Otherworldly

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.

A bit of fashion, a bit of home & garden, all set against a beautiful sunset that represents a first for me—I bought this lovely sky setting and the matching water on the Marketplace. EEP has its issues, for sure, but sellable and tradeable presets are a great idea. This particular preset is Mesmer from DHS and if you want to try it out for yourself there is a demo.

The reason that I started looking at buying a ready-made sky was that I am still not as comfortable working with EEP as with Windlight and I wanted a really nice sunset for showing off the setup I made with the deck from EED Home & Garden from the Home & Garden Expo together with the boulders from Fanatik’s Land Shapes set. On the deck I have also got a few decor pieces from Headhunter’s Island, also for the Home & Garden Expo.

The Winter Solstice is upon us and the pagan buried deep (okay, not so deep) within me tend to stir on days like this. The veil between the worlds does feel a little thinner then, especially as you consider the significance such days held for people in the past. I would love to experience the light hitting that inner chamber in Newgrange during the solstice or visiting Stonehenge to see the sunrise there.

Not this year though, for certain. But with the Lucia gown from deviousMind and the Lucia halo and candlestick from Lux Aeterna, I can at least try to capture some of that feeling of celebrating the light in the midst of the darkness, hoping that the sun will return once again.

At the December round of We Love Role-Play I came across a new and very promising creator. The brand is called Portal and they have just a few releases out so far but the focus on historical clothing captured my interest right away. Their item for WLRP is a classic medieval gown called Marguerite that is rigged for Belleza Freya, Legacy and Maitreya Lara. I hesitated a bit at first since there is only a HUD-driven fatpack available, though this makes sense since at least half the fun with this gown is how you can mix and match the six independently colourable areas (sleeves, pads, bodice, outer skirt, inner skirt and lace). The price point is a little higher than similar all-in-one options from brands like ContraptionN, but on the other hand it is a full gown. So, I picked it up.

I love the train on this gown by Faida & Velvet Whip, it gives it such a sleek and classic look. I think that is what made me choose a lighter colour than usual, option for the pale ice-blue option. The delicate Calla jewellery looks fantastic with it and I was pleased to see that the diadem goes very well with the new VIP group gift hair from Truth. The overall look is quite regal, I think, so it is only fitting that I used the Quinta Palace from Fanatik as the setting.

It has been a bit of a crazy day, in more than one way. Fortunately, it also involved a visit to the stables in RL, which always works to distract and calm me down. I don’t knit (not since school, anyway), but I can imagine it would be pretty soothing to sit and work like this, with the comforting sounds of the horses in the background. The classic wooden rocking chair is one of two rocking chairs from Dutchie (the other is a mid-century style that goes well with Dutchie’s other furniture sets) released for the November round of FaMESHed. The rocking chairs have 10 female and 10 male solo animations each, including knitting and needlepoint. The props are auto-attaching with the AV-sitter experience and the animations are of course Bento-enabled. The wooden rocking chair includes several wood choices and paint options and the mid-century style offers different fabric options.

Alia Baroque’s Fallen Gods Inc is celebrating its 13th anniversary in Second Life with an almost month-long calendar of events. A traditional part of these celebrations is the return of the Fortune Teller, which as usual offers two fantastic skins with matching outfits, one for men and one for women. If you get lucky enough to win (it takes some luck and some patience!), you get both sets. I am wearing the female skin here, but instead of the included outfit I went for a new release from Faida for the Tomb of the Ancients event which combines shopping with an escape room experience. I have not tried out the latter, but the event definitely had a nice selection of vendors. I did not have a tomb to photo in, but I did have the awesome Crypt add-on for Fanatik’s Cave system.

