Last Minute

Two brief notes on sales.

Firstly, Has Been's six year anniversary is almost over, so you just have a fraction of a moment to get all of her fantastic inventory ON SALE. Run! Run! Run!

Secondly, !bang is having a sale for all group members (sorry, the group is currently closed). I was able to fill out my inventory, picking up a bunch of poses I missed!

Both of these events end today, the 15th, so there isn't a moment to waste!

Thinking a lot about envy and greed today, about how we decide who and what is important, and about how we value and don't value ourselves. Very little of it is fit for public consumption. I'm really valuing some friends I have, though - one of whom chatted with me for a while and left me feeling much more cheerful, and the other of which gave me a TARDIS so I might have more time to accomplish things.

Now and then I wonder what kind of person I am. I suppose one way to judge that is on the quality of my friends.

Mrs. Darcy in Nature

The Empire waistline owes a lot of its simplicity to Neoclassical styles and popularity, and is loosely based off of the chiton of the Greeks which was belted under the bust for women. It was developed primarily in France, and also ushered in an era of short, often curly hair, thin ribbons to hold up the hair, and additional garments like shawls for the purpose of warmth and to offer some cover for bare arms and throats. In England, the style was popularized by Emma, Lady Hamilton even though England and France were at war, and heralded an era of Neoclassical influence which would continue until Queen Victoria took the throne. Austen is firmly seated in the middle of all of this, where serious topics were skimmed over with a narrow margin of pleasure-seeking and Empire building. In between the careful maneuvering of her novels, hints of the horrors which lay beyond the drawing room can be seen, and very few families are untouched by war and strife. Out of this era strolls this evening dress from Junbug tucked under a military-style pelisse. It's available in a variety of shades, though I picked up the pale pick for 50L Friday, along with the texture-matching shoes fit for the SLink high feet. With a fine lace fischu, I could walk along any street in absolute comfort and style as well - the color combination and length are charming, and it moves well. The coat is also available separately, and would be very fine over a variety of empire gowns.

I pulled my accessories from a variety of current events, leaping around rather like a gazelle - or something equally graceful and unpredictable. From the Hair Faire I have an amazing updo from Ploom. It fits extremely well, and is layered and built very realistically. The bow hair flops slightly as one would expect hair too, and has an amazing softness around the edges. The bangs alternate between being tucked sedately behind the ears, and dangling down in front with a gentle curl, and are layered such that they fall naturally around the face. Like always, Ploom offers up a wide variety or hair shade options - in this case I went with a blond/yellow/pink fade which made the "bow" part of the hair look particularly fun. The bangline of my hair worked beautifully with the pr!tty flowerband I picked up at One Word. It came with a single or double set of flowers, and I really loved both the shape - which reminded me strongly of the foam flowers you can buy in craft stores - and the gentle pastel colors. Finally, my jewelry is a new release at Genre from Eclectica, a glorious baroque set with dangling teal gems. Earrings, rings, and a generous necklace are included, and they offer up a bold statement to balance out my relatively simpler gown. I really like the asymetrical but balanced arrangement - and the fact I was able to echo the jewelry with the cosmetics around my eyes. The flower pattern I echoed through a White Widow design, with large, swirling bronze flowers. The teal I echoed with one of my best and narrowest eyeliners from cheLLe; I love how bright it looks against the bronze and black.

One final note - my gorgeous poses are from !bang, which recently moved to a new store and is having a sale associated with the move. I was able to fill out a lot of my collection there, and I really recommend you check it out soon.

SLBA "Law Day" Festival

Until May 31 The SLBA "Law Day" Festival is going on. It is a month-long event held by the SL Bar Association and Justitia Virtual Legal Resource Village. There is a vendor market featuring new, law-themed merchandise from a bunch of awesome stores. There are also displays all over the area about how the law affects users of Second Life and other virtual worlds, and a bunch of very cute virtual law offices. Did you know lawyers like lakes?

