Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Midnight Reflections


The mood last night was mellow and we were looking for a quiet retreat rather than socializing or shopping. It was a nice coincidence, then, that we found Midnight Reflections.

The place is dark, moody and gorgeous. We found walking paths and waterfalls, lots of wooded areas and eventually, the secluded getaway in the picture here.

Midnight Reflections and a couple of neighboring sims seem to be largely uncommercial, save for one mall that I assume helps to defray the costs. But it is tucked away in one corner and easy to escape. There's a lot of room for romance, meditation or just being. Highly recommended.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Cross my palm with silver...


Due to a long list of RL and SL frustrations, I fell off the posting habit in a big way - taking pics and then not being able to access inventory being only one of them.

But this morning, following the lure of Linden Lab's post about Analise, I picked up the Relay for Life gypsy set, and promptly fell in love with what scuplties can do. They're going to kill my ability to make saleable items in SL, I think, but I can't help but say wow, anyway.

The RFL version is done in shades of purple, but there are other colors available and it was very difficult to decide which to get. Each comes with a prim skirt and a sashed overlay that is on the skirt clothing layer - I like this method, because it helps hide that butt-crack effect that happens when the prim meets the rear end on an item that isn't supposed to be skin tight. The set also includes two tops - one in white, and one in a lighter hue of the skirt.

The sleeves are where the scupltie goodness comes in. I don't even want to think how many times I've tried - and failed - to create sleeves that look like this with the regular prims. They are puffed and gathered layers all the way down, attached in two parts so that the bend at the elbow looks natural. It's terribly feminine and romantic and I expect to be hauling out these tops to wear with jeans just as often as I pair them with the skirt they came with.

Finally, the set comes with a lovely headscarf that I'm not really showing off to very good effect and some really good triple hoop earrings that I'll be putting on frequently.

To this set, I've added Shiny Things Gold Triple Drop Chain in Opal, which works very well with the style of the set, I think. It's long been one of my favorite accessories, but it's sometimes difficult to find looks that set it off to its best advantage.


The skin I'm wearing for these pictures is Pixel Deep, Light, Brunette with the mauve, gloss makeup. This is part of a skin set I bought early on in my SL adventures, and have only recently started wearing again. The make up coloring tends to be subtle instead of slathered on with a trowel (not that I don't enjoy that look just fine sometimes) and the eyebrows have a soft look to them that avoids the penciled on effect that I have come to regard as one of those unavoidable issues in SL.

The eyes are Tempus Heart Design's Natural Pale Brown and the hair is Jolie Femme's Timeless in Nearly Black. If you haven't seen this hair yet (and you aren't seeing it very well here, now) do go check it out. It manages to pull off lots of little fly away bits the way real thick hair does without looking horribly messy. This style is as close to the way my hair looked for years than anything I've seen in SL yet. (my current RL style is quite a bit shorter - but if I grew it out, this is what it would do.)

I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I do offer tarot readings in SL - by and large I don't go in for the 'dress like a gypsy to read the cards' bit - but with an outfit this cute, I might just change that policy.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Another new look for Mickey


This is Morgana and me at an event, me showing a new skin and body shape.

Second Life allows us to be malleable in appearance, but I tend to pick a basic shape and skin to use mostly consistently for a period of time. I seem to fall in the middle between those who are constantly changing the way they look and those who almost never do.

Still, while I change hair and clothes daily or even more often, and skins as called for to fit a mood or occasion (mostly for facial hair changes rather than radically different skin tones), I do tend to keep a basic shape in place unless I'm just moving to a non-human avatar altogether for a few hours.

Still, there comes a time to make a change. I've taken to calling my old new look "The Professor," and I still like it and can go back to it at any time ... but I'm liking the changes I've made.

The body shape I'm using is called Gerhardt, from Bodies by Oh! It's stockier and broader than the one I had been using, and after some judicious slider adjustments, looks nicely solid and well-proportioned.

The skin provides the finishing touch. This is Adam from Second Skin Labs. It's a wonderfully real-looking skin with a good range of facial hair options. The only drawback is it lacks a bald head option so I can't use very short prim hair pieces. But the hair on it looks good, and also works well with medium and long hair.

The skin is relatively new within SL, introduced just earlier this year. It has been well received as being one of the best male skins around, an opinion with which I agree.