Otherworldly

I’ve actually never been to Italy, but I have had the opportunity to see Roman ruins at sites in the UK and, most recently, in Spain. The museum outside of Sevilla included a small reconstruction of a villa, showing the various rooms of the house. The Villa Iunia from Del-ka Aediles is a grander affair, but definitely has the right feel, with larger central areas and small rooms off to the sides of these. The choice of colour and pattern also fit known examples. I really appreciate the attention to the details that make it feel authentic. There is also a neat feature where you can turn on rain over the impluvium (the pool), really bringing the outdoors indoors. The villa is a brand new release and you can get it at 50% off at Redeux. But remember, each round of Redeux only lasts a week, so make sure you fit in a visit before you get too busy with the holidays!

I am continuing the theme of the previous post with more oldies but goodies skins through Bakes on Mesh and a ton of October-appropriate accessories and decor. This time, I am hanging out in my little witch’s shack from Jian which I have decorated with paper bats from Paper Moon and a furniture set from Roawenwood. The outfit is another Voluptas Virtualis release which worked great for showing off the fantastic Zodiac tattoos from Fallen Gods. I’ve also accessories with a jewelery set from the Plastik and a hair from Wasabi.

I could not think of where to photo the lovely Midsummer outfit from deviousMind. It deserved some place magical and fanciful and I did not have the energy to put something like that together right now. And then Searlait Nitschke announced that she was done with her rebuild of the Roawenwood sim. It sounded fantastic from her description and once I got there, it did not disappoint. It is like a permanent Fantasy Faire sim, with plenty of beautiful spots to discover, and I found just what I needed to photo the elaborate Midsummer gacha where swarms of butterflies cover up the essentials and carry ribbons of fabric and an elaborate bustle that further add to the outfit. It is available at Whimsical which is open until the 12th of September.

Butterflies are growing rarer in real life, but in Second Life they seem to be thriving. This beautiful, whimsical outfit is another creation from the talented Chandra Meehan of deviousMind. I love how the black outlines create something of a line-drawing effect, which looks really interesting in the light I picked for these shots. To go with the outfit, I picked up a brand-new hair from Analog Dog, an updo featuring the brand’s fabulous curls. After the latest update, there is now a mix pack available, which I really like! The hair also comes with a few style options, making the bangs as well as the pony tail optional.

Its amazing how busy you can be kept by a vacation and by the transition back to normal life after a vacation. The last week has just disappeared in a blur and there hasn’t been much time left for a Second Life. At least the insane heat has disappeared for a bit, so today I was actually able to sit at the computer for a while without melting. The result were some boudoir-style photos of the latest Voluptas Virtualis release together with a brand-new Wasabi hair, a tattoo from Fallen Gods and poses from Serendipity.

Today is the last chance for you to check out the great sales and bargains at the June round of Redeux. Technically, it closed on the 21st, but I believe it stays around for most of the 22nd as well. So this is just a quick post to give you the chance to visit before it is too late. The fabric wrap by Roawenwood, the pose by Serendipity and the fireplace from Myth are all items available at Redeux. The hair is one of two styles available from Wasabi’s gacha at the June round of the Arcade.

The timing of Enchantment’s “Iron Throne” round has been quite excellent for my creativity, as the end of Game of Thrones has had me thinking even more than usual about A Song of Ice and Fire and the sort of moods and themes the series (the books, not the TV show that claims to adapt them) represents for me. Using Roawenwood’s set of weirwood trees, I made a little godswood within my pine forest, and I really love how it turned out.

I have so much more to show from the Fantasy Faire, but I can’t (completely) neglect everything else while it goes on. For example, this little lingerie number from Voluptas Virtualis was really begging to be shown off together with these new heels from lassitude & ennui. However, I did add a touch of fantasy in the shape of a new jewellery set by the Plastik which is available at the Fantasy Faire.

Putting some flowers behind your ear is cute and not unusual. Putting some flowers in your knickers is still cute, but definitely a bit more unusual. The Bellis set from Voluptas Virtualis, out now at Kinky, combines cheekily dishevelled clothing with a few floral touches (these can be turned off via the HUD as well) and offers additional flowers for adorning your hair. Like all Voluptas Virtualis sets, the well-priced fatpack (L$850, with basic colours being L$300) offers a ton of colour options through the HUD. The sizes included are Belleza Freya, Maitreya and Slink Hourglass (seen here).

The Melon hair is the latest release from Wasabi, available at Uber. It includes three options for the bangs via the styling and sizing HUD: no bangs, tucked back bangs (seen here) and bangs hanging down on either side of the face.

I used to do most of my photos on other sims than my own, but the hunt for locations got tedious and now I have been using mainly my own builds for several years. For this post, however, I ventured to the lovely Looking Glass sim where I found just the right sort of environment to show off the beautiful dress and jewellery by lassitude & ennui.

By now I had hoped to post a lot more about the Skin Fair, but I was away on a trip Friday to Sunday and have been pretty knackered since then. I had dressed up and gotten ready for these photos last Thursday, but did not have a chance to do them until now. The good news is that by now it should be a little easier to get into the Skin Fair (though I see the sims are still pretty busy!) to check out the goodies from LOGO, Adam n Eve and Alaskametro that I am using for this post, together with a new lingerie set from Voluptas Virtualis.

Sometimes, simple is best. I had been thinking of some elaborate, frilly setup for the L’Amour outfit from deviousMind, but my inventory is rather bare when it comes to frilly. Instead, I started playing around with different windlight settings and I really love how this “slightly” pink setting came out in the Tower of the King skybox (modified to no longer have any of the surrounding walls) from Trompe Loeil. A proper pink palace for my cupid to lounge about in.

A lingerie shot for Valentine’s Day may be somewhat cliché, but I do think the addition of plaster elephant planters from Paper Moon makes up for this by being more unexpected. I also think the couch from Painfully Divine has a nifty twist to it: it has a really cute feature that allows you to change the writing at the front to either “spankings” or “smooches” and to adjust the tally from 0 to 10. The pose is not from the animations in the couch, however, as most of them are for couples and Ran was too tired to be dragged into Second Life today (we had a roadtrip yesterday and returned just after midnight, so he’s forgiven), so I ended up using a pose from a set by Serendipity. Both the couch and the pose are from the brand new round of Redeux.

Faida and Velvet Whip has another collaboration from their “Oops!” line out at We Love Role-Play. This is a line of scripted clothing for roleplay, which allows parts of the outfit to be removed when it is clicked by the wearer or someone else who is allowed to control the outfit. When someone else does it, the action can be accompanied by roleplaying emotes. I’ll show a couple of the options in this post, so it will be getting progressively more nsfw. The gorgeous hair I am wearing is the latest group gift for Truth’s VIP group; it has so many different ways of wearing it that you will be seeing a lot of it.

We are almost through the first week of February already (I am trying not to think too hard about that, but I am definitely feeling like I am not up to speed yet) and the current round of the Epiphany ends on the 12th, so make sure to check it out if you haven’t already. One of the gachas you will find there is the Fraia Ice Queen set from the Plastik. I have done a lot of wintry images this year, so I wanted to do something a little different in terms of the colours used. The idea “black ice” came to my mind and I went with a very dark palette for the whole set and a fairly dark sky setting as well. I am happier with the lighting in the second shot, I think, and I like how the wings look against the ice.