I took a picture of each of the virtual kiosks and hunted out as many magical boards as I could, and also picked up a few virtuous items myself, and I really encourage everyone to check it out and then stand by the Magical Boards of Highlights and Shiny Black Words for some Virtual World Knowledge. If you want to go to a specific one, click on the links below to grab a landmark.

Items for the Purchasing

Theosophy - Chess Board, Banana, Gazelle Head, and Stack of Books

!bang - One set of Single Poses and one Couple's Pose

Yummy! - Gavel Necklace and Scales of Justice Earrings

Ison - Lawyerly Briefcases

oOo Studio - Four sets of Single Poses (two men, two women) and one Couple's Pose

A:S:S - Two sets of free, Natural Nails and three sets of Novelty Nails

Magical Boards of Knowledge and Shiny

Fair Use and the Internet

Second Life Terms of Service

Copyright Issues in Social Media and Virtual Worlds

Copyright and Fair Use

Monday Meme: Strike a Pose Challenge

The theme of the week is poses, and in that vein Strawberry asks us to do a pose challenge - where we talk about our favorite pose stores for a while. I actually keep my poses organized alphabetically in a HUD, so I'll be sharing my top movers and shakers in that order. I rarely use rezzing poses because I'm usually taking pictures in the field, so I'm going to focus on my most used and why I use them, focusing on stores which are still open. Like many people, my gateway store was Long Awkward Pose, and I have an extensive collecton of poses from her that I still use to this day, however I've branched out into a wide variety of pose stores, and keep collecting more all of the time.

Unlike many photographers, I do short "photoshoots" where I use a single pose store several times in a row in the same location. A lot of the structure of it is due to ease of recording exactly what I'm doing - jump location, windlight, and pose brand enough and you just get confused - but it's led to me categorizing a lot of stores by their general feel, and then selecting based on the mood I want to have for my images. I'll be discussing these impressions here, but keep in mind they're just one person's opinion - I highly recommend you check out the poses yourself to see hat you like best.

Adorkable Poses: Currently available on the marketplace; she closed her in world store a short while ago. What I love about Adorkable is how sweet, natural, and enthusiastic her poses are - they really aim to be cute and bouncy without the stiff, posed style of a more modelesque pose store. I also like the flowing nature - the head movements are interesting and the arms and legs are interesting. When I'm doing a cute, bouncy, "all around the sim" photo set, Adorkable is where I begin. ( All Adorkable Poses used here. )

!bang: With a wide selection of stands, one of my go to natural pose stores is !bang. I came to the store late, so it took a little while to build up my reserve, but now I have an astonishing range of poses to suit most occasions. I tend to think of !bang as my casual store - when I want something that seems breezy and effortless, I start here. Note in particular the delicate yet realistic placing of the feet above. ( All !bang poses used here. )

Don't Freak Out: I honestly don't remember where I ran across this store, but I know it was love at first demo.This store is one of the newcomers to my stable of choices, but they have quickly become a go to store when I want something moody and sly. Many of the poses have a playful vibe to them, and I love the attitude they have. ( All Don't Freak Out poses used here. )

Elephante: She is a bit of a dark horse and one I don't see as often, but I really like how dynamic and interesting her poses are. There are a lot of leaps, and arm reaches, and in general a sense of movement. I started picking up Elephante poses when they were largely prop-driven, but I've been really glad to see her show up more in just stand alone poses, and I hope she keeps expanding and creating her energetic poses. ( All Elephante poses used here. )

Exposeur: Is another dynamic pose creator, but what I adore the most is how well made her poses are, especially in the area of head-clipping. I have unusually long arms and a wide head for a Second Life Avatar, so I've resigned myself to a certain about of hand-in-face actions, but as you can see from the sheer amount of "hand next to face" poses in my images with Exposeur poses, not only do my hands not clip my head, but they also don't clip my hair. ( All Exposeur poses used here. )

