I Can Haz Promoshunz: Demon

I have a glorious set of pictures this time, with some really fun combination of promotional items! One nice thing about promotional items is that I'm often confronted by things I wouldn't normally wear - and trying to turn it into a cohesive, attractive look can really push me. In this case, a top that isn't quite my style, and a dress that I like but probably wouldn't have thought to use this way, are combined into a fluid whole. The top is from De La Soul and is a Limited Edition version of a new top she's coming out with - called The Seeker and this is the Tomoyuki version. It comes with a HUD to change the textures of the obi and the catches; the obi changes to a variety of shades, most of them dark, and the catches change through a variety of colors, including gold, green, and the red shown here.

The "skirt" part is actually part of a dress from Paris Metro - a store which does gorgeous fancy gowns, often quite daring and sexy. In addition to the central skirt, it also included a variety of leg-attached pieces for the skirt, which is a touch I always like. I didn't keep the central red skirt, because it layered strangely with the alpha in the textured skirt, but I love how the prims are canted and swirl in interesting ways as you move and pose. The mouth-jewelry is from Acide!, and I have become a necklace-in-your-mouth convert. I had to do a little fitting of the jewels around the cheeks, but since it's a modable necklace it took only a minute or two to do. I love the effect of the stones hanging out like that; a charming and funny idea, and a great way to add a necklace to a nigh-necked outfit!

The skin is a gorgeous fae-style design from mythic that comes with and without sparkles (I'm wearing with, of course - who do you think I am?). The gray is a lot of fun, and I really enjoy the bright colors of the other versions of the skin included. They'll be a small army of pastel, sparkled fae set loose upon the grid! There are matching eyes, too, but I couldn't find a red pair that worked with the rest of my planning, so I ended up using Flare eyes from De La Soul (not promotional).

The hair from Me. is a lot of fun, and very floofy, which I enjoyed! I don't normally wear big, fluffy hair, but I thought the style suited this quasi-Japanese/sexy dress shift. The bangs are nice and heavy, but they are partly alpha so your eyelashes with fight with them (hence no eyelashes in these pictures!). There isn't any movement on this hair, though, so keep that in mind if you love movement in your hair. The poses are another bit of fun! I used a mix of promotional poses from EverGlow (which really gives good pose!) and Apple Spice, which I'm still getting to know as a pose-maker. EveryGlow tends to do solid, smooth pose set with a mix of different levels of pose, from sitting to standing. Apple Spice's big strength seems to be sexy, canted poses which go well with the single slit of my skirt (but less well with the fitted obi).

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: mythic, Maeve ~ Fire ~ Ash (promotional item)
Eyes: De La Soul, Roomee Eyes - Flare
Lipstick: la petite morte, Red Stripe Lips
Jewelry: Acide!, Dead Pearly Kiss V.2 (promotional item)
Hair: Me., Kara - everything (promotional item)
Wings: Favole, Cawthorne Vermillion
Top: De La Soul, The Seeker - Tomo (promotional item)
Gloves: Eclectica, "Swoon" crimson
Skirt: Paris Metro, Carnation Salsa Gown - ruby (promotional item)
Ring 1: Alchemy Immortalis, Nestling Finger
Ring 2: Earthstones, Eternal Blossom Ring - Bouquet
Shoes: Nadia, Okobo Red

Pose: Apple Spice and EverGlow (promotional items)

Location: Annon, The Gate
Light Settings: TOR, Suppression Band
Water Settings: TOR, Linear Puddles

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping only

Review and Noise

I recently joined a review and blogging group which is a vehicle for information exchange between bloggers and creators. I am at once both deeply grateful for it, as it exposes me to stores I likely wouldn't have found otherwise, and deeply resentful, as it increased the amount of information flowing in through Second Life by about half again.

Signal to Noise is one of the bigger problems in a digital age. When we have the world at our fingertips, figuring out which part to look at first, which area to focus on, can be an anxiety provoking thing. I often find myself feeling overwhelmed, tuning out and hiding to avoid the internal and external pressures of decision making inherent in having so much variety at ones fingertips.


The poses I ended up using for these pictures have actually been in my inventory a while, a gift from the Apple Spice creator who sent out word asking for volunteers to blog them. I'm ever on the hunt for more poses, so of course I spoke up right away! And I'm easily distracted, so of course they lived in my "to blog" folder until this week. These are all meant to be sexy poses, so I waited until I had a sexy dress to pair them with. Yeah, that's the ticket! Totally didn't forget about them. *shifty eyes*

Overall, I really like them. A couple of poses looked a bit weird around the shoulders, which made me wonder if the creator's shape was larger than mine (Deoridhe is a petite faerie), and there was one unfortunate meeting of hand and belly that will never make it on film, but if you're tall and skinny like most of Second Life these should work wonderfully on you, and even for the petite faerie they are quite nice. I particularly liked the curve of the hands; some older poses of mