Otherworldly

The latest release from Fanatik is a beautiful recreation of the Rorbuer, traditional fishermen’s cabins from Norway. These red-painted cabins sit on stilts and look out over the breathtaking beauty of the Norwegian fjords. I did not have any fjords available, but the Patagonia sim surround from Landscapes Unlimited gives a suitably dramatic backdrop vista. I also used one of the islands from Fanatik’s Land Shapes set, but since those do not (yet) have PBR textures, I switched the snow texture for a new one from Studio Skye to better match the beautiful PBR textures on the Rorbuer buildings and docks. The final result makes me crave snow, which alas is not something we got a lot of on the west coast of Sweden in November. Rain, on the other hand…

Anyway, the Rorbuer release consists of two sets, one with the buildings and the stilts and another with docks, stairs and lanterns. The work on the PBR wood textures is fantastic, it looks so real close up, and the interiors are just as good as the outsides, very rustic and cosy. The buildings have separate snow add-ons and the docks and stairs have a regular and a snow option. But be aware that they ship without the scripts in to make them leaner by default, so to change them you need to add in the included script to your linksets. But there are clear instructions included!

The latest release from Fanatik is called the Azores and includes two large rockformations with mirrors of each and both summer and winter textures. The smaller of the two features a passage through and I thought it would look particularly good at sea.  Here I have it setup (together with both versions of second rock formation) on the Solid Sky Landscape “Kingdom of Islands” from Landscapes Unlimited. The beautiful ship I have featured many times before, but it has a permanent home on this sky landscape; its “Neptune’s Revenge” from Rustica.

Out now at FaMESHed is the Waterland House from Dutchie, a 17th century wooden residence with an L-shaped and open floor plan. Based on the kind of architecture that the Dutch village of Broek in Waterland is known for, this house was originally a combined store and residence. This remodelled version has taken out the wall between the front and the back of the house, leaving it open and airy. Even so, there is a private room suitable as a bedroom or office on the ground floor. Additionally, there is an open attic, accessed via a beautiful iron spiral staircase (walkable and also with click to teleport), with plenty of space. A wooden house like this can be used in a variety of scenarios and suits many different furnishing styles. It has a footprint of about 17 by 17 meters and a land impact of 103 prims.

Just a moody shot inspired by the season, dark and autumnal and with the Samhain Rune Tree from Del-ka Aedilis as the focal point. With a carved stone set in front of the tree and runes made from twigs dangling from its bare branches, it definitely fires up the imagination. Has perhaps more gruesome things hung from those branches as well?

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.

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.

Beaches, in my mind, are best enjoyed in solitude or as a couple. Not the least because it means clothing is highly optional and that beats a wet bathing suit or bikini any day. So when Dutchie released a set of beach essentials for FaMESHed, I headed up in the sky to my Kingdom of Islands Solid Sky Landscape from Landscapes Unlimited to get comfortable with Ran on a very private stretch of beach. The clothing we left in our inventories, so there is some nudity in the images.

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).

This is a most definitely NSFW look at Dutchie’s latest release, a wood-fire heated hot tub. It does come in a PG as well as an Adult version, but…well, you know me. ;)

This style of outdoor hot tub is quite popular in Sweden and sees use all year around. I knew I wanted to shoot this in a winter surrounding, contrasting the steaming hot water with chilly, snow-covered surroundings. Given some of the activities in the Adult version, it might have gotten a little cool at times; you would generally prefer to submerge as much of yourself as possible in the hot water. Then again, if things heat up in a different way, you might not notice the cold for a while!

The hot tub is available at the current round of FaMESHed and you can read the details of the functionality and included animations on Dutchie’s site.

I think I am well on my way to becoming a virtual horse hoarder. I’ve now got six of the seven Teeglepets plus the Teegle avatar (on a separate account, so I can take myself for a ride) roaming around on the sim. The latest addition is the absolutely gorgeous Arabian, beautifully modelled to have the distinctive dish-shaped face, large eyes and nostrils and proudly carried tail. The movements of this horse are also very well suited to the breed and while I did not do a video this time, I tried to capture some of it in the shots I took.

The Arabian is currently an event exclusive at the Princess Bride round of Enchantment and the same goes for the lovely Arabian Nights tack from Jinx that I also picked up. This made it easy to decide how I wanted to show off the horse and so off I went to setup the Sahara Oasis solid sky landscape from Landscapes Unlimited. To this I added the new ruins from Fanatik and tinted these to blend in more with the desert sands. As for myself, I decided to be a desert prince rather than a desert princess—easier to find clothing suited to riding astride.

Redeux is now open for the October round, running from the 14th to the 21st. There are plenty of discounted items on offer, including a L$50 offer from each merchant, and you will find everything from fashion to home & garden items. I decided to begin with a feature of the latter, showing some medieval buildings from Harshlands and some autumn decor by Artisan Fantasy.

Yesterday, I received an update to one of the products I own from Landscapes Unlimited, the Sky Water. With new textures and options, it has become Sky Water and Ice, allowing for wintry scenes featuring water up in the sky. I decided to do a quick video to showcase the new hud and the options included with it. I also talk (okay, ramble) a bit about the overall range from Landscapes Unlimited, which has proven very useful for setting up multiple landscapes on a single sim.

I had collected a few pieces from 22769 ~[bauwerk]‘s Mystery Gacha, but I didn’t have a good idea for how to use them. But then I was reminded of my Landscapes Unlimited skyboxes and decided to setup a desert scene to showcase an upcoming release from aisling as well as a new skin from PXL and a Hair Fair release by Calico.

I wish I was some place like this right now, in a cosy cottage surrounded by snow. Instead, I have am stressing with holiday preparations while it is distinctly green outside. Fuck global warming, I say. The only thing green around Christmas should be the fricking tree.

But oh well, at least I can get a little extra holiday feeling through Second Life. I went on a bit of a splurge during the Black Friday sales and picked up an enormous, heavily discounted (seriously, like 90% off) package of skyboxes and sim surrounds from Landscapes Unlimited. Some of them are getting on a bit in years whereas others use the latest features such as materials and there’s definitely some great options available for giving yourself some larger vistas to work with, whether just as a nice place to hang out or for photos. We’ve still not had time to finish the different environments on our sim (landscaping really isn’t one of my talents), so this will give some great options for different backdrops.