Otherworldly

What a lineup We Love Role-Play has for April! A really strong mix of avatar accessories and various builds, furnishings and landscaping. I dove right for the massive Gothic castle by Nocturna Deed, even though it clocks in at a hefty 800 prims. It makes gorgeous use of PBR and lights beautifully. Need a home for your brooding lord or reclusive vampire? This would certainly serve! I really like the way it is laid out as well and the fact that there are proper windows and doors. There are also quite a few rooms, allowing it to serve as a home for several people if so desired. In fact, it took me a while to discover the very cool crypt and the bloody dungeons.

The castle certainly seemed like a perfect home for the Skull Throne from MoonSha. It is similar in setup to the Dragon Throne I showed a few rounds back, but featuring a skull motif instead. It comes in a variety of base materials and with the included HUD you can change the fabric texture. The PG version includes single poses for male and female avatars as well as couple poses.

For my own outfit, the Eowyn gown and the Dragon shield by the Muses made me feel right at home. The gown layers leather and chainmail details on top of the fabric and comes in five colours with either black or brown leather details and either gold or silver chainmail. The sturdy shield comes both as a wearable and as a display version. And if you take a closer look at the second image, you can admire my lovely new eye appliers by Musa. I decided to play around with mismatched eyes and I love the effect here. These gorgeous eyes are sold in smaller packs or a fatpack and with the fatpack you get some great bonus colours as well. At the 30% off for the event, this is a great deal!

“You. Step inside, and you will learn what the future holds for you. Surely you are not afraid to know?”

The current round of Chronicles & Legends, “the Oracle’s Oasis”, is all about fortune telling. Fantavatar & Moonstruck has two new releases out, Fancy Divinator Chair and the Book of Major Arcana. The chair includes 4 female and 2 male poses and the book can be clicked to flip through different cards from the major arcana. You also get the book stand without the book on it.

I used a previous release from F & M, the Medieval Country Tent, to make a fortune teller setup in the middle of the woods. I ended up using a separate sitting pose rather than the ones included in the Divinator chair since those did not work so well with the long, slit skirt of the sexy Coriane dress from Petrichor & Ersch. Also from Petrichor & Ersch is the Makri headdress with matching earrings and bindi. Since both the dress and the headdress featured pearls (whose colours I could match up with the included HUDs) I thought the two went very nicely together even though they weren’t made as a set.

We Love Role-Play opens in just half an hour and the September round has some great new releases waiting for you, now with discounts of between 15% to 30%. Just like this serving girl waiting to please her master, wearing the Harla Camisk by Rakshasa, a versatile little piece with options for wearing it partially stripped. The fatpack also includes a huge variety of texture options. This black and silver combination matches well with the Santagar Chaise by Sacrilege (available in PG and Adult versions) and the Amare Chalice by the same creator. The earrings are by Portal and the wall candles by Tirrany Designs, who has several different candle sets out at the event.

I love the new dress from Tres for We Love Role-Play. Nephi is a scripted gown available for Inithium Khara, Legacy and Maitreya Lara that offers various states of undress through a Touch-menu. My favourite is this version, with the bodice pulled down to reveal one breast. However, the top only and bottom only versions have an added benefit—you can wear two dresses and get the top and bottom in different colours! I am wearing the Khara size and don’t forget that We Love Role-Play has a raffle for 5 Khara bodies that you can join by wearing the group tag and clicking one of the raffle boards at the event.

Also from We Love Role-Play is the Helvi forehead chain by NeonSheep, a very delicate and pretty piece of jewellery that I have included a close-up of below. It comes with a HUD for texture changes.

Even Ran picked up some new clothing from We Love Role-Play, after I pointed him to the Colorblock Doublet from Stitched. For male RP clothing, Stitched is definitely one of the best sources and this is a really nicely made doublet. I just wish someone was making this kind of clothing in female fits too. ;)

And though you don’t see too much of it, the interior is from Tirrany Designs Stylized Medieval Tavern. I really like the look of this build, but it is quite large and a little difficult for me to get good use of given my attempts at more realistic avatar sizes.

The latest outfit from Petrichor and Ersch seemed like a good excuse for some pinup-inspired photography using my old collection of Boudoir Rouge poses.  The Zelai dress is made up of two halves joined by straps, though it is more open than not! There is a regular and a scaled version and several HUDs with different fabric types and patterns.  You’ll find Zelai at the current round of Kinky Monthly.

Del-ka Aedilis has three new releases for the A Thousand and One Night event; a large divan, an elegant tea table and a matching floor cushion that is available either at the event or as a group gift at the main store. Each piece is offered with a 25% discount at the event which lasts until June 25th. Three fabric colours and three shades of wood are included where applicable and the divan and the floor cushion include animations; singles only for the cushion and singles and couple (including adult animations) for the divan.

To complete the decor of the room, I used pieces from Libertine, Paper Moon and Senzafine. The outfit is from Salt & Pepper with the snake armbands being a gift at the Shop n Hop from AtaMe. Another gift from there is the subtly metallic lipstick from alaskametro.

The “Become the Beast” couple pose from Be My Mannequin? inspired me to do a rather NSFW photo using the Qismat Harem from Del-ka Aedilis. Clothing just didn’t seem right for it. ;) Well, at least not beyond the little chain harness from Aisling/Voluptas Virtualis, back in the good old days when they still did sizes for Slink Physique. No reason to let excellent mesh gather dust in my inventory just because its some years old.

I love how this image came out, both moody and seasonal. I’ve been struggling a bit with ideas again, but I think it is partly because I have been trying to force myself to blog the wrong things. For next year, I will need to rethink my blogging commitments. On the one hand, if I don’t have some things I actually have to do, I can get too indecisive and just never get anything done because I keep waiting for the perfect idea. On the other hand, if I have to work too hard to get inspired it can be draining.

Anyway, when I saw this lovely dress from Faida and Velvet Whip at Redeux, I knew I wanted to do something with it. But I’ve wandered about in it for a few days now without just the right idea (see above), until I remembered the Starlight Lantern from Contraption that I picked up a few weeks ago. Off to my little winter landscape in the sky I went and then the magic happened.

In a few hours, there will be a new girl in town and I think quite a few of you might want to be just like her. Cinnamon (and her “sister”, Chai) is a new mesh body from Siddean Munro, the creator behind the Slink brand. This is NOT an update of the Slink bodies, nor does it mean those are being retired. Cinnamon & Chai is a completely separate brand and these bodies have been built anew from the ground up.

Why another body, you might wonder? What does it offer that we don’t already have plenty of in Second Life? Well, I am glad you asked and to answer, I prepared a little video. Note, there is pixelnudity in it.

If you prefer to read about the bodies, I urge you to check out the Cinnamon & Chai website, which has an excellent FAQ. As for the quick version of my opinion of the body (there’s of course a more in-depth review in the video),  I love the lower half of the body but would have preferred smaller or at least more natural breasts. I also think the new UV is a really cool and bold move and the seamless waist and ankles look fantastic. And the animated feet are great.

I’ve also included some shots of the body below, if you want to get a quick look at it without seeing the video. Again, pixelnudity follows. The poses used for the nude shots are from XTC and available at the new round of La vie en pose. Full credits are at the end, but since the store is not yet open the landmark will be added later. To be notified immediately when the release happens, I suggest joining the Cinnamon & Chai group.

Another day, another portrait between (re)packing our bags for Monday. Chronologically, this one fits in before the previous portrait, as Barba Bracken preceded Melissa Blackwood as a mistress. The Brackens are described as a bit stocky and I imagine Barba as pretty but less fineboned than Missy. I thought the Logo Bella head (with its matching skin) might suit that. I also opted for a more casual hairstyle for her vivacious personality. As Barba was particularly known for being buxom, I picked a gown from Faida and Velvet Whip that highlights this very well. The dragon egg necklace would obviously be a present from King Aegon, perhaps as he learned she was pregnant.

I was supposed to be on vacation and thus a blogging hiatus. But our car broke down last week as we were on our way to our summer cottage, so for a few days more I am stuck at home with much less to do than I had planned. Hence, blogging. Fortunately, there are some great events right now, including a new round of the Epiphany. I couldn’t resist the SultryGarden gacha from deviousMind, which features a ribbon harness with intricate lace appliqué. I tried out the first colour that I won and said to myself that there was almost something bridal about it. I gave it another try and fortunately it gave me the Pearl next time, perfect for my idea!

Of course, this would definitely be something for after the ceremony, unless you are having a very unconventional wedding. ;) I am still wearing that ridiculously pretty hair from Stealthic, Lavish, and my favourite skin and head combination even though they’re far from new: PXL’ss Ava on LeLutka’s Cate.

She had come to the ancient ruin, half-buried by the desert sands, to learn if the tales were true. Did a dragon of flesh and blood still roam the deep desert? The bones of such creatures, bleaches by the sun, were occasionally revealed by the shifting sands. But no man, or woman, had gazed upon a living beast for centuries.

The single pose “Hurt” from Be my Mannequin? immediately suggested to me someone looking upwards with a sense of wonder on their face. What an excellent opportunity to bring out our wyvern avatar from Prehistorica again! I had also had my eye on Zaara’s latest release and decided to appropriate it for a desert fantasy look, beautifully completed by the latest release from Stealthic, Lavish. The scene was set using the a sky landscape from Landscapes Unlimited and the Ruins kit from Fanatik.

The sand storm delayed her and left few tracks to be followed, but eventually she found the site of the battle. But she was too late.

Be My Mannequin? is a pose store that I discovered quite recently and then was fortunate enough to get accepted as a blogger for. They offer single, couple and group poses of the “storytelling” variety, meaning they are great for building a scene around. That suits me perfectly, since I rarely have much of a need for straight-up modelling poses but instead want to show a moment from a story.

This particular pose included two variants for different shapes and I found that even though mine and Ran’s shapes tend to differ a bit from the SL average, the fit of the alternate version was very good. I also wanted to show how different a single pose can look depending on the angle, so I setup two similar shots from different angles.

Synergy Lab is currently running an Ice & Fire event, which naturally meant I was over there to check things out as soon as possible. Creators are allowed to use both the books and the show as inspiration. I would have liked to see a few more items that were clearly inspired by either (without infringing on any copyright) rather than being more generic fantasy/medieval, though that is always welcome as well!

Two creators that brought some very nice decor items were Del-ka Aedilis and Fantavatar & Moonstruck. The former has created a set inspired by the furnishings seen in Stannis Baratheon’s study on Dragonstone whereas the latter has made a safe that might even suit the Iron Bank of Braavos!

As the first entry in a clothing line, Old Treasures has released the Gentilhomme set for the Fantasy Faire. As soon as the Faire opened, I sent Ran over there to get the doublet (he felt the pants looked a little too muscular in the shading for his tastes) and he opted for the very well-priced mixed colour pack in the RFL vendor. This kind of well-made medieval clothing for men is not exactly common in Second Life, so we were both happy to see Old Treasures move into this market. And since he dressed up so prettily, he gained himself an invitation to my private chambers (mild nudity at the end of the post).