Otherworldly

It took all of September, but now I have finally given into Autumn, and that set the tone for this post. Our sim remains very much a work in progress, but we’re hoping to find some more time for it soon. To gear myself up towards that goal, I’ve started shopping for various bits and pieces of landscaping. Like many others, I’ve now fallen in love with Studio Skye and I expect that quite a few of their pieces will grace our sim in the future. The same goes for LostAngel, whose inventive pose props always are a pleasure to use.

Bare Rose is a true Second Life treasure. The huge store is still filling up with more fun, unusual and inventive outfits on a regular basis, and now most of it is mesh. June Dion only offers a single size for her mesh items, but I’ve found that for the type of clothing I tend to gravitate to it often works out quite well. Such as with the Trobadour and Trobadour Lady outfits, which I knew I had to get for a couple photo with Ran as soon as I saw them.

We’re both wearing the Slink hands—the updated female hands and the brand new male hands—and skins from the Skin Shop. Ran is sporting a recent hair from Dura which I think is just so gorgeous and I am wearing Wasabi Pills.

I can’t resist doing another post about Genre’s September round, this one featuring the lovely Susanna dress from the Muses. Old times indeed, and it goes perfectly with the Akiko hair from Wasabi Pills. I am also wearing the updated mesh hands from Slink; if you already own the hands, make sure to get the update delivered using the terminals in the store, and if you don’t own the hands…well, get that problem taken care of right away. You need them, trust me. There are also male hands out now, so take your partner (or male alt) along as well.

The September round of We Love Role-Play is now open and my first item of choice is the Miriel gown from Evie’s Closet. I am very happy to see Evangeline Miles move into mesh gowns—mesh gowns, thankfully, are much more forgiving of non-standard sized shapes than, say, mesh pants—and this is a lovely high fantasy design. I’ve paired it with the Curiata jewellery from Illusions and the latest release from Wasabi Pills, Robin. I am also wearing yet another newly acquired Skin Shop skin.

For a while, mesh made it very hard to find nice clothing for roleplay looks. This has all changed rather drastically in the last few months and now there are several stores producing high quality roleplay-oriented clothing in mesh. And, of course, there’s the We Love Role-Play event, which is a great way of getting familiar with both established and new designers within the field.

This month’s lineup includes three outfits from FATEplay, Damien Fate’s latest venture. Some of the outfits made their debut during the Fantasy Faire, but they have been updated since then and now feature materials. I thought that made the Wende dress a nice match for the poet shirt from bastard (Maxwell Graf’s new male clothing line) since that one also utilizes materials.

Now that I am back home from our vacation—which means back on my regular computer and fast, steady connection—the blog should be getting some much-deserved attention again. I have a lot to catch up on, including several gorgeous releases from this month’s We Love Role-Play. For example, a chain maille doublet from Maxwell Graf of Rustica, released under his new clothing label, “bitch”. And don’t fret, guys, because the “bastard” label is also represented with a set of poet shirts in different materials. And yes, all these releases have materials, for that extra-spectacular look.

I am also wearing a new skin from the Plastik, released for yesterday’s 50 Linden Friday. Eren is part of the Astrali line and I have to say this may be my favourite face from the line so far; it feels very natural. It also comes with a toned down body that suits smaller breast settings very nicely.

Hair Fair is still going strong with about a week to do, but it is not the only fair in town right now. There is also the Food Fair, featuring decorative food items as well as other items with a food connection.

Generally, you don’t want hair in your food, or food in your hair, but for this post we’re mixing things up. From Hair Fair, we’re showing hairs by Wasabi Pills (female) and Amacci (male). From Food Fair, we’re showing a gorgeous corset by Perception and a lovely, materials-ready necklace by Weather! or not?

Get ready for another round of We Love Role-Play, starting tomorrow. Among the pieces on offer for this round is this elegant mesh gown by the Library. The Asia gown really shows how you can combine mesh with clever texturing to create a style that is more complex than the base mesh. It has a vaguely Grecian or Roman feel and would suit well for roleplay in a setting with a warm climate.

With it I am wearing the newest hair from Wasabi Pills, Tanya, and a set of gorgeous bangles from Maxi Gossamer, both out for this month’s FaMESHed. The San Remo bangles utilize materials so should be seen in the latest official viewer for the best effect.

We’re actually in the middle of a sim remodelling right now—we’ve got the crazy idea of trying to make some mini-areas inspired by different regions of Westeros—so shooting outdoor photos is a bit tricky. However, I just had to find some way of shooting the latest mesh creation from Maxwell Graf of Rustica: the mangrove tree bridge. Fortunately, we did have a corner of the sim where some creative angling of the camera hid any signs of the ongoing work.

The mangrove tree bridge is currently available at the Garden. It is 12 meters long, 73 prims and mod and copy. That means you could make it larger, though the land impact would go up. The modelling and the texturing is, as with everything Maxwell puts out, quite superb. For a beachy or tropical sim, this would seem like a must-have piece of landscaping.

I’ve spent a little too much time yesterday and today butting heads, so time to focus on something else instead. Such as the Scandal dress from Volstead, released for the World Goth Fair (now finished) and now available in-store and on the Marketplace. This gorgeous lace dress shows that it is possible to make partially see-through mesh, you just need to make the fit a little loser. This vintage shape is ideal for it, as well as being ever so decadent. It also comes with clothing layers, to add a bit more modesty and help out with breaks resulting from movement. For these static photos, however, I opted for no additional coverage, though it would be needed for wearing the dress out and about.

Sometimes, fate puts things together. Sometimes, it takes a little help from the wonderful creations available at the Fantasy Faire.

Finally! The Fantasy Faire is open! Get your best low-lag outfit in—there’s one offered at the Faire, courtesy of the Plastik—and prepare for a true shopping fantasy, lasting until the 28th of April. There are new and exciting releases from each of the participating merchants and of course all of them offer specially selected RFL items, allowing you to shop and donate to the American Cancer Society at the same time.

The Fantasy Faire is just a few hours away now! I have had a chance to look through the sims and they are, as they have been the last year, wonderfully creative. And, of course, packed with some truly great creators. I have so many great outfits to show—this is the faire where mesh has broken through big time among fantasy creators—and I will be starting with the Muses. The amazingly productive Nephilaine Protagonist offers four new outfits for the faire, two for women and two for men.

I’ve been doing a lot of fantasy looks of late, but the latest One Bad Pixel release as well as a new furniture set from HANDverk for The Men’s Department obviously lent itself to something very different. With it, I also have another preview of the Skin Fair, this time in the form of a new Tuli skin.

If you’d like to try something new in SL and get a bunch of cool stuff, then Global Domination by Hottie Cooterati might be for you. Its a game that involves searching for items and solving riddles. Some quite easy, some very hard. I played the game right on the launch night and persistent as I am, it kept me up to 4.30 in the morning as I insisted on trying to finish it all in one go. Of course, there was a race at the time to be among the first three to finish to get one of the grand prizes. I didn’t manage, but I was definitely not disappointed by the prizes available to everyone who completes the game. I also enjoyed the actual game play; the scripting of the HUD that you purchase to participate with is well done and the puzzles were fun and engaging.