Otherworldly

Strange, moss-covered trees, enormous brambles and a persistent mist surrounded the house at the outskirt of the woods. By appearances alone, not the most welcoming place. On the porch stood its current occupant, a pale woman in a wine red gown, at her side a tall black dog. And what was that in the strange cylinder that seemed to float beneath her hand?

Alright, now its time to get spooky, with the Fantasy Witch’s House from Nocturna Deed for We Love Role-Play as the centerpiece. The house comes in a convenient rezbox that makes it easy to setup and place. There’s a whimsical spookiness to the design and plenty of room for decorating inside. On the outside, I mixed items from Fundati, Lore and Botanical to get a creepy forest feeling.

The beautiful gown is by the Muses, a high-waisted and high-necked design suitable for a variety of fantasy and role-play outfits. You will find that at WLRP as well, together with the Cindy skin from Poema as well as the floating reliquary from En Pointe which comes with several options for what bones to have within it.

Finally, we have the Teeglepet Classic Doberman, which was released at the Dog & Pony Show and hopefully should be in the Teegle mainstore now or at least soon.

The Tempest Bullwhip is the latest release from DICTATORSHOP. It features original mocap animations for both single and dual wielding, depending on which version you opt for (Standard, Advanced or Expert). Realistic whip sounds are included and you can customise the look of the whip with a tinting hud. To show off the animations, I just had to make a video. I had still planned to write a bit more about the whip and the sexy new dress from Petrichor & Ersch, but after my dog training today I have a nasty rope burn on the back of my left knee, so sitting down is rather uncomfortable! Of course, I have still added the credits at the end of the post.

A final look at this month’s round of We Love Role-Play, featuring an intrepid explorer who has come across an enigmatic statue in a cave. But what magic guides our adventurer here, especially as her milky eyes suggest that she does not see in the normal fashion?

Combining items from Harshlands (the statue, which comes in 3 versions and with and without PBR), Senzafine (the Brielle tunic, available in eight colours) and Poema (eye appliers with various eye conditions), with poses from Uzme.

The December round of We Love Role-Play stays up during January as well, so if you failed to shop with all the holiday preparations going on (or if you spent most of the month sick, like me), you still have the chance to visit.

Among the items available are this medieval kirtle from the Annex and a lovely mature skin by Poema which I think looks stunning on LeLutka’s Lake head and with steel-grey hair.

The walking candle is by Candle & Cauldron for Winter’s Hollow and comes in brass, copper, iron and silver and also includes decor versions. The candle is also ready for use with a PBR viewer, but that is not what I am using here.

The October round of We Love Role-Play is just a day away, so I slipped into something naughty to do a little bit of teasing. Though the outfit is not for WLRP, instead it is Petrichor & Ersch for Kinky. The Kevrys bodysuit is more open than closed and accentuated by delicate chains and matched by a collar. Very sexy in the way it frames the body and of course the HUDs give you tons of texture options. My hair is by Truth and Wasabi for Anthem, which opens today. Rain is a delicious long style with four style options plus optional bangs. Perfect for the sultry look I wanted and which is enhanced by the eyeshadow from Poema which is one of the things coming to WLRP, together with a matching lipstick set, each offering 9 colours. The other piece from WLRP is the spectacular tattoo by Nefekalum, which of course uses materials for that extra effect and includes 20 colour combinations in two opacities each.

The poses (or rather, animations) are from the bed by Lore, which is actually from the last round of WLRP. An unwelcome visitor in the form of a nasty cold kept me from blogging that before the round ended, but I really wanted to show off the bed with its matching table and lamp and it gave an interesting vibe to this scene.

I went looking for a nice beach sim and came across Orcinus Isle which offered a beautifully landscaped island with beaches in different styles and little isles just off its coast, including this one with a lighthouse on. An excellent spot for a siren to hang out and lure mariners dangerously off their charted course. This particular siren wears the Ariendel outfit from Petrichor & Ersch, available at the current round of Collabor88.  As always, you have several different fabric HUDs, different HUDs for the shells and also an accessory HUD for pearls, metals, ropes, etc.  The set comes with sizes for Kupra, Lara, Legacy, Reborn and breast options such as Petite, Perky, Mounds and Waifu.

The curly ponytail is by Analog Dog and can be found at the NextUp event, where I was lucky enough to snag a black and a red pack for just L$75 each. And the pale skin (this siren does not tan) is by Poema.

A mysterious sorceress, living alone in a grand elven palace permanently enshrouded in mists. Is she about to welcome her visitor or cast a spell on them?

From We Love Role-Play (open until the 28th) comes the magic energy swirls by En Pointe, the leaf wrap bracelets by Sigma and the beautiful build by Tirrany Designs.  Scroll down for more pictures to see the latter two items more clearly. En Pointe’s release includes a HUD that controls the colour and style of the swirls and Sigma’s bracelets also come with several metal options as well as fits for a range of bodies.

The dress is a Petrichor and Ersch collaboration for Midsummer Enchantment. It is highly customizable, allowing you to show or hide the dress and the accessories in sections and of course retexture many pieces individually.

Finally we have the Dasha hair from Wasabi which is a Hair Fair release that donates 15% of the proceeds to Wigs for Kids. This long, straight hair offers four style options and hair clips that can be shown or hidden.

Be My Mannequin has a set of poses inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas out at Enchantment’s Burton-esque round. A strange choice for this summery scene, one might think, especially as I picked the pose with the snowflake prop. But I love the incongruity of this combination and the reminder that no season—or anything else—lasts forever. As usual the fatpack (called Weary King) of all three poses is event-exclusive and offers a 10% discount. Also available at Enchantment is the Helena hair by F&M Oblivion, a large and quirky updo very well suited to the theme. Here I went for a light colour and a more whimsical feel.

The lovely butterfly swarm is by deviousMind and available at We Love Role-Play in a range of colours. These can be worn with most bodies and include an optional particle effect of additional butterflies. I matched it with the butterfly and bee decorated April bikini by deviousMind.

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.

Snow is still on my mind and while it likely will disappear in a few days, it is still snowing outside my window tonight. So, I made it snow in SL as well, using the Shimmering Snow from Dysfunctionality as the final touch on this scene. It started with the “It Pours” pose from Be my Mannequin, part of a set of dynamic poses for The Grid event. I placed it in front of the dramatic Ice Portal from RatzCatz, another item from the SL Christmas Expo and left myself staring up at the thick snowfall. The very cute and Christmassy outfit is Dancer from deviousMind, available in the new NextUp “gacha” format.

A litte Thursday quickie using a couple of things from the Fifty Linden Friday’s birthday event and this week’s Dark Wednesday release from Be My Mannequin? I used the Dutchie mid century mirror closet for the photo, which is made so that you can turn your camera around to look out through the glass and get a kind of mirror effect. This pose is one of a set of four close-up poses, meant to be shot from the waist up. The turn of the torso and the look over the shoulder really helps sell the mirror idea.

The style from Wasabi offers two different options for the bangs and a left side or right side braid. The dress from Blueberry comes in four patterns and tons of colour options for the lace and the ties. It also includes fits for a large range of bodies, including Slink Physique Original.

Inspired by the Roman Strategy Table from Del-ka Aedilis, I created this scene of a Roman noblewoman seeing the plans laid out by her husband and then praying to their ancestors, perhaps on the eve before he goes into battle. All the decor pieces as well as the house itself are from Del-ka Aedilis Civitas series, which does a wonderful job of capturing various aspects of Roman life. Note that I did size down the house as well as the decor for this photo since my avatar is small by SL standards.

My hairstyle from F&M Oblivion is not Roman, but I thought it could pass well enough for a the style of a Roman matron, at least during some periods. And the robe from the Dreaming Thicket is more Greek than Roman, but one makes do with what one has!

If you ask me, the best female mesh body in Second Life is still Slink Physique Original. I do have an use Maitreya Lara and Legacy as well, it is virtually impossible to blog without at least one of those, but for a natural, realistic look Physique Original can’t be beat. The hip and thigh area, in particular, drives me crazy on the other bodies.

But like I said, I have had to cave in and start using them for blogging. Still, I am always thrilled when a new release that supports Slink Physique Original shows up! The Iris dress from Faida is one such release and this time Titania Halasy gave herself quite a task, modelling the dress for 12 bodies/body variants. And since it is for the Itty Bitty Titty Committée, there’s a version for Slink Physique Original with the Petite Chest Augment and that is precisely what I am wearing here.

Given the upcoming ban on gachas, I decided to revisit another deviousMind gacha for this post; Chandra Meehan’s gachas will definitely be sorely missed as they have always been designed so that ever item is perfectly useable on its own. For this post, however, I am showing off the full Sylvari set, complete with the rares such as the headdress and the petal skirt.

The pose, which comes with the glowing orb, is another Be My Mannequin? creation. It has a very mystical feel, which is why I went full on fantasy with the look and the surroundings.

Is there such a thing? Well, that seems to have been what I ended up with at least, mixing the Trompe Loeil Isadora Rustic Cottage with Barley’s Scandinavia Bench. Either way, it turned out to be a moody, intimate setting for showing off a selection of new releases from Voluptas Virtualis för K-Pop United, together with a new hair from Exile for Collabor88.