2012 Color Challenge: Week 11 - Aquamarine

I love the color Aquamarine, so I was glad to see it come up - but I was surprised by how little I had that was called aquamarine. I found a lovely set from the sadly defunct Kyccie's that had a wonderful aquamarine and pearl design. If comes with two headbands - I've wearing both - a collar, a necklace, and earrings. There are delicate flower details on one of the headresses, the collar, and the earrings which inspire my choice of rose detailing in the other bits of clothing. I ended up pulling out a very old dress from Umi Usagi that my friend Tomoyuki lured me to (he of the temptations!). Umi Usagi tends toward complicated prim attachments that curve smoothly into the textures of the outfits, often incredibly well. The skill of the store has only been increasing, but even in this dress form well over a year ago you can see how the sleeves are given a sense of fabricness through the clever use of semi-translucent prims. The skirt is also very complicated, with an apron included (there is also a skirt without an apron) and delicate layering of ruffles and lace. The stomach area is open, nicely counterpointing the otherwise formal Lolita style to make it fully Ero Lolita. The erotic is a common theme on Second Life, and this doesn't fit the standard images of sexy, but I like to think this subtle, flirty sort of sexy is more consistent with my personality.

 

The hair is from Wasabi Pills and is another of her skillful mesh designs, this one with adorable loose braids going over the shoulders. I indulged in a more unusual color, and while it's darker than aquamarine, I think it suits the rest of the look nicely. The eyes I'm wearing are part of a new set called Radiance from De La Soul, and since I have serious blackmail material on the creator she passed me the rainbow ones as soon as they were made and I popped them in right away! I love how bright they are, and the colors are simply amazing. The Umi Usagi outfit also came with shoes but I'm not as fond of those (the newer shoes from Umi Usagi are much better), so I substituted in my absolute favorite shoes from G Field, which you can see more closely right below.I bought the fatpack because I always buy G Field's fatpacks, which means these shoes can color change on touch (her newer color-changing shoes are HUD driven, which is a wonderful touch). You can see in this close up just how skillful G Field's shoes are, from the texturing - which is divine - to the delicate curves of the roses, which look real enough to inspire smell. She also uses those roses in other pieces of clothing, jewelry, and even some enormous posable rose bushes, and you can see why! These are my absolute favorite roses in Second Life, and I never tire of looking at them.

The subject of sexiness, attractiveness, the erotic, and women is something I always end up swirling back around to. Second Life is rather steeped in the common dichotomies of gender - women who are tall and thing wearing very little clothing combined with men you have absurdly broad chests and huge muscles wearing only slightly more. My own sense of style and sexiness tends to be much more subtle and closer to cute, though I've been known to rock a pair of silks pretty well. This outfit is a good example of a more Victorian sense of sexiness, where the erotic implications come not from showing every curve but rather come from careful showing of some bodyparts with being entirely covered up, and even obscured, on the rest of the body. I think the flash of throat or wrist, the hint of thigh, a flash of stomach can be so much more interesting that the bald reveal of every bit of skin. That is a personal style, though; the showing of a lot of skin shouldn't imply anything about the person. There's a common line of thought that particularly scantily dressed and inaccurately shaped women are actually men, but think that implies that women can't internalize those standards of beauty, and I really don't think that's true. Women are often complicit in the continuance of unreasonable standards of beauty, and it is unsurprising those standards would continue into a world where you can be anything and look like anything you want to.

( More pictures here. )

Credits:

Skin: De La Soul, Aestali - Cream Rose
Eyes: De La Soul, Radiance - Spectrum (mesh, promotional item)
Eyeshadow: Kosh, Lost Souls Eyeshadow - frozen
Eyeliner: cheLLe, Cleo Called Teal
Eyelashes 1: *X*plosion, PrimLashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A Planty
Ears: Illusions, Mystic Ears
Lipstick: Mock, Bella Vetro Gloss - Apple Blossom
Glasses: Air, Cresta
Hair: Wasabi Pills, Cherilyn Hair (mesh, promotional item)
Jewelry: Kyccie's, Hopeful Flower - Aquamarine
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle
Dress: Rabbit Kiss, La bebe gothique
Shoes: G Field, Flower Pumps "Eve"

Pose: MiaMai, Lazy Sundays June 05

Location: Mermaid Temple
Light Settings: TOR, SCIFI Albedo 0.39
Water Settings: TOR, Maldives

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping only