Otherworldly

Just in time for the Black Friday/Weekend sales, Vista Animations released their first bento mesh head, Lia. I had heard nothing of it until I saw it mentioned on Plurk and to be honest I wasn’t expecting that much when I went to demo it. I have fairly particular tastes in mesh heads and I have demoed and discarded a large number. But, I was very pleasantly surprised and that, together with the excellent introductory price of L$2000 (20% off the regular price, which is still a great deal), led to one of my fastest mesh head decisions ever. In fact, I was so pleased with the head that I simply had to launch into making a review video for it. It should have been up earlier today, but I had some uploading issues. Fortunately, the sale price is still on at the store right now.

Also featured in this video is a new hair by Wasabi, a new tree by The Little Branch (who just opened up their mainstore) and clothing by Senzafine.

During the weekend Froukje Hoorenbeek of Dutchie dropped her latest creation on me—a sauna! Since it definitely needed both photos and a video to do it justice, it took a few days before I found the time to properly play with it. I kept the video PG (there is a PG as well as the Adult aka “Swinger” version of the sauna) but the photos in this post are rather more NSFW. Alas, neither me nor Ran have any alts setup with mesh bodies, so we couldn’t test out the poses intended for more than two avatars, but I do give a look at the menus to give a sense of what’s available.

Time for the third and final new face from alaskametro. Spark is a freckled, charming face which I paired with I see as the cutest of the LightStar mesh heads, Marian. But since I also decided to show off another new release from Poppy, this one for ROMP, things took a decidedly naughty turn with this post. The decor is all from the recently released November Deco(c)rate.

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.

Dreaming Thicket, formerly Anachron, has a new Grecian-inspired dress out for We Love Role-Play, which opened yesterday for its November round. I also had this campfire from Noble Creations that I wanted to incorporate in a picture and it struck me that I might play with the Grecian angle and think of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. Now, she really ought to have a bow, not a spear, and she probably shouldn’t be a redhead either, but that is what liberties are for. I rather like the atmosphere in this shot, where I used a foggy windlight setting to all but obscure the surrounding landscape, save for the pine trees from Studio Skye.

I have to say, the windlight really was what made this shot work. It added an incredible lushness to the scene, really taking advantage of the velvets of the Justine sofa to create an amazingly decadent backdrop for my scantily clad self. The starting piece for the “outfit” was the collar and leash from Voluptas Virtualis and then I tried on a number of other things to see what worked with it.

I do not like spiders. In fact, I am absolutely terrified of spiders. Fortunately, my virtual self is made of sterner stuff and did not run away screaming when I put on the latest release from deviousMind. That does not mean, however, that I didn’t have to suppress a shiver when attaching the various spiders that go along with the outfit. I mean, spiders crawling across your breasts, that is just evil!

After putting on the Oriana gacha from Voluptas Virtualis and colouring it all up to gold, I was stuck for a while trying to come up with the setting to shoot it in. Then Ran suggested that it felt a bit sci-fi, maybe space opera a la Flash Gordon. Well, I couldn’t quite swing the latter, but I did have the Starship skybox from 22769 and this cool “Specimen Tank” prop from NRage that I had gotten from a gacha ages ago but never used. The final touch was recolouring the Harper hair from Wasabi Pills to use one of the colours from the Solar set rather than plain old black.

Alaskametro has a skin and cosmetics gacha out at On9 called Lady Venom and that seemed like just the right thing to pair with this leather mini dress from Voluptas Virtualias and the short, tousled style by Wasabi Pills. I struggled with the right setting for this (I am really out of my comfort zone with modern looks these days—clearly, I need to work on it) but decided that this dominatrix couch from Roawenwood had a nice look and some suitable poses.

A new dress and new shoes from the Plastik, together with a very eye-catching tattoo from Fallen Gods and a short, sassy bob from Wasabi Pills (a gacha which also comes in a version with cat ears) inspired me to pay a visit to the wrong side of town. I derendered a few zombies and dead bodies, since I am not quite ready for that much Halloween in all of my photos, but the eerie feel of the green lights was just perfect.

Its that time of the year again, when all of SL gets covered in pumpkins and cobwebs. There are no pumpkins in sight in this post, but a bit of cobweb in the corners and plenty of other witchy things, courtesy of the Plastik and Jian. Also featured is a new Wasabi Pills hair (complete with witchy hat) and a rather cheeky dress from lassitude & ennui for the 10th anniversary of Fallen Gods, which features a market full of different creators.

We’ve just passed the halfway point for the current round of Genre, so you still have some time to check out the various Celtic-themed items on sale. A great complement to the standing stones from LORE are these Iron Age roundhouses by Anachron, which come in a plaster or stone finish. Anachron, as it happens, is in the middle of breaking their brand into four sub brands, which each will be more focused on a particular type of items. The brands will be kisetsu (traditional(ish) japanese items), HashBang (cyberpunk/urban/punkish stuff), Dreaming Thicket - (fantasy and (pre-20th century) historical items) and Maraschino (20th century retro and vintage).

The title seemed like a good description of Liliya from Voluptas Virtualis as the set consists of little more than dainty strings and a few triangles of fabric, which also can be made partially sheer. The set is accompanied by new shoes from Slink for Shoetopia and a new hair from Wasabi Pills, as well as some different pieces from the same jewellery by the Plastik as in my last post.

I mentioned the Frou Frou event a little while ago and I thought it might be time for a reminder in the form of the second new release for the event from Voluptas Virtualis. This time, it is paired together with the newest Wasabi Pills hair from Ultra and an old favourite as far as furniture goes from Libertine.

Modern hairstyles sometimes throw me for a loop, but when I put on this sassy style from Wasabi Pills I knew it needed something sexy. In this case, a pearl harness from deviousMind, the new boots from lassitude & ennui and a couple of poses with class and attitude from the chair in the recently delivered Shadow Box from DRD.