La Morte de l'Elf et l'Amour

This is my first review of a mesh outfit, so I want to set up a baseline handling until browsers that handle mesh become more common. I use the Firestorm Beta, and a big push toward my picking it up was the announcement that Violent Seduction was going to be releasing mesh clothing - so consider me seriously biased toward this store. Also, the second item she released in mesh was literally a remake of the first outfit I ever bought from her - La Morte Imp in the color Suffering (her new clothing has similar names; I think Coagulate is my favorite).

 

This first picture is to give a baseline of the pre-mesh design; the corset was texture, not prim, and the skirt was made up of a combination of the system skirt at prims on the lower leg and hips to cover the gaps. Given the limitations of prim, this is one of the better very revealing dresses I had ever seen; I hope you can see why I picked it up at the time. I saw it out on the grid, and it effectively introduced me to Violent Seduction.

Here is the most similar mesh version (La Morte Elf has several dual colored dresses, which I think is amazing, but which means it was hard to find a Suffering equivalent - I ended up deciding on Coagulate). You can see there are several design changes - short sleeves, no bows on hips, only one boob-hammock, new little gloves - but the design hinted at in La Morte Imp is realized much more in La Morte Elf especially around the curve of the skirt. Joints are always difficult in Second Life, and one big advantage of mesh is a way to smooth over joints in a way that prims simply don't allow for (now add a way to link to body fat and muscle and I will be a very happy Deo!).

Now, onto some of the details of the outfit (with more pretty pictures to follow, I promise! Yes, this will be a loooong post). I did have to change my shape for this, which was rather expected and no more a pain than my usual "corset shape" modifications. One thing I would like for single-size outfits is a notecard included with the body measurements; it would streamline making shape adjustments since I could identify where I was very off and make the changes. In this case, I made several errors and had to start over, and I couldn't quite bridge the gap around the bottom of the corset (though it's barely noticeable except in pictures angled from below; am I too nit picky?).

You can see the biggest areas where my original shape didn't match the mesh shape was around the top and bottom of the corset, and at the hips. In the case of the corset, I was too big; the hips, I was too small (I love shape variation in Second Life! I've never had to climb into someone else's skin before like this!). I ended up lowering my body fat and belly to zero - the latter is common for corset shapes, but for the former I usually increase the size of the corset (not an option here). I also ended up shrinking my boobs by about twenty points, but I'm not sure that's immediately obvious, and I moved them apart a bit to match the curve of the corset. To match the hips up, I ended up widening the saddle bags, which easily matched up to the "tops" of the skirt. All of my shape errors (besides reducing muscles, which gets you nowhere in the torso) were about height - remember that mesh is linked to height-leading things, which means it will become shorter as you do; a HUGE advantage for those of us on the tiny side!

As you can see in the final design, only a slight amount of "white" shows through at the bottom of the corset - easily glossed over in pictures, and chances are no one will be looking there.

Also, as a public service, here is what your mesh will look like to everyone without mesh-enhanced viewers (which I believe is most of them on the grid right now).

I had a lot of fun with taking photographs in the mesh dress, though, once it was fit - because I was able to use curing, tangled poses which would require a lot of fiddling with prims to make work otherwise. I really got a taste of the advantages of mesh - how it could curve and bend with a body in a natural, interesting, and fun way. I'm not completely a convert; I really think mesh should be made responsive to width factors in peoples' shapes to make a lot of the fitting less of an issue and allow the full variety on second life to continue unabated. As a curvy shaped girl in Second Life, I really value being able to have a round belly and take pictures where that is attractive; a lot of the clothing made so far seems to assume the belly would be zero, and I think that's a shame!

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: De la Soul, Kei - Cream
Eyes: De La Soul, Roomee Eyes - Rainbow
Lipstick: Skinthesis, Liquid Heat - Deoridhe
Hair: Magika, Ribbonetta - Blond
Hair Flower: G Field, Rose Hairpin (suede) - blue
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle
Dress: Violent Seduction, La Morte Elf - Coagulate
Jewelry: Axiom, Antithetical Concept
Ring 1: Alchemy Immortalis, Nestling Finger
Ring 2: Earthstones, Eternal Blossom Ring - Bouquet

Location: Al Naifah

Light Settings: TOR, EUPHORIA - Low saturation
Water Settings: Default

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping only