Otherworldly

I lost a bit of enthusiasm for writing this post due to that bloody football match that should have ended a minute or so earlier and/or had a penalty call for Sweden in the first half. But not that I am bitter or anything… ;P

Anyway, I wanted to get another Vintage Fair post out before it closes and since I also have a few more LightStar heads to show off, I decided to do both at the same time. Today’s head is Lin, one of the more distinctly ethnic heads from the range, and like all the other heads it is now down to just L$1000. I am wearing it with an Asian-inspired skin from Alaskametro and a Chinese-style gown rom Senzafine. The gown and the shoes (by Eclectica) are from the Vintage Fair, as are the poses by An Lar used for these shots.

The final weekend of the Vintage Fair is coming up and I thought I would show another favourite item from it, namely the striking High Council set from Roawenwood. It is perhaps a little more vintage than most, but certainly right up my alley. I knew I had to blog it as soon as I saw it and I love how it looks in the build from Fanatik’s Medieval Village set. To play the part of the lonely ruler, I opted to switch to a male avatar, which also gave me the chance to show off one of the male heads from LightStar as well as the male version of the Elvenne skins from the Plastik.

Lootbox is opening today and I am giving you a taste of two new releases you will find there, from deviousMind and Luxuria. As usual, the Lootbox gacha will include lootbox rares that offer things like whole item sets, special item sets and so on, rather than just single rare items. I’ve paired the Lootbox items with a new hair release from Wasabi and a skin from the massive new skin collection at the Plastik. I also want to give everyone a heads-up about a price reduction for some of my favourite mesh heads, namely the LightStar heads.

It was the Sunray mirrors from the Plastik that gave me the idea for how to play with the light in this photo. As it happened, I also came across a windlight setting called Sunrays, and with a bit of tweaking I reached a result that I liked. Also featured in this photo is new lingerie from Voluptas Virtualis, new hair from Truth and a new-ish sofa from Noble Creations.

Stardust has three lovely sets of tattoos out at the Skin Fair (which is approaching its end, so make sure to visit if you haven’t already!) and to best show them off I needed a no clothing scenario. Fortunately, I also had this chair from Roawenwood to blog, which in addition to male and female single poses has several menus of couple poses. I decided to make use of my favourite little desert camp (with gorgeous tents from Paper Moon) and called in Ran to play the noble with the pretty serving girl. He was happy to oblige. ;)

When I first tried posting this entry, we ran into some persistent uploading issues on the site. As a result, I am posting this well after I already put up the images on Flickr, and more as a place-holder than an actual blog.

January is always a bit of an off month for me. I stay well away from New Year’s Resolutions, but the start of a new year still manages to bring along renewed pressure to get certain things done, change others and so on. This leaves its mark on my hobbies as well as I spend too much time worrying about getting things done than actually working on getting them done. I had dressed up for these particular pictures days ago, but until today I couldn’t concentrate enough to come up with a way to do them. But then I remembered that the Roawenwood sim had been redone some months ago and happened to feature an Asian-inspired build.

The latest round of 4Mesh opened today and that meant the release of the latest pair of heads from LightStar: Odin and Freyja. I have already previewed Freyja a few times, but now that she’s officially out I wanted to give you another look at her. Obviously, I think she has a lovely name, but that is far from the only reason that I really like this head. The skin I am using here is Lima from 7 Deadly s{K}ins (always an excellent source of Omega-compatible skins) and I am also wearing an eyeliner from alaskametro (really helps with the fit of the lashes), also from 4Mesh, and a brand new hair from Stealthic.

Update: There are in fact idle animations for the LightStar heads available as an add-on in a small, light-weight HUD.

After two days of at least a little bit of cold weather and sunlight, its back to dreary and grey. Breeze, our boxer, is quite disappointed that he didn’t get to go tracking today as well (two days in a row counts as a new habit for him), but I had to focus on some less fun stuff such as book keeping. I also wanted to show off a recent acquisition, namely the Nicolina bathing tub from Trompe Loeil, available at the current round of FaMESHed. It went nicely together with some pieces from Libertine’s “In Praise of Bacchus” set and the Rustic Fireplace from HEXtraordinary for a past Deco(c)rate. I am not precisely wearing much, but I do want to point out the pretty crown from lassitude & ennui. I also had planned to show off the Logan head from Logo that Ran is wearing, but none of the shots turned out to be quite right for showing the head.

My apologies in advance for my voice in this video. A persistent cold is keeping my company since the holidays, which is anything but ideal when trying to do a video. However, since the fifth Shadow Box in the first series of six from Death Row Designs came out on January 1st, I didn’t want to wait too long before showing it to you. This time, I had to break out a large villa from Trompe Loeil to fit in both the Light and Dark kitchen sets that made up the fifth box.

To learn more about Shadow Box and how to subscribe, make sure to visit the DRD website linked above. And remember, if you get all six boxes in a series, you will get both a Light and a Dark bonus build. Just one more box to go now!

There’s not many hours left of 2017 now. I am taking a little break before preparing the rest of tonight’s dinner (a quiet thing at home; my mother was the one who always did the big parties, and I find I cannot quite follow in her footsteps) to make what likely is the last post of the year for me. While there are a lot of other things competing for my attention right now, Second Life continues to be a nice outlet for my creative impulses, and I am looking forward to what 2018 will bring. I am particularly excited about Animesh, but I am also hoping for some nice surprises since LL has said that they will be making considerable investments in SL over the next few years.

I am also going to give Sansar more of a try. So far, we’re not getting along when it comes to the controls and the character customisation options are too limited for my tastes, but it does look gorgeous. I have also downloaded and setup the trial of Marvellous Designer that was offered to all Sansar account holders, to see if making clothing for Sansar is something I could learn. In SL, I will stick to shapes, but I do plan to try and do some more as well as rope Ran into making male shapes, now that he’s got a few mesh heads.

I am in the middle of baking for Christmas, which leaves the house smelling wonderfully of cardamon, cinnamnon, cloves and saffron. Gorgeous spices that are essential for a proper Swedish Christmas, despite their distant origins. Given this, it seemed seasonally appropriate to use the Spice Merchant set from Roawenwood as part of the decor for this photo, which also includes pieces from Paper Moon and ANE. The new items featured are the dress from Noble Creations, the hair from Wasabi and the gacha jewellery set from lassitude & ennui.

I have been way too busy the last few days but now I finally managed to make time for setting up and filming the fourth Shadow Box in the first series of six from Death Row Designs. Once again I opted for more of a reveal than an unboxing, since I felt it would not do the items justice to simply rez them out. And there were so many of them that I had to make use of four rooms in my Hartwick Manor from Apple Fall to display both the Light and the Dark version.

To learn more about Shadow Box and how to subscribe, make sure to visit the DRD website linked above. And remember, if you get all six boxes in a series, you will get both a Light and a Dark bonus build.

The second new face from alaskametro is Solace, a somber face that gives a melancholy look. I paired it with the Athena head from LightStar and dressed up in a recent release from Noble Creations, also with a grecian theme.

Alaskametro has recently released added three new faces to her skinline and I will be featuring them one at a time. And since she releases all her skins for LeLutka, Catwa and Omega (plus as system skins, even!), I will be featuring each of them on a different mesh head from LightStar. I really wish more brands would include Omega versions of their skins, to allow for more variety in head and skin combinations.

The first skin featured is Harmony, an in-store release of a skin in two darker tones, which I’ve decided to pair with the Maya head. Also shown in this post is a bodysuit from Voluptas Virtualis and a suspenion rack from Roawenwood.