Otherworldly

For sexy photos, I often opt for strong colours, like red or black. But here I took a liking to the contrast between the very naughty outfit from deviousMind with the pale ivory colour, which also is reflected in the decor of the room. It actually started with the mesh stockings from Salt & Pepper, since the colour I won from the gacha was this pale cream. I then picked the best match from the “Making You Blush” set by deviousMind (which is available in quite an array of colours, with each set containing to complimentary hues) and pondered where to shoot it. I remembered that I still had the bedroom from December’s Shadow Box setup, though the bed didn’t have any adult poses. Enter the laptop from Dutchie and all of a sudden I had my scene, which I then framed as voyeuristicly viewed through the window. More than enough for a blush, I think!

Yesterday, I received an update to one of the products I own from Landscapes Unlimited, the Sky Water. With new textures and options, it has become Sky Water and Ice, allowing for wintry scenes featuring water up in the sky. I decided to do a quick video to showcase the new hud and the options included with it. I also talk (okay, ramble) a bit about the overall range from Landscapes Unlimited, which has proven very useful for setting up multiple landscapes on a single sim.

With the holidays truly over, I am working on getting back into a good work routine, which is always a bit of a challenge when you work from home. There’s also the risk that comes with using the computer for both hobbies and work. Writing a blog post like this one isn’t so different from writing a blog post for Westeros.org, after all, but one is—strange as it still seems to me—work and the other is a hobby.

I’ve spent most of the last four days at a big dog show in Gothenburg, leaving very little time for sitting at the computer. Which isn’t bad, admittedly, since both my work and several of my hobbies involve the computer. The dog training doesn’t, except of course for talking on dog forums, looking at training videos and so on. ;)

But anyway, I did find myself at the computer in the evening today and I finally came up with a nice idea for how to shoot this cloak from the Dreaming Thicket. I had picked up the Wood Works set in Light wood from Fanatik during their sale, and using that at the edge of our wintry woods gave the feeling of someone venturing out into the woods on their own in the deep of winter.

The 13th of December means Lucia here in Sweden. I did not get up early this morning to sing and serve lussekatter (saffron buns) while wearing a crown of candles on my head, so I am making up for this with a rather saucy Lucia in Second Life, wearing the latest release from deviousMind. I also decided to pick up the new Christmas tree from Dysfunctionality and it was a lot easier to transport than the actual tree that I carried home from the store yesterday. That tree is now residing in our living room, a bit earlier than usual since we’re gone this coming weekend, though I’ve yet to decorate it.

Wasabi is having a huge sale on all hair using their previous, pre-HUD set of textures. I have a lot of favourites among those hairs and I thought I would do a portrait with one of them, the Donna style. This has been a really versatile braided style, perfect for both modern looks and period/fantasy looks. It also turned out to be perfect for showing off the Bianca jewellery set from Voluptas Virtualis. The set features a bindi, two earring styles and three different chokers, all very elegant and detailed. Of course it comes with a HUD for changing the metal and the gems.

The gown, which I will have to show in more detail in another post, is by the Muses and the wintry archway a new release from Noble Creations.

I have been making more shapes for Vista’s Lia head and the latest one inspired me to do this photo, featuring the charming new Briar Rose gown from Dreaming Thicket (formerly Anachron) together with two gachas from the Arcade by Wasabi and HEXtraordinary. The gown comes fitted for Belleza Freya and Isis, Maitreya and both Slink bodies. Wasabi’s gacha hair, Sloane, comes with and without a cosy knit hat. HEXtraordinary’s Owl Keeper gacha includes several varieties of owl as flying or perched and they can be rezzed or worn. The rares include the Snowy Owl in both versions as well as a brass cage and a brass stand.

I am in the middle of baking for Christmas, which leaves the house smelling wonderfully of cardamon, cinnamnon, cloves and saffron. Gorgeous spices that are essential for a proper Swedish Christmas, despite their distant origins. Given this, it seemed seasonally appropriate to use the Spice Merchant set from Roawenwood as part of the decor for this photo, which also includes pieces from Paper Moon and ANE. The new items featured are the dress from Noble Creations, the hair from Wasabi and the gacha jewellery set from lassitude & ennui.

I have been way too busy the last few days but now I finally managed to make time for setting up and filming the fourth Shadow Box in the first series of six from Death Row Designs. Once again I opted for more of a reveal than an unboxing, since I felt it would not do the items justice to simply rez them out. And there were so many of them that I had to make use of four rooms in my Hartwick Manor from Apple Fall to display both the Light and the Dark version.

To learn more about Shadow Box and how to subscribe, make sure to visit the DRD website linked above. And remember, if you get all six boxes in a series, you will get both a Light and a Dark bonus build.

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.