The massive new release from Fanatik is now out (11 new products, plus two new group gifts), which prompted me to return to the showcase sim yet again, this time in the guise of a wanderer exploring the rugged landscape. The new landscaping items and the sim built with them are inspired by St. Kilda, a remote Scottish archipelago in the North Atlantic, so it is no wonder that it reminds me a lot of the coast of Northern Ireland where we went on a tour a few years back to visit various filming locations for Game of Thrones. To visit the sim, head over to Fanatik’s main store and click the teleporter right at the front of the store. That is also where you will find all the new products.

The Halloween edition of LL’s Shop & Hop event is currently ongoing, with lots of deals and gifts to be had. One of the more spectacular releases for the event is the latest Teeglepet, Styx. He joins the unicorn and pegasus as yet another fantastical equine, and being a skeleton horse he certainly qualifies for that! Styx also has his very own Spooky Carriage, and right now you get a voucher for the carriage when you buy Styx, which is a fantastic deal. This deal is valid until November 1st, when the carriage will be put for sale on its own. Teegle is also offering a 25% discount on the other Teeglepets at the Shop & Hop, including on the upgrades from no-copy to copy.

Since animesh products are best shown on video, that’s what I opted for. It also gave me the opportunity to offer a sneak peek at some forthcoming landscaping from Fanatik.

October is upon us and Second Life is filling up with all things spooky. From the trio of witches in my earlier post, the time has now come for a dark queen. After winning a skin from one of the gachas from Fallen Gods at the Halloween Shop & Hop, I was inspired to give the annual Fallen God & Goddess contest a try. In my caves from Fanatik, I installed the Evil Throne from Kalopsia, and I dressed myself in the latest release from Senzafine for We Love Role-Play, a seductive piece perfect for a queen of necromancy.

When it comes to mesh heads for male avatars, the situation is starting to get pretty decent with several brands offering multiple choices. Slink, for example, is now up to four male mesh head with their latest two releases, Marcus and Ethan. As with the previous two (Anderson and Finn), they have a “sister” each among the female heads, in this case Miranda and Emma. While you could certainly make them look a lot more masculine, I decided to try both of them with the androgynous “Andy” skin from alaskametro (even though the body of the skin is actually female) since I wanted to see how pretty they would get. ;) I also used the Nyx hair from Wasabi for both looks and a set of outfits from the Muses.

The Lunara gacha from deviousMind is dreamy and magical, evoking moonlight on a dark night. I love everyhing about it; the fantastical headdresses, the beautiful modelling and texturing of the dress and of course the adorable owls. You’ll definitely feel like a moon goddess in this!

I used the ruins from Fanatik to evoke a temple-like atmosphere, and I love the effect of the dark sea in the background. The poses are from deviousMind/chanimations as well, from one of the Sourceress sets. I’d love to see more of those pose and prop sets one day, even if these full fantasy outfits are absolutely amazing too.

I am so excited! I just discovered that Mythril has finally released several interactive pose sets for Teegle horses and riders. There have been lots of pose sets for just the horses before, but these are among the first sets that include poses for the riders as well (this includes some sets where the rider is posing besides the horse rather than on it). I want them all, but I had to restrain myself a bit and started with the Action set which includes canters, gallops, rears and even an archery pose that I need to pick up a bow for.

For my dashing outfit I made use of ContraptioN (love the Crossroads Walker set with hat & mask) and lassitude & ennui and in the background you have the ruins from Fanatik (don’t miss their sale!).

Ever since I started renting a full sim, I have become somewhat obsessed with acquiring landscaping items and buildings. I am constantly changing up pieces of the sim for photos, so as a whole it always looks like a work in progress, and now that extends to sky landscapes as well. I guess I did not really need a path system, but when Studio Skye released the Woodland Path Building Set, I couldn’t resist it. Especially not since I joined their group a while ago and new releases are sold at 50% off to the group for the first weekend. So, then I had to build up a little area to show it off, which meant adding in the Scots Pine forest from Studio Skye and a few castles from Fanatik as well. Fanatik is currently having a big sale with up to 50% on a lot of items, so if you are similarly obsessed, don’t miss that!