Otherworldly

Verdandi is the “middle sister” of the Norns in Norse mythology, her domain is the present and her name essentially means “that which is happening/becoming”. It is also the name of the beautiful makeup set from Seydr for the Fantasy Faire that I am wearing for this post. There’s no Norse-inspired Faireland this year, but between that makeup and the Norse Warrior tack set from Cheval D’or, a Vikingesque post was inevitable. Fortunately, I have a beautiful snowy landscape all of my own. By no means as spectacular as a Faireland, but I think it served these photos well.

Meet Noah and Noa, Vista Animations latest AO which comes in a male (Noah) and female (Noa) version. If your preferences run to an elegant AO for women which is neither overly sexy, girly or fidgety, I think Noa would fit the bill very well. The female AO includes two versions, regular and curvy. If you have a male avatar, Noah would fit the somewhat more feminine man, perhaps a stylish dandy in a suit. I’ve done a video to show both versions which I hope will give a good sense of their vibe. Details on both outfits can be found below. The poses shown in the two photos are not from the AO but instead from Mythril’s Elegant Pose Pack, available at the Engine Room. Very classy male poses that also work well for a lady in a suit/coat.

Be My Mannequin has released three single poses meant for gazing up at the sky; a stand, a sit and a lay. I loved the mood of them but struggled with finding the right setting. That is, until I recalled the Utaraa set from deviousMind for We Love Role-Play. These faceted crystals made me think of reflections and so I went and setup the lay pose, Vastness, in the water and started playing around with the EEP settings for both the sky and the water.  I am very happy with the final result, I think it conveys the sense of Vastness very well, almost letting water and sky merge into one.

It is not every day that you find a unicorn grazing outside your house, though chances are certainly better if you live in an enchanted forest cottage. Be sure to always greet the unicorn in a kindly manner, for although friendly at heart their horns are sharp and they will defend themselves if need be. Carrots and lumps of sugar are very welcome.

The Home & Garden Expo runs from February 26th to March 20th and raises money for Relay for Life. I will be covering one of the nine sims, Hope 6, and giving you a taste of the merchants that can be found there and what their new releases and donation items are. The main sponsor of Hope 6 is Teegle and so my first post focuses on new releases from Teegle and Teegle-associated brands. The two big ones are undoubtedly the Quarter Horse Teeglepet and the Western riding system from Mythril. But there are also two new coats from Teegle and three new decor/home & garden items. And Cheval D’or, which also has its store on Hope 6, has fitted all their existing sets to the Quarter Horse as well as released a new wavy mane and tail set. They also have a 20% off sale at the Expo. To give you a good look at these items, I’ve put together a video on location. I even tackled showing off the gaits from the Western riding system and managed to keep from crashing into the fence too many times. ;)

Cheval D’or has a gorgeous, circus-inspired harness out as a limited set for Valentine’s. I picked it up for the Pegasus and colour-coordinated it to my outfit via the HUD which offers both some preset textures and the ability to tint on top of these. The set also comes with two types of reins, static ones and a set for using with a cart.

Speaking of my outfit, that is another NextUp release from deviousMind, the GoodFortune set which has a bit of an Asian-inspired feel to it (though perhaps not so apparent with the pieces I am using). I am finding that this type of gacha-replacement works pretty well, though admittedly deviousMind has always had very fair sets where its easy to get useable items without needing every piece. For example, the SilkBlouse and Panties are in the same set and are perfectly wearable without anything else.

My hair is Wasabi’s latest release, out now at Anthem. The Pink hair is unrigged (and thus resizeable) and includes an optional hair clip. The skin is Selene in Milk from Poema’s Rahra-line which I really like on the Zora head from LeLutka.

Both of my poses are from Be My Mannequin; I have blogged these particular poses before but they suited the scene very well. The horses are using poses from Mythril.

She took the ancient stone stairs down into the deep, descending from her mother’s realm above the waves to her father’s below. Leaving the surface behind, she started to swim instead of walk, gliding as easily through the water as if she had fins instead of arms and legs.

Chronicles & Legends: Deep Blue Sea opened yesterday and I fell in love with the gorgeous skin by Fallen Gods, a new entry into the Oceanica series which sports subtle scales and hints of colour that remind me of bioluminescence. An older set from deviousMind, Lorelay, was the perfect outfit for my deep sea Princess, and the extravagant hair from Mythril completed the look. The hair is actually animated and looked perfect when underwater, making it seem as if it was swaying around in the water like kelp.

Finally, we have the pose from Be my Mannequin? Exploring is a unisex pose that works both for legs and for certain mer tails. Its confirmed to work with Cynefin Nemissa, likely to work with Cynefin Lorelai and also confirmed to work with Cove’s Tidal Tail. I don’t own any mer tails so legs it was for me. Be my Mannequin? also has one more single pose and a couple pose out at the event, plus an entry in the hunt.

Since underwater locations are sorely lacking on our own sim, I went looking for recommendations and found the lovely Lost Gardens of Thera, which offered some beautiful underwater scenery.

Maxwell Graf, the creator behind Rustica, has been on a longer hiatus from creating in Second Life. But yesterday he dipped his toes back in with the release of a versatile mesh fire, intended as a high-quality replacement fire for fire places, torches etc. Of course, since it is fully modifiable, I decided to do something rather different with it and created a demonic landscape with black crystals and fire. The fire can be turned on and off with a click and you can also edit the way the three different meshes that make it up fit together by editing linked parts.

The pose is Dark Matter by Be My Mannequin? and it is perfect for showing off the striking Draugr skin by Fallen Gods, here with the addition of the Orthae tattoo in silver. The hair is by Mythril and it allows you to set various specular maps; here I went for one with a fiery effect to match the surroundings.

The Fantasy Faire has been extended until the 12th of May, giving you a few more days to explore the gorgeous sims and shop for a good cause. I finally caved in and bought the gorgeous Noahne Barding from Tutto e Vanita for my Teeglepet Pegasus, which of course will mean that I know need to get a copy version of the Pegasus to have both winged and wingless copies around. You see, the Pegasus makes a fantastic baroque horse.

Together with the beautiful armour from Old Treasures, which happened to match one of the texture options for the barding extremely well, I ended up with a look that made me think of a conquistador making his (well, her) way through a lush jungle on the hunt for a lost city in the Seventh Valley.

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.

Les Encantades has a lovely set with a tunic, pants and shoes (each sold separately) out at We Love Role-Play and to me they suggested a hunter, especially in the Olive green version with brown accents. I found the shoes a little modern-looking so I wore a pair of boots from Senzafine instead and because the pants end a little below the knee that worked pretty well. The set is available for a wide range of bodies, including Slink Physique, which always makes me very happy. There are also alphas included, something I wish more creators did these days. After all, BOM was supposed to be the end of alpha cuts on the bodies, but sadly not all body makers have gone that route.

Yes, its another blog/vlog with a horse. I just can’t help myself, it is so much fun to show them off in motion rather than just in static images. This time, my Arabian is wearing the gorgeous Emperor Tackset from Cheval D’or. Plus, I have a really cool hair from Mythril (which I may have called Magical Unicorn Hair instead of Mythic Unicorn Hair in the video) which also needs to be seen in motion as it is animated AND includes a HUD with hair poses. Now, as you will see if you check out the video, the riding around part did not work out so well on a somewhat laggy sim with fairly narrow passages. But you never know until you try! Well, I suppose I could have figured it out in advance, but since I did it at 11 pm, I wasn’t at my sharpest. ;)

As usual, I have included a couple of stills below and also the full credits. The sim I used was Ahiru, inspired by the Japanese Edo-period. Its quite lovely!

Mythril has released some fantastic animation sets for the Teeglpets for The Horse Show (open until the 24th of November) and the best way to take a look at those was of course with another video. This one is pretty talky, so I think it says everything you need to know. Oh, except that the issue I had with triggering the bottlefeeding animaton was because I had HUDs turned off for a cleaner interface, so I missed the riding HUD being attached. I should also add that the beautiful sari is of course from Zaara. You’ll have to excuse the mix of Indian and Arabic elements, Teegle hasn’t released any Marwari horses yet. ;)

I’ve also included a couple of stills and the credits are at the end of the post as usual.

Sometimes you discover frustrating information gaps. In this case, it was also accompanied by a surprising gap in my inventory, strange as that may seem with the size of it! You see, I tried to find either a sim or some decor to use for a photo of deviousMind’s distinctly steampunk-inspired Abigale outfit for the Engine Room. And I came up with nothing! Now, I probably could have gone shopping for something, but I was trying to mind my spending a bit.

In the end, that didn’t work out so well, because I suddenly had the idea of pairing the outfit with the skeleton horse if it could only be made a bit more mechanical-looking. Then I remembered the metallic skins from Mythril at the Shop & Hop. Perfect! Of course, I also needed some poses, because riding didn’t give quite the look I wanted. Back to the Shop & Hop I went to buy a pose pack from Mythril since they were discounted there.

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!).