Otherworldly

Do you have dreams of your own cosy little café? Then Dutchie’s latest release, the Red Brick Café, might just be the thing for you. To tease your imagination further, I’ve made a video looking at the interior of the building as well as showing off most of the furnishings that are included in the furnished version. You can dive right into it or read on for more details, including Marketplace links.

It is too bloody hot so my brain has melted (apart from the part worrying about global warming, which always works just fine) and this will be rather brief. I am having cravings for a swim again and as a result I keep doing beach/ocean photos in Second Life. This time I am out on a cute raft by Nomad for Fifty Linden Friday, lounging around in a gift skin from the Plastik/Petrichor for SL17B and a mermaid bikini from Aleutia, plus the latest hair style from Wasabi.

I love the idea of combining clothing and jewellery as sachi Vixen has done in this gown for the Vintage Fair, where a bejewelled collar tops off a slinky silk (or velvet) gown. I went without any additional jewellery to focus on the collar itself and stayed with Truth’s latest group gift for my hair, here in the version without any wisps and with everything neatly gathered up. Dutchie’s New Amsterdam houseboat served as the stage for the photo, with the mid-century vanity showing in the background, to hint at either the beginning or end of a festive evening.

We Love Role-Play opened its June round a few days ago and this is a good one that you will see more posts on from me. The first one is a quiet, contemplative scene with an evening walk among some moody ruins. The dress by Dreaming Thicket has a gypsy/boho feel which I love together with the gorgeous Delicate hair from Truth. I am also wearing the diadem and pendant from the Priye set by Adam n Eve.

A somewhat eclectic mix today, with everything from decor to new eyes. We’ll start big, though, with another building from Del-ka Aedilis. This one is from their medieval series, so it seemed to fit well with wearing a Viking-inspired gown by the Muses. The kitchen garden on the side is a separate item from the same series and can be combined with most any of their houses. The jewellery is more fantastical, a fairy-delicate set from lassitude & ennui that comes in a range of beautiful, shimmering mixed metals.

The braids are the latest style from Wasabi, which comes in a straight and a slightly windblown version where both the bangs and the braids have swung to one side. And then we have the eyes, the Oculi from FATE. Damien Fate calls them spiritual successors to the FATEeyes and that is fair enough, though they are quite different in many ways. The HUD is sleek and easy and even with just the included textures they are highly versatile as they tint beautifully. The HUD also allows very easy positioning vertically, horizontally and depth-wise.

There is also a free developer kit for making your own textures, something I am eager to have a go at. Their biggest new feature is properly speaking the realistically dilating and contracting pupil; it is perhaps not what excites me the most, though I need to play around with how it can affect expressions in photos and how it looks on video. Either way, I like these eyes a lot. They may not be the ultimate mesh eyes (for that, I would like BoM as well as appliers, but because these use special textures that won’t work), but they get close in that they offer both excellent positioning and easy customisation.

I have blogged a few pieces from Del-ka Aedilis in the past and was recently invited to blog more of their buildings and decor items. Seeing as they align very well with my own interests, I was more than happy to agree! To introduce the brand properly on my blog, asked them to provide a short description of what they do and why:

“As passionate roleplayers we discovered the need of low-prim, well-built and nicely textured buildings, especially for Fantasy, Medieval and Ancient Greek or Roman settings.”

Today I am going to feature the Slave Quarters from their Civitas series. It is essentially a complete district from a Roman city, with apartments, a small slave auction, a brothel, a forge and some storage areas. This offers many different options for roleplay as well as many photo opportunities. Since I don’t have a Roman city built up on our sim, I paired the Slave Quarters with their Villa Iunia for a more complete scene. I have to say I love the attention to authentic details, such as the graffiti! In the last two photos, from inside the brothel, you also see the Whore’s Mattress which includes solo, couple and threesome animations.

The footprint of the Slave Quarters is 33 x 16 m and the total land impact with all decor is 136 (102 for just the buildings).

What wanders the lush woods of Queensgarden? A creature of legends, an elusive wood walker. Her skin is nut brown and dappled like a deer’s, she has long, claw-like nails and eyes like those of a cat, and she wears clothing made of leaves. At her side, a large wolf, a companion but nevertheless a wild animal.

With everything on offer at the Fantasy Faire—from skins to companion creatures—it is easy to create a fantastical character of your own, whether wholly original or, as in this case, loosely based on a pre-existing source. And remember, you will be shopping for a good cause if you buy from the RFL vendors that raise money for the American Cancer Society.

Today also marks the beginning of the first part of this year’s Faireland’s Quest, don’t miss it!

Slink has just created an Instagram account and done so with a bang. To celebrate, Slink is giving away 60 body bundles to followers of the account! The first level, 100 followers, has already been reached and 10 bundles have been awarded randomly to followers. But there are two more levels, 20 bundles for 500 followers and 30 bundles for 1000 followers, so there are still 50 chances to win if you hurry up.

To tease a bit, I’ve done some shots of my favourite Slink body and, indeed, overall favourite mesh body, the Slink Physique Original. None of the other bodies can rival it for a natural, proportional look. I am also wearing the Miranda head from Slink and the lovely freckled Piper skin, a current freebie at Adam n Eve.

I love it when an idea comes together and the result is a scene where you can feel that there is a story behind the picture. In my mind, I drew some very loose inspiration from the Wheel of Time as it could conceivably accommodate the two outfits we wanted to show off within the range of cultures and clothing styles described for the world. That would make my character an Aes Sedai, perhaps from one of the Borderlands given the style of dress, and Ran could probably pass as a nobleman of Andor. And yes, we used to roleplay on a pair of Wheel of Time MU*s, before A Song of Ice and Fire took over our lives, so for a while we were very immersed in that setting. In fact, the first characters I tried to create a look for in Second Life were my WoT-characters.

Like many others, no doubt, I find myself rather stressed and distracted of late and it is impacting my creativity and my concentration. It took me much too long to figure to be happy with this setup, though I am fairly pleased with the end results. I had forgotten that this pose/backdrop set from Exposeur was sitting in my inventory and it turned to be just what was needed for the rather raunchy Belit set from Voluptas Virtualis. I am also wearing their Nene nipples on my Slink Hourglass body and a piercing from their latest add-on set as well. Other than that, I am not wearing much!

My skin is Zara by Adam n Eve, which was released for the Skin Fair and now that that has ended it is available in the mainstore. The hair is Maite from Wasabi, a second style with windblown options and petal add-ons. It is available at Uber.

I didn’t feel like switching out of Slink’s Miranda head just yet, so I found another new skin from the Skin Fair to try on her, namely Gwenyth from 7 Deadly s[K]ins. A pretty match, I think, and I also like the look of the eyeshadow and lipstick from alaskametro’s Fire collection. Very sassy, just like the Amber bodysuit from Voluptas Virtualis.

The beautiful hair is Hanami by Wasabi, which includes both a regular (second image) and windblown (first image) version. There are also add-on petals for the windblown version. The decor (rug, candle, book) is all from Libertine.

Skin Fair isn’t just about skins any longer. Mesh body parts and mesh heads are a big part of it as well and one of the new releases this year comes from Slink. Miranda is the 6th female head in the Visage Redux range of Bakes-on-Mesh heads. She has lovely dimples and a narrow chin, making it easy to create a heart-shaped or a bit foxy look. I decided to pair her with the new Andy skin from alaskametro, also a Skin Fair exclusive. This is meant as an androgynous skin and has quite marked cheeks. The result on Miranda is strong rather than conventionally pretty, but I really like the effect.

It can hardly have passed anyone by that the biggest skin event of the SL year, the Skin Fair, opened on the 13th of March and will continue until the 29th. Right now the two sims are still pretty packed, but it has started easing up a tiny bit, at least when it isn’t peak hours. I’ve got a booth there myself this year, with four new Kanon shapes, though the one I am using in this post is actually not one of them. I had made mine to go with the three exclusive skins by Adam n Eve, and then sachi went and added a fourth just as the fair was about to open! So, I’ve made a shape for the Rafferty skin using LeLutka Erin, but I haven’t had time to package it yet.

Yesterday, the inaugural round of Hullabazoo opened. I think they have done an excellent job of describing their event on their page, so I am going to quote them:

“HullabaZoo is all about animals and creatures.  It’s more than a shopping event and will have classes, a quest, contests, photo ops, parties, and more.  Best of all we’re raising money for a great cause!  HullabaZoo is an annual event and we would love it to become the BIGGEST creature event of the year - one that you look forward to, get excited about and look forward to it’s return each year!

HullabaZoo isn’t a mainstream fashion event with an “animals” theme so you won’t find zebra-print nails, or paw print T’shirts for human avatars.  You will find creature avatars, pets, rideables, props and mods as well as accessories and mods for those creatures.”

The chosen charity for the 2020 event is the Jane Goodall Institute. I’ve only had time for a quick visit so far, but it looks like a great setup and I am really interested in checking some of the things they are planning before the event ends on March 31st. During that quick visit, however, I had time to check out the new Dressage System from Mythril and that is what this post (and, more importantly, video) is all about.

An enchanting view from the Tower of the King skybox from Trompe Loeil serves as the perfect backdrop for the Florin daybed by Barley, available at Enchantment. The daybed comes in four beautiful shades and in pg, adult and threesome variants. For these photos I am just using animations from the singles menu, but I’ve looked through the couple animations as well and I quite like the overall selection.

My clothing, such as it is, is by Voluptas Virtualis (save for the stockings by Luxuria) and that includes the add-on nipples which I found quite easy to match to my skin by alaskametro (there are both available preset textures and tinting options). The pearl string top and bottom are from FaMESHed X together with the nipples (there are two versions of the top; one meant to be worn with the add-on nipples and one with your regular nipples) and the corset is from Anthem. All items include fits for Belleza Freya, Maitreya Lara and Slink Hourglass and come with many texture options.