Otherworldly

It is not easy to find motivation to stay at the computer when we finally have some snow outside. Or time, for that matter, since the dog would prefer to be outside playing all the time. (Un)fortunately, the snow also came with a rather cold northern wind, which makes cozying up inside a little more appealing. The dog still insists, though, and sighs in a very suffering fashion if he doesn’t get what he want.

Given the cold, I opted for a warmer scenario for this post. I had picked up this rug with massage and cuddle animations from Roawenwood during a prior 25 Linden Tuesday and it came in handy for shooting one of the new sets from Voluptas Virtualis.

The first Shadow Box series from Death Row Designs has finally been completed with the release of the sixth box and of course I have an unboxing/reveal to share with you. If you have been following the series, you also know that not only do I have the new Light & Dark furniture sets to showcase but also the bonus Light & Dark houses where all your Shadow Box furniture can be displayed. I have been awaiting these bonus houses very eagerly and I can tell you right away that you will not be disappointed. This time around, I have included two extra still shots with the blog to show the exterior of the houses, but if you prefer to see them first in the video, you can go straight to it instead:

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!

Apparently, we have a spot of bad weather moving in, with wind and rain or snow. Typical, when today started out so nicely and I had planned to take the dog tracking tomorrow as well. Fortunately, we did take advantage of the good weather today to do some training and tracking, though usually our dog expects more of the same next day when we’ve done something fun the day before. But tomorrow sounds like it will be a day for cozying up indoors, so I should have plenty of time to browse through the Blush event when it opens. Judging by the previews I have seen—one of which is the focus of today’s vlog—it will have some very nice things on sale. In addition to looking at the release from the Plastik for Blush I also showcase the latest VIP gift from Truth to show why its a great group to join.

As I work from home, getting up early is not necessarily what I am best at. Today, a somewhat early dog training session had me up and about earlier than usual, which led to an unscheduled midday nap. Cosy, but not terribly productive, and definitely one of the pitfalls of setting you own schedule. Another is that you might just be drawn into doing something else in front of the computer, such as coming up with a new photo idea. This one, I am quite pleased with, especially the more distant shot as it came out very moody and dramatic (if I may say so myself!).

January is always a bit of an off month for me. I stay well away from New Year’s Resolutions, but the start of a new year still manages to bring along renewed pressure to get certain things done, change others and so on. This leaves its mark on my hobbies as well as I spend too much time worrying about getting things done than actually working on getting them done. I had dressed up for these particular pictures days ago, but until today I couldn’t concentrate enough to come up with a way to do them. But then I remembered that the Roawenwood sim had been redone some months ago and happened to feature an Asian-inspired build.

Time has rather run away from me this week, in part because I’ve ended up spending too much time trying to reorganize and clean up a room to fit in a treadmill for our dog. As a result, I have been waltzing around in the new gacha set from Voluptas Virtualis for a few days without getting around to doing the blog. In the end, I ended up deciding to show off some of the options included on the HUD through a video. This also allowed me to demonstrate the bento animations included with the Snowlace Cookies from the Plastik. I also took the opportunity to highlight some perennial decor favourites.

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.

The latest round of 4Mesh opened today and that meant the release of the latest pair of heads from LightStar: Odin and Freyja. I have already previewed Freyja a few times, but now that she’s officially out I wanted to give you another look at her. Obviously, I think she has a lovely name, but that is far from the only reason that I really like this head. The skin I am using here is Lima from 7 Deadly s{K}ins (always an excellent source of Omega-compatible skins) and I am also wearing an eyeliner from alaskametro (really helps with the fit of the lashes), also from 4Mesh, and a brand new hair from Stealthic.

Update: There are in fact idle animations for the LightStar heads available as an add-on in a small, light-weight HUD.

After two days of at least a little bit of cold weather and sunlight, its back to dreary and grey. Breeze, our boxer, is quite disappointed that he didn’t get to go tracking today as well (two days in a row counts as a new habit for him), but I had to focus on some less fun stuff such as book keeping. I also wanted to show off a recent acquisition, namely the Nicolina bathing tub from Trompe Loeil, available at the current round of FaMESHed. It went nicely together with some pieces from Libertine’s “In Praise of Bacchus” set and the Rustic Fireplace from HEXtraordinary for a past Deco(c)rate. I am not precisely wearing much, but I do want to point out the pretty crown from lassitude & ennui. I also had planned to show off the Logan head from Logo that Ran is wearing, but none of the shots turned out to be quite right for showing the head.

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.

My apologies in advance for my voice in this video. A persistent cold is keeping my company since the holidays, which is anything but ideal when trying to do a video. However, since the fifth Shadow Box in the first series of six from Death Row Designs came out on January 1st, I didn’t want to wait too long before showing it to you. This time, I had to break out a large villa from Trompe Loeil to fit in both the Light and Dark kitchen sets that made up the fifth box.

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 one more box to go now!

There’s not many hours left of 2017 now. I am taking a little break before preparing the rest of tonight’s dinner (a quiet thing at home; my mother was the one who always did the big parties, and I find I cannot quite follow in her footsteps) to make what likely is the last post of the year for me. While there are a lot of other things competing for my attention right now, Second Life continues to be a nice outlet for my creative impulses, and I am looking forward to what 2018 will bring. I am particularly excited about Animesh, but I am also hoping for some nice surprises since LL has said that they will be making considerable investments in SL over the next few years.

I am also going to give Sansar more of a try. So far, we’re not getting along when it comes to the controls and the character customisation options are too limited for my tastes, but it does look gorgeous. I have also downloaded and setup the trial of Marvellous Designer that was offered to all Sansar account holders, to see if making clothing for Sansar is something I could learn. In SL, I will stick to shapes, but I do plan to try and do some more as well as rope Ran into making male shapes, now that he’s got a few mesh heads.

You may be seeing horses in a lot of upcoming posts, thanks to the new bodies for the Teegle Bento Horse Avatar. Here, I couldn’t resist pairing the baroque horse with a black coat with this striking red outfit created with a Senzafine gown and accessories by Noble Creations. I love the effect of those strong colours against both the snow and the pale skin from Imabee.