can use to setup automatic teleports on your sim. You need to be able to enable an experience on your sim and then you load in one or more landmarks in a portal. If there is just one landmark, walking into the portal will trigger the teleport. If there are multiple, it will trigger a menu with options. The portals come in several different styles to suit different environments.
Of course I had to do a vlog for something during the Fantasy Faire this year as well! Not an exploration vlog this time, alas, I’ve had too much trouble with lag this year (starting to be time for a computer upgrade, if prices ever stop being insane). But what you are getting is a closer look at the really cool animesh whip from kosmii and Mythril, a sexy outfit from 1313 Mockingbird Lane and a stylish hair from KMH, all from the Fantasy Faire. Credits and slurls can be found beneath the video and I also added a couple of nice still shots to show off the outfit and the whip poses.
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).
The first of the month means a new round of FaMESHed in a few hours. There you will find, among other things, a charming new cottage from Dutchie. I had originally planned to show it at my own sim, but I realised that the beach I have setup wouldn’t do it justice. Then the idea came to be to borrow the beautiful St. Kilda sim that Fanatik setup to show off their latest landscaping products. And what a lovely combination it ended up being, especially together with an EEP setting from Stevie Davros Custom Skies.
We’re now heading into the final week of the Home & Garden Expo so I wanted to remind everyone that Teegle has two new Teeglepets at the Expo, the Fjord Horse and the Connemara Pony. I picked up the new pack of Fjord coats in all allowed colours from Teegle and decided that in this pale coat, he could play Bäckahästen (the River Horse, a creature from Nordic folklore) in this mystical woodland scene which features the Edo Freshwater from Konoha, also for the Expo.