Otherworldly

Ran has been keeping himself busy with our website of late, but I managed to lure him to the Fantasy Faire for some shopping. I was determined that at the very least, he’d get the toga from Last Ride. As it happened, I also had some classical garb to blog, although despite my misleading post title I am actually wearing a himation and not a toga. For that matter, Ran’s toga is not quite what you’d see on an upstanding Roman aristocrat either. But this is about the Fantasy Faire, after all, and I do think both Ran and ... uhm ... “Frey” look rather fetching.

I am back to wandering the Fairelands after a short break for RL interruptions. Today, I settled on the lovely Kakushi Pasu sim where the Literary Festival is held. In fact, I was there on Sunday as well, holding a small talk about history in A Song of Ice and Fire. I have participated in the Literary Festival for three years now and I think it is a fabulous part of the Faire, so do check out what they have to offer during the rest of the Faire.

On the second day of the Fantasy Faire, I visited the beautiful Dawn’s Promise sim, built by Marcus Inkpen and Sharni Azalee of The Looking Glass. Beautiful ruins and abundant flowers spread over this sim, where little islands are connected by arching bridges. Many of the elements used in the sim build are also available for purchase from The Looking Glass, which as a sim sponsor occupies pride of place on Dawn’s Promise. Many of them are sold as RFL items, including some shades of the gorgeous Blush Trees that sheds their beautiful rose/lilac flowers.

Aisling launched their new brand Voluptas Virtualis some months ago, but it is only just now that the brand has received its own, separate store space as well as a subscriber group all of its own. From now on, the idea is that medieval/fantasy items go under the Aisling brand and more modern items, with a sexy and elegant feel, go under Voluptas Virtualis. The bodysuit I am showing today is one such item.

Later today, at 12 pm SLT, the annual Pose Fair opens its doors. Visitors will be treated to a sim full of over 100 pose designers, so make sure to take the opportunity to add some new poses to your collection. If you have the slightest interest in photoing and/or blogging in Second Life, you can never have too many poses (even if it can feel like it at times if you haven’t kept up with sorting them!). You will find a mix of stand-alone poses and props with poses, though when I toured the sim yesterday I was surprised to see that there weren’t that many creators advertising bento poses.

I am not quite sure what to call the look that came together today, but there’s certainly a bit of a futuristic flair to it with the tattoos from Fallen Gods, so I headed off to Insilico to find the right surroundings. Fortunately these amazing sims were saved from disappearing into the dark void into which all sims eventually must pass, which is fortunate since I don’t know of any other nice sims with a futuristic/cyberpunk feel to them. Then again, I mostly look for places that suit fantasy/historical roleplay looks, so maybe I am just not that well versed in what’s available when it comes to sci-fi.

Creativity can be a fickle thing and all of a sudden I struggle with my photos again, finding it hard to compose the scenes and fit all the pieces together. I think I am starting to feel as if I need to change something up, but I am not quite sure what. I will just have to experiment a bit, I suppose. In the meantime, I thought I would at least point you to some excellent bargains at the Wash Cart Sale.

We are heading into the last weekend of the Skin Fair and I thought I would revisit some of my favourite skins. This year I have focused a lot on closeups rather than in-depth looks at the skin bodies, so I decided to take a different approach with this post. It isn’t one of my old style skin reviews, with detailed comparisons of the body shading, but you do get to see a lot more of the skins than previously. I also took the opportunity to show some more poses from the Sovereign Born Royal Chaise from Roawenwood for the March Treasure Chest, though the very first image uses a static pose from oOo Studios.

Have I mentioned how much I love my Landscapes Unlimited landscapes? A few times, probably, but it bears repeating. I love having so many different vistas at my fingertips, it really helps since I do almost entirely location shots. This, the Sahara Oasis solid sky landscape, was just what I needed as backdrop for the Wild Girl outfit from Noble Creations for the Secret Affair. And the outfit, in turn, was the perfect way of showing off the tattoos from alaskametro for the Spoonful of Sugar charity event. I am also wearing a Skin Fair exclusive skin, Ella from Adam n Eve.

This is actually my first time wearing a League skin even though I’ve demoed the brand on a number of occasions previously. Back when League was most active I was mainly looking for skins for a particular set of shapes, but now that I make shapes for sale I need a wider variety of looks, not the least when it comes to bento mesh heads. I have always thought League had a very nice, distinct look and I think it carries over quite well onto the Cate head from LeLutka. For this particular shape, I tried to stray a bit from Cate’s “comfort zone”, pushing for a more angular face.

The vast majority of the skins available at the Skin Fair are normal human skins, but for those who prefer their Second Life to be a little different, there are a few options. One of these is Alia Baroque’s Fallen Gods brand, which offers two different fantasy skins at the fair—for male as well as female avatars. In this post I am focusing on one of them, Scales. The other skin is called Draco and features a smaller scaling pattern, as if you were a dragon in human form.

At 12.01 am SL time on the 10th of March, the Skin Fair will open its doors to the public. At the fair, produced by Pale Girl Productions, you will find two sims full of skins, makeups, tattoos, shapes and mesh body parts, with each booth containing at least some exclusive items. Have you yet to find the perfect skin for your mesh head? Or perhaps even the perfect mesh head? Then you will want to fill your inventory with demos and do some thorough testing. You can already start preparing by joining the Pale Girl Productions Info Group to which the designers are sending their demos.

And if you want at look at a few of the designers and an overview of the fair itself, I’ve done a little video for you. In addition to skins and heads, it includes a look at the just released bento update for the Slink female hands. After the video, I have also included close ups of four of the skins that I showcase as well as information about all the bits and pieces worn.

Today the fantasy fashion in SL is dominated by elaborate outfits that are more jewellery than clothing, often with very little fabric to them. If you go back some years, before mesh, flexi silks made up a huge part of the available fantasy wear and some of my favourite pieces were from Solange. Today’s outfit is a brand new mesh release from her which should be out in the store tomorrow (Friday). It is a beautifully rigged silk camisk with a matching thong for when you don’t quite feel like baring it all. Also featured in this post is a new hair from Wasabi Pills and a new shirt from Gabriel.

This look started with the Miwa hair from Wasabi Pills, which is available at the current round of Uber in two variant styles. I generally don’t do cute very well, so ponytails can be a challenge, but this style I think lent itself well to a more fetishy style using a set from Voluptas Virtualis that I did not get around to blogging while the Fetish Fair was still on. I paired that with suspenders and stockings by alaskametro and added earrings and heels from the Plastik.

I have branched out into another brand of bento mesh heads with the Barbara head from GA.EG and of course that was a good excuse for making another video. I discuss the features of the head, take a look at how it responds to sliders and test a few skins on it. Also showcased in this video and the accompanying photo are a couple of new skins from Adam n Eve, a corset from Schadenfreude and Silentsparrow, hair from Wasabi Pills and a couple of new releases from the Plastik and alaskametro.