Flowey: I found Flowey through Whiskey Monday's exclusive use of her, and what I like most about her poses are their expressiveness. Flowey poses are evocative of a wide variety of emotional states, from sadness to anger to grief to happiness, and that makes them compelling and fun to use for photoshoots. ( All Flowey poses used here. )

Glitterati: Closed in world, Glitterati also maintains a presence on the Marketplace, and was my go-to pose store from early on. I'll be entirely honest here and say a big part of it was her group sales; they meant that I could expand my collection of available poses without spending hundreds of thousands of Linden. Her poses are also wonderful, elegant, slightly modelesque without being stiff poses, and she would make categories of poses for specific purposes, like showing off jewelry, or to be worn with a wide skirt, which made difficult to pose outfits and images easier. I still return to her regularly, particularly when I have something refined to show off. ( All Glitterati poses used here. )

Grafica: Is a much smaller store than the ones I regularly use, but the poses are of such high quality and so dynamic and expressive that I simply can't resist. Grafica is particularly good at shoulders - SL Avatar shoulders and elbows are fraught things, but Grafica manages to bend them in awkward, unusual ways with panache. There is also a lot of leaping, leaning, falling, and floating, and all of it is awesome and fun. ( All Grafica poses used here. )

Hopscotch: I used Hopscotch early on in my blogging career, left it for a while to focus on other stores, and then was bitchslapped by awesome when I ran into her again. For a long time I had thought of her as largely a prop and rez pose store, but her stand alones have become completely off the hook and fun, and cover some rare areas of interest like stretching before a run. ( All Hopscotch poses used here. )

Olive Juice: She has only a tiny satellite store open now, but Olive Juice has long been a favorite for quirky and silly poses, and I still use them regularly when my mood is on the giggly and silly side. Her poses always seem slightly off kilter, and I particularly like the tripping and falling ones. ( All Olive Juice poses used here. )

I hope you enjoyed this short, pictoral travel through my pose collections. In a very real way, poses add the dynamic element of pictures of people, and I couldn't do what I do without them.

Twisted Color Challenge: Week 49: Relaxed Greenlands

In the spirit of Relaxed Greenlands, I decided to go red and green this time. The actual colors were a sagey kind of green and a lovely gray, but when I put on this hair from Underscore and it happened to be red, I adored the effect so much I simply couldn't resist. Underscore is good for big, relaxed hair - the kind of hair that looks good on music albums and fashion plates. I'm really loving this color, too; rich and red with enough pale highlights to not be totally unrealistic. It's rigged, and the shape is loose enough that it looks good with many a head tilt. I tucked on one of my many gatcha prizes from Schadenfreude, this amazing crown. I am lacking only one of the rares (Majesty Crown, oh how you taunt me) but even the commons are lovely and striking; this one is a common, though I ended up buying it at a yard sale, as the gatcha machine was obsessed with giving me hearts and diamonds. My eyeshadow is from Nuuna, who always does a wide variety of colors, and I like the fierce edge this style gives my eyes, especially when combined with bright red lips from Essences. The lower lip is a little thinner than my skin, but I actually rather like the effect - it looks like I'm a refined vixen, instead of a lipstick slatherer. These wonderful poses are at least partially the result of my finally joining the !bang VIP group, just in time for two on-sale sets of poses. I particularly like how casual and natural !bang poses are - much less "on the runway," and much more out in the world.

The jewelry is a combo of two stores - Earthstones for the earrings and necklace; I hadn't planned on buying this style, but it was so perfect with the color scheme that I indulged, and I'm so glad I did. The bracelets were free, part of a hunt, and are from DV8 - a store which went on hiatus a while ago but which has re-emerged onto the grid with some new offerings. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with the changes to the grid while they were gone - mesh rigging has become much more refined, mesh bodyparts are rampant, and can you imagine DV8 velvet with materials? The dress is an older release from Lassitude & Ennui, an it really fit the challenge better than I could have dreamed. It's one of the rare dual-layer dresses - a sheer layer only slightly above an opaque one, with an invisilayer which will smooth away any pesky hip bits that might otherwise peek through. I particularly like the satin shine of the ribbons along the bottom, and the variances of green over the entire gown - the darker and lighter sage of the bodice are rich without being overpowering, and the paler skirt is simply lovely and fades naturally into the hues of my shoes. These shoes are one of the latest releases from Eclectica - an her shoes have simply become divine. Unique, lovely, and always with tons of color options, I'm really excited to see what she'll come up with next.

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: Izzie's, Irene
Hair: Underscore, Bad Medicine
Crown: Schadenfreude, Storybrook Royalty (Gatcha Arcade)
Ears: Illusions, Seelie Ears
Eyes: De La Soul, Rainbow
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Eyeshadow: Nuuna, Ara Green
Lipstick: Essences, Lipstick Red 02
Wings: Deviance, Sidhe
Hands and Feet: SLink, Rigged Mesh Hands and Feet
Nails: Bliensen + MaiTai, Strawberry
Jewelry: Earthstones, Genie Set
Bracelets: DV8, Palais Bracelet (Hunt Prize)
Dress: Lassitude & Ennui, Patience Dress
Shoes: Eclectica, Catherine Gothic

Pose: !bang

Location: Flanagan Falls
Light Settings: TOR, MIDDAY An Incongruent Truth
Water Settings: Glassy

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only

Advent of the Holidays

'Tis the season of giving, and getting, and an awful lot of Advent events start the first of December. FabFree has a lovely list of them, but personally I keep a folder of links for east of transport, and to weed out the places which don't suit my style as well. This year I want to try to open advent gifts each day, instead of having them build up, and I even managed to add a few to this look I'd been slowly building around Bare Rose's Bremen Players hunt prize from ages ago. Bare Rose does the best hunts, though I always seem to be missing them despite being in their group; I like the stories as much as I like the outfit one assembles at the end. This dress is a combination of unrigged mesh and flexible prims to make a simply stunning gown; it came with Lola appliers included, and I dearly hope that sooner or later they will include SLink appliers as well. I had to play a bit fast and loose to keep my SLink hands on without an applier, though; I paired lace gloves from Adam n Eve with a copy of the ribbon Bare Rose used at the upper arm to top off the gloves in order to cover the band of flesh where the Adam n Eve gloves ended and the SLink hand ended. I think it's actually fairly seamless from most angles, and the ending effect might be better than simply having glove ends.

My hair was shamelessly poached from a dear friend of mine and is a new release from LCKY, a new-to-me store which re-opened recently. I completely fell it love with it and had to have it the second I saw it; the shape, the flow, it's all so fun and unique. It's rigged mesh, of course, and moves pretty well overall, though the shoulder pieces have a tendency to go through the shoulder depending on the pose. Definitely a store I'll be checking out in the future, though, and they have a couple of men's hairs as well as another woman's hair besides this one. My earrings are day one of Virtual Impressions' Advent Calendar, and I simply love them. The bow is almost offensively shiny, just like actual Christmas ribbons, and I love how the bow is echoed at the earlobe itself. My necklace is actually the packaging for Ginza's Advent Calendar, and quite as enjoyable to wear as the lovely earrings in blue and pink which are contained within it. I love thoughtful packaging, and this one is like getting an extra trinket as well. My poses are from !bang and show the smooth simplicity of her poses off well; I especially like the slight sway to a lot of her poses, which make them look less rigid and posed than the common model types of poses. The lovely place where I took these pictures is hosting another Advent, a slightly more complicated one than the usual. You have to hunt around Sway for little gold stars which have fallen to the ground to give us all notecards with a password, one each for each day of the Advent and each giving a new prize. They are usually charming little items for your home, and this is one of the advents I've been doing for years simply because it's fun.

