Otherworldly

When you blog events it sometimes leads to you discovering creators you have never come across before. My personal find at the SL Renaissance Festival is Wythburn Fine Furniture. The two pieces I am showing here are both nicely modelled, with good choices of textures (and you get a lot of options, too) that look extra nice with advanced lighting on and, on top of that, a selection of animations that for the most part fit historical or fantasy roleplay very well. The sits for women, for example, work well with gowns and skirts. Such as the lovely Carnation gown from the Dreaming Thicket, another release for the SL Renaissance Festival. The building is Fanatik’s imposing Stalker Castle, which has a great grand hall lined with torches on the first floor.

Remember that the SL Renaissance Festival is a charity event, raising money for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. All proceeds from the furniture is donated and the gown varies between 50% and 100% depending on colour.

On September 24th (that’s tomorrow!) the 2nd annual SL Renaissance Festival opens its doors, running until October 3rd. This is a charity event supporting Making Strides Against Breast Cancer and it will consist of four sims of shopping (naturally with plenty of items available that donate the proceeds wholly or partially to the charity), auctions, events such as performances, tournaments and classes and also booths presenting various roleplay guilds and groups. Schedules are posted to the official website, linked above, so make sure to check it out to see what the festival has to offer.

Since the bloggers got a sneak peek of the sims today, I used that opportunity to dress up and pose in front of the gate leading in to the tournament arena. My gold-brocaded gown is from Kitty Creations and it includes matching slippers and the necklace that I am wearing. The gown comes fitted for a range of bodies. My hair is an earlier release from Fantavatar & Moonstruck.

The Horse Show is back! From September 18th to October 2nd you can visit this fabulous event and shop for tack, coats, stable decor, stables, riding clothes and, of course, Teeglepet horses. In fact, this year there are two brand new breeds at the event, the Tennessee Walking Horse and the American Saddlebred. These are both so-called gaited breeds, meaning that they have different and additional gaits compared to the walk, trot, canter and gallop you’re used to seeing. The new animations are fabulous! Of course, this required a video. In it, I also take a look at new releases from gSpot, Majestic Designs, Star Sugar, Multifarious, Tutto e Vanita and Cheval D’or. You also get to see the two Limited Edition versions of the new breeds. These are available ONLY during the duration of the Horse Show and sold in no copy only and they are gorgeous.

And speaking of limited editions, there are some even more rare things on offer at the One of a Kind auction where you can bid on tack, coats and even a OOAK horse. These are produced in a single copy each, meaning the auction winners will have something no one else owns. The auction ends on the 26th, so get your bids in!

Below the video you’ll find some photos as well as full credits for everything shown in the video.

The Fawn outfit from On a Lark is a special offer for 25 Linden Tuesday; individual colours are 25L and the HUD-controlled fatpack only 125L. It includes six different fits, among them Slink Hourglass so that is what I opted for this time. To show it off I decided to make use of a backdrop from Faida for La vie en pose as well as poses by Creative Stylez, also for La vie en pose.  The backdrop includes several different textures both for the stone and for the drapery, the poses come with mirrored versions and a lipstick prop for each version.

Welcome to the Roman Bath from the Civitas Series by Del-ka Aedilis. Classic and elegant, it a perfect addition to a roleplay sim needing a public bath house. The two tritons bearing braziers at the front are not part of the build but a separate release from Fantavatar & Moonstruck, but I thought they fit really well in thematically and they also show how you can add more of a fantasy touch to the setup. The Tritons include left and right versions and here I have sized them down considerably; at their original size they would make great centrepieces for a temple or similar setup.

The basket with bath supplies is also from Del-ka Aedilis and can either be worn or rezzed out as a decor item. Here, the bath slave (dressed in clothing from On a Lark) is holding it to welcome visitors to the bath. I also want to mention the skin because this is a brand new release from alaskametro for the Spoonful of Sugar Festival, benefiting Doctors Without Borders. Estrella is a 100% donation item and is available in five tones for LeLutka Evo X.

With new and old items from the Dreaming Thicket, a tattoo from Fallen Gods and a pose from Be My Mannequin? I created this scene of a guardian of an enchanted wood. The gown as well as the tattoo are from the Age of Avalon event, which inspired me to think of a secret haven which not everyone could reach. The amulet—available in sun and moon versions—went well with the priestess/enchantress image and the forbidding stance of the pose makes her seem like she’s not going to let just anyone pass. The landscaping consists of items from Fanatik and Studio Skye.

I’ve tried doing portrait series before, but I always get too ambitious and too caught up in making them feel similar. So, we’ll see where I end up with this one. The genesis of the idea was to do some nice portraits for our game to spruce up the website a bit. Here, I am trying to portray Melissa “Missy” Blackwood, one of King Aegon IV’s mistresses.

To create her look, I am using LeLutka’s Erin head with alaskametro’s Ingrid skin (using the flat chest add-on since Missy was supposed to be quite slim and flat chested), which I think gives her a sweet sort of beauty that suits the description of the character. The hair is one of F&M Oblivion’s releases for Hair Fair, a style inspired by Giulia Farnese, also a famous mistress. It is a very elegant, ladylike style with a silk cap at the back. The raven jewellery is a nod to the arms of House Blackwood and I thought that the Heloise gown from Junbug could fit into Westeros well enough.

We’re almost halfway into Hair Fair 2021 and now is a great time to visit. There’s gifts out in most booths and all of the sales donate a percentage to Wigs for Kids, so it is a perfect type to stock up on some new styles. Wasabi has two new styles out, each with styling options. I accessorized lightly with a couple of pieces from Cae’s retirement sale.

Roughly a week remains of the Fantasy Faire 2021. One of the things you do not want to miss out on doing is the traditional quest. This year it is called “The Language of Birds”. You can buy the HUD needed to participate in a regular (L$250) or deluxe (L$350, includes exclusive outfits from Silvan Moon Designs) version at the landing points on all the Faire sims and all the proceeds go to RFL. The quest package also includes a charming little companion that will help you out with extra hints along the way.

You will need a bit of patience for the quest as you are looking for birds and they are sometimes fairly small and may not rez until you are closer by. But the rewards are well worth it, from the sim-specific gifts for finishing each part of the quest to the grand prizes at the very end. Plus, you get a wonderful free tour of the Fairelands; I definitely saw areas I had missed on my shopping tours! The final sim, The Seventh Valley, is particularly gorgeous and that is where I took this shot. It was very much a spur of the moment photo, I hadn’t actually planned to blog about the quest or the outfit I was wearing right then, hence the lack of closeups on the accessories, but I liked how it came out!

Exploring Khol Dracys is not without its perils. If you climb too high, be prepared to meet some of its larger inhabitants. They have a taste for shiny things and the occasional adventurer, so it is imperative that you stand your ground and firmly tell them to snack on something else!

Petrichor (formerly the Plastik) has an absolutely massive amount of new releases for the Fantasy Faire, including skins, clothing, accessories and even decor items. Among these is the Araleus outfit that I am wearing here, consisting of the outfit itself, armour for arms and legs and a sword. The colouring huds for each part allow for almost unlimited texture combinations and for the outfit and the leg armour the huds also allow you to hide certain parts to change up your look even further.

When you want to wear your favourite body and there’s no new mesh lingerie that fits, what do you do? Wear some of alaskametro’s gorgeous BOM lingerie, of course, with a pair of brand-new BOM stockings from Luxuria. Not that alaskametro doesn’t do mesh as well; the satin robe is also hers and fortunately includes fits for a wide range of bodies.

To show this sultry combination off, I am using two new releases from La vie en pose: a draped cloth backdrop from Faida and poses from XTC PoSes from a set called Du Jour. I sized up the backdrop somewhat to make it easier to use standing poses and have it cover the whole of the frame.

As far as heads go, I am lately rediscovering my Vista heads (they are really very good!) and I have paired Lia with one of the skins from Lumae’s relaunch, Jemima.

La vie en pose opens its April round tomorrow, with plenty on offer for blogging, roleplaying and socializing. I thought I would give you a sneak peak of a nice set from Rebel Poses, featuring five emotional poses (including mirrors) set in front of a window with an optional backdrop that provides the outside scenery. I selected two of the poses to also showcase a sexy pair of garter tights from Luxuria. I love the way the shine comes out on these; it is actually materials applied to the body, but it affects the tattoo layer as well. My hair is one of two new styles from Wasabi’s new gacha at the Epiphany, which is opening in a few hours. Both Milk and its sister style, Toast, also offers a windswept option to both the bangs and the lengths of hair in front of the chest.

Alaskametro recently released an update to her current body skin, the “Fit” series, which includes updated shading and a materials applier. If you have bought the skin previously, you can get a redelivery of this new version. I was excited to try it out and see how the materials would look, which meant a good opportunity to get (nearly) naked. And I don’t pass those up in SL!

I opted for the Slink Physique Original body (my favourite by far) for showing the skin on; the body jewellery is an older set by Voluptas Virtualis from when they were still releasing items for this body. The head is also by Slink, the lovely Ashlynn head which looks really stunning paired with the Abigail skin from alaskametro. Having the face framed by the most recent release from Stealthic, the gorgeous Metropolis hair, certainly doesn’t hurt either. The curl textures of this one are to die for. This hair also represents a big update for Stealthic that includes new colors, new sizes and new pricing.

The poses are also from the depths of my inventory, a set by HopScotch which features some very classic water bearing poses. So much more interesting to photo these than regular modelling poses, props don’t have to be complicated to add a sense of story to a pose.

I had meant to make this post yesterday, but I ran out of time. By now I believe the Skin Fair and possibly also the March round of We Love Role-Play has concluded, so it may be a day or two before some of the items shown appear in the mainstores of Sköll, the Rotten Lab and Faida & Velvet Whip. The magic crystal is from an earlier We Love Role-Play round, so I think you will be able to find that at Roawenwood already.

A bit of fashion, a bit of home & garden, all set against a beautiful sunset that represents a first for me—I bought this lovely sky setting and the matching water on the Marketplace. EEP has its issues, for sure, but sellable and tradeable presets are a great idea. This particular preset is Mesmer from DHS and if you want to try it out for yourself there is a demo.

The reason that I started looking at buying a ready-made sky was that I am still not as comfortable working with EEP as with Windlight and I wanted a really nice sunset for showing off the setup I made with the deck from EED Home & Garden from the Home & Garden Expo together with the boulders from Fanatik’s Land Shapes set. On the deck I have also got a few decor pieces from Headhunter’s Island, also for the Home & Garden Expo.