Under the Sea Expo: Sea Witch

The Under the Sea Expo has begun, which you probably know if you've been watching the feeds, and it is glorious. The one thing I missed during the Fantasy Faire was an undersea sim - even the watery ones were well above ground - and this expo is feeding that need in spades. There is also an awesome storyline hunt which I'll be covering more in depth soon, I promise. Many of my favorite stores are here, and even more stores I don't know but which blew me away from the beginning; even if you aren't usually a mer, this is an event not to be missed.

I made my big splash with this incredible mermaid set from Tarnished, one of several being sold at the Expo. It is prim, working around the mesh of the legs to form a single tail, and with an enormous fantail at the end. It moves beautifully, especially with the little hip fins, though there is the usual difficulties with working with alpha. I wonder sometimes if Second Life will ever address those - they can be truly troublesome. It comes with fingernails for the system hand, bright red talons suitable for ripping out the throats of even the most difficult sailor. In order to make myself suitable for the public gaze, I added this amazing top from The Muses' release for this Expo - you'll see more of it in the future, I promise. The long sleeves also come from The Muses; they are called gloves, but i can easily pair them with my usual SLink hands and they look simply stunning. The scale pattern along the arm (applied with a glove layer) fits so well with the Tarnished tail that it seems like they were made for each other.

To complete my transformation from mild mannered Faerie to vicious and alluring Siren, I leaned heavily on tattoos and cosmetics. I wanted to maintain the illusion that I could actually be under water, so everything but the tail and my hair was skin tight, and so I marked up my face and torso with some of the more theatrical releases from Nuuna, who is sublime for unusual and striking cosmetics. The lips are from my solid-color go to store, Adore & Abhor, a perfect dark red with a delicate curve. Finally, to fill out my shoulders and torso, I pulled out a tattoo released ages ago from Silentsparrow, which is a layered pattern of curls across the entire length of my body, though the leg ones are well covered by my scales. It actually has a color tintable layer, which I made a rich crimson to match the rest of my look. Finally, Wasabi Pills graciously offered up one of her hairs in Flaming Cherry to finish off the effect - a Siren bathed in blood was born.

As those of you who have been mer know, they offer a specific challenge when it comes to Animation Overiders and Poses because the legs have to remain together in order for the tail effect to be maintained (mesh tails sometimes have more leeway, but even they can be distorted by parted leg animations). For my AO, I dug deep into my inventory and pulled out a really fun one from Falln Angel Creations, which comes with each of his mermaids - he also has a more extensive AO for sale at his store. For static poses I did a quick run around the Marketplace, and while I ended up mostly using poses from Chisa Creation, Hopscotch has some lovely other ones made to go with a mesh tail, and some of the water poses from Glitterati (closing soon) worked beautifully as well.

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: De La Soul, Candace Creamer
Hair: Wasabi Pills, Hawk2
Eyes: Nomine, Stained Eyes
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Face Tattoo: Nuuna, Warp
Lipstick: Adore & Abhor, Shreveport Lips
Chest Tattoo: Nuuna, Meta Red 70%
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle
Bikini: The Muses, Siren Red (Under the Sea Expo)
Torso Tattoo: Silentsparrow, Tenebrae Tendrils
Hands: SLink, Enhanced Mesh Hands
Nails: Orc Inc, Goth Nails
Mermaid: Tarnished, Fire Coral Mermaid (Under the Sea Expo)

Pose: Various

Location: Under the Sea Expo
Light Settings: TOR, Sunrise - Ultimate
Water Settings: NB, Turbud Reflections

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only