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: Izzie's, Irenel
Hair: LCKY, Drugs
Ears: Illusions, Seelie Ears
Earrings: Virtual Impressions, Advent Gift 1
Eyes: De La Soul, Rainbow
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Wings: Deviance, Sidhe
Necklace: Ginza Jewelry, Advent Cage 1st
Hands and Feet: SLink, Rigged Mesh Hands and Feet
Gloves: Adam n Eve, Lace Gloves
Dress: Bare Rose, Bremen Hunt Gift
Shoes: SLink, Hera Wrap Heel

Poses: !bang

Location: SwayLand
Light Settings: Phototools, Meni Light 1
Water Settings: Glassy

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only

Twisted Color Challenge: Week 45: Magician’s Life

The Magician's Life is one of slight of hand - of drawing the eye one way while magic goes on the other way. Much like the Lost Town display by Rebeca Bashly, the direction you're looking in changes everything. For a long time I have thought, I'm not sure why, that bell hooks was no longer alive - that I had her books to relate to and think on, but that she herself was in the past. Like how we talk about slavery and discrimination against Native Americans as if it happened hundreds of years ago, there is a way in which my perspective and inherent racism set me at a distance from bell hooks, and it was only through one of those incredible rabbit holes we cannot plan that I had the pleasure of seeing her and Melissa Harris-Perry speak on a wide range of topics related to gender, race, and class - as well as seeing the give and take of discussion, and a small smattering of how they handle various kinds of interactions with others in the community. I finished the talk with a mind stuffed full of thoughts and an increased appreciation for my own blindness. Sometimes it feels as if I spend my whole life preparing for these moments where I will discover I am wrong, I was unable to perceive what is around me - and then all at once it springs forth in front of me. There is barely any room for the shame, so lost am I in the joy of new discovery.

One thing which stood out for me is how we loose other people in our rush to make statements about the circumstances we all live within. This is something I've struggled with myself. In my rush to condemn sexism, I have often ended up targeting other women - policing their dress and appearance, judging their lives and choices, holding myself up against them as somehow better because of my relative wealth and circumstances. This paves over a fundamental insecurity, one which Harris-Perry touched on when she discussed how her voice was amplified at the behest of powerful white men. How power is created, gathered, maintained, and transferred is at the root of a lot of the inequality in the world. Once it passed through land and lineages. Now it passes through cash. In both cases it passed through the hands of men in the history of the culture I am within, and that tendency bends the world. I have a lot more to think about, but I and deeply grateful to bell hooks and Melissa Harris-Perry for sparking so much thought in only an hour and a half.

My hair is a gorgeous release from Alice Project; it was a gatcha prize with this coloration, but the hair itself can be bought at her store. I love her rainbow hued hair, especially when it's all winking in and out of the light like this. I tucked under it a delicate crown from Deviance, another gatcha prize and one of a number of gorgeous choices - all tintable, which is what I did in order to make a silvery circlet match up with the purple and cream of Magician's Life. My wings are also from Deviance, their usual shimmering white tinted ever so slightly toward cream to balance out the purple of my gown. My layered lips are a combination of two lips by Adore & Abhor - the larger purple lips forming a frame for her smaller baroque style, this time in sparkling gold. I tipped my nails in cream and gold thanks to Orc Inc, who has some of the most complete and economical nail sets on the grid. And finally, the gown - this gorgeous gown from Baiastice released for the FaMESHed event, caught my attention from the very first. I especially like the scalloped patterns on the sleeves, and how they are ruched above the elbow, but the careful rigging of the skirt so that it almost always appears like the skirt is skipping along the ground or flowing up with my movements. While I didn't photograph it, one of the !bang poses I flipped through is of my avatar holding her knee, and the dress bent almost perfectly at that joint, with none of the noodliness that you sometimes see with other dresses or boots, where the knee joint is rubbery and rounded. Instead it moved beautifully, and the ruffled edge makes even simple standing poses look elegant and natural.

( More pictures here. )

Credits:

Skin: Izzie's, Irene
Hair: Alice Project, Steph II
Crown: Deviance, Erulisse Circlet
Ears: Illusions, Seelie Ears
Eyes: De La Soul, Rainbow
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Lipstick 1: Adore & Abhor, Fluff Lips
Lipstick 2: Adore & Abhor, Silent Star - Shine
Wings: Deviance, Sidhe
Hands and Feet: SLink, Rigged Mesh Hands and Feet
Nails: Orc Inc, Pastel Shimmer
Necklace: Lassitude & Ennui, Stacked Pearls
Dress: Baiastice, Shannon

Pose: !bang

Location: Lost Town
Light Settings: TOR, NIGHT That Spells Moon 1
Water Settings: Glassy

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only

Under the Sea Expo: Day in the Sun

The Under the Sea Expo continues, and I took this chance to show off an awesome wetsuit (all texture) and the cutest swimming kitty cat. The Wetsuit, from Totally Tintable Tops, is really well textured, from the curves of rubber over the hips, the contrasting colors across the suit, and the fun sole on the suit which shows textured feet. I particularly like how the torso is a duller, less glossy surface, while the hips and legs are really shiny - the mixing of texture is really fun, and keeps it from being too flat. I did wish there were appliers for my SLink hands and feet, so the shapes could be better under the rubber, and a collar edge would have been nice to finish off the suit, but overall I really like this, and it's definitely in my inventory to stay. The swimming kitty cat is an adorable gift from KittyCatS and really represents the breedable company well while also being of high value for non-breeders and people without land. It has a bubbler, so as it moves it breaths out, and it floats around me in a ring. I thought it was totally adorable, and now I'm seriously considering breaking out some more of my vast inventory of fish from Seven Seas fishing to show off to everyone. The poses are all from !bang, and so is the surfboard - it was an old freebie and it totally came in handy. I am not a beach bunny kind of girl, but the fact I could find these boards and enjoy the included poses was a reminder of why my inventory remains so vast; I never know what I will need in the future!

This is my first photoshoot with shadows, and I am already hooked. I can see why it would be difficult to walk around with these settings, but I am really struck by how awesome they made my pictures look. Remember, I never do any photoshopping, so these images are raw out of Second Life, and the effects are jaw-droppingly gorgeous, in my (not so) humble opinion. I'm really looking forward to playing further with them in a studio setting as well, where I can control the light sources explicitly and try out some of the effects I've seen other people try out. What I really liked was how I could have the shadows of objects and the shadows of my figure overlap, just like they do offline; it adds a verisimilitude which is difficult to deny. The two downsides I've discovered so far is that it significantly adds to my lag - not too surprising - and there was an odd effect with my mesh attachments when they became blocky and distorted. For the latter, a manually cleared cache cleaned the problem right up, but for the former my only choice is to turn the shadows off.

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: De La Soul, Candace Creamer
Hair: Wasabi Pills, Veronica
Eyes: De La Soul, Mesh Eye Rainbow
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Sunburn: Fallen Gods, Winter Flush
Lips: Izzie's, Dry Lips 3
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle
Wetsuit: Totally Tintable Tops, WetSuits (Under the Sea Expo)
Pet: KittyCatS, Summer Splash (Under the Sea Expo)

Poses: !bang

Location: Isle of Amras Roleplay
Light Settings: Places Las Legunas
Water Settings: Glassy

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only

Wear Gray

This is the season of Second Life Charities, and Wear Gray for a Day faire is one of those, found on a lovely sim in the style of a small town of stores. It's a little difficult to find your way around, having an internal 'c' of stores plus a circle of stores all along the edges, and a couple of little blocks of stores in free areas. All but a few stores are set up, and the quality of things is high but canted toward modern, casual female in general. You can also donate directly to the American Brain Tumor Association, either in addition to buying donation items (all of which were 100% that I saw) or instead of visiting. There's also a hunt going on, with pictures of some of the prizes shown on the website. I ended up picking up an almost complete outfit while I was there, aiming to match my awesome shoes from Forsaken. Multiple versions of the spiky, animal print wedges are available in a variety of electric colors all as donation items, but this is the official gray version!

The skin is an amazing creation of Rue, available in a few different colors for donation. Available for both men and women with a variety of characteristics, the white marks on the forehead and cheeks, and the pink blush under the eyes are part of the skin, as are these adorable freckles (it comes in a non-freckled version, too). I was beginning to think I needed to use another hair until I ran across Discord Design's glorious foray into rigged mesh hair, with this braided style I fell in love with. You can get it in sets of light or dark, or get all the colors in one. This is one of a couple of styles available for donation. I paired the whole look with a gorgeous dress from Blue Blood, with a thin trim of hot pink that I thought perfectly matched my cheeks. The outfit is prim, with an invisi-layer for the lower torso and upper legs, just to avoid flashing a bit of thigh. Across the chest is a white and pink band which handles the difficult SL mesh body well.

The jewelry is an old release from Eclectica - not being released at the faire but a valuable and useful addition to any inventory; the beads are recolorable in a bunch of shades in two separate sets, and the metal has three options. It comes with earrings, a necklace, and a ring, all showing in these pictures. The orange and purple eyeshadow is also not from the faire; it's a group gift from Mock that I put on to test and really enjoyed with the rest of the look. The eyeliner is from the faire, though - Silken Moon released a bunch of eyeshadow and lipstick for donation, as well as a variety of other items; the eyeliner is thick and dark, and the lipstick is actually editable and recolorable. Finally, the flower in my mouth from !bang was not only a donation item, but also a gatcha prize. I ended up with two of the white ones, but it was the perfect touch for my look! There are other colors, though, and a special rare silver one if you're willing to put in the linden.

( More pictures here. )

Credits:

Skin: Rue, Anima - Neuromancer
Eyes: Rozena, Lively Eyes - cold dream
Eyeshadow: Mock, Carribean Twilight Elegance (group gift)
Eyeliner: Silken Moon, Stella Khol
Eyelashes 1: *X*plosion, PrimLashes
Eyelases 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Lipstick: Mock, Bella Vetro Gloss - Lepore Red
Flower: !bang, Euphoria Mouthie (white)
Ears: Illusions, Mystic Ears
Hair: Discord Designs, Ohna - mid grey
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle
Jewelry: Eclectica, Clusters Jewelry Set (promotional item)
Dress: Blue Blood, Spring - yellow
Boots: Forsaken, Rawr! - Snow Leopard (promotional item)

Poses: aDORKable

Location: Cherry Manga
Light Settings: TOR, HORROR Namob islet
Water Settings: Glassy

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping only

The Littlest Deoridhe

I had the hardest time finding a place to take pictures, and so I ended up going through my encyclopedic links and history and ended up back at Bryn Oh & Company's collaborative release - The Path, which I was thrilled to see was still open.

One of the negative effects of being very, very small in Second Life is that most things are so huge that all sense of proportion or ability to settle oneself near things can be impaired. I had a ball taking pictures at various stores with little desk areas - and I may well do a swing through my favorite stores in another version of this avatar because I LOVE IT! - but for a full length and "official" set of pictures (instead of my first-in-a-while Flickr only hunting set) I wanted to go to some place more uniform; some place where I could experience the Littlest Deoridhe in a variety of aspects. Bryn's build for The Path is perfect for this - being full of little details - in a way her other builds  haven't been to me (Immersiva tends to be more sweeping except for these tiny little details, for example, and the Family setup was stark, angular, and huge). What I really wanted for a faerie world was something cluttered, though, and the initial study Bryn developed contains both clutter and starkness in delightful concordance.

I feel really blessed to have this faerie and all her G Field dresses (the dresses and legs are rigged, but the flower headpiece and wings (not shown) are prim). I don't know what I'm doing in Second Life, but the gods and creators are smiling at me because I ended up with both the faerie, elf, and demon bodies made in collaboration between Yabusaka and Fallen Gods, the glorious outfits made by Fallen Gods to go with them, and the fantastic Wasabi Pills hair for free - and the eyes are semi-self made using textures from De La Soul, and mid-photoshoot I ended up with some more !bang poses as a gift from the generous creator. It's nights like this where I feel how blessed I am - generosities stacked upon generosities allowing me to have spots of true beauty in my life. I don't think there are enough words to show my gratitude for getting given what I would have wanted to buy in its entirety, so I hope these pictures will convey that for me.

The avatar body is mesh - and I have it on excellent authority that it is hysterically funny to people who can't see mesh and looks like a bunch of balls and boxes moving around randomly - and much of the clothing is mesh as well, but prim accessories do work. It is also very, very small - coming up to about the knee of a standard avatar and even less for the uber tall ones.  Even compared to my base avatar - which is short in Second Life - I am tiny. To give you a sense of perspective, the Random Calliope "bracelet" on my wrist is actually the ring; the "belt" has been shrunk on the side and back slightly, but it started as a necklace, and the decoration around my neck was originally meant for the forehead. Necklaces can work around the waist with very few modifications, as can bracelets, and many a ring will find a new lease in life around the wrists of my growing army of Very Very Tiny Deoridhes. My one complaint - and believe me when I say it is a very little one - is that every little faerie has the same features; part of me would love to see my full sized avatar reduced down to this size simply because the effect would be glorious, but that is well beyond the easy capability of mesh as it stands and I love this avatar so much it's really a footnote.

Fallen Gods has released three types of avatars based off of three styles of skin, and with all the expected superiority of tone and design. I started with the palest "elf" color and haven't yet played around with the custom tinting that seems to be possible. Elf also comes in two other tones, one darker and a bit grayer and the other darker and slightly warmer - these are effectively the "human" tone range of pale to tan. The "crystals" are the faerie forms, and come in blue, purple, and green - all base medium in tone to start with. The final "dracos" set are meant to be more demonic, and come in dark red, purple, and black. Each style of skin has a corresponding outfit to match - a robe and cape setup for the elves, wings and scanty earring based clothes for the faeries, and tightfitting bodysuits with bat-style wings for the demons.

I am wearing the dress that G Field made for this avatar, though, in unison with the delightful hair from Wasabi Pills. Right now there's just a single offering from each, but I remain hopeful that both will create more - I'm especially hoping for other of the mesh hairs from Wasabi Pills to be made, since some of them I adore so much, and I'd love to see them all miniaturized. If you go to the Yabusaka sim, you can also see mesh samples for making clothing for these avatars, and I'm really impressed to the extent to which they are a collaboration, and encouraging further collaboration. My other accessories - including the eyes - were pulled together myself out of my existing inventory, and I wanted to do this to show the inherent versatility of the avatar despite it being mesh and a very different shape from the base avatar (though no-copy jewelry will quickly become your bane, as it has become mine!).

The included eyes for the avatar don't quite show up well, and all attempts I made to use the system eye slots to add eyes met with failure, but I made static eyes using eyeball prims and a texture I wheedled out of De La Soul's creator, who has a history of giving in to wide eyes and a slightly quivering lower chin. The eyes on my avatar are simple 0.01 balls with a texture slapped on them, linked to a third 0.01 ball and attached to the chin; it took me less than ten minutes to make, and should be an example to any eye creators who want to get in on the game early - it really isn't difficult, and the texture changed not at all.

( More pictures here. )

Credits:

Avatar: Fallen Gods and Yabusaka, Petites
Eyes: De La Soul, RooMee Eyes - Rainbow
Hair: Wasabi Pills, Orion Petite Mesh Hair - golden
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle (shrunk)
"Bracelet" and "Necklace": Random Calliope, Slither
"Belt": De La Soul, Glaive Choker
Dress and Accessories: G Field, Fairy Dress - purple

Poses: !bang

Location: The Path
Light Settings: Sim Default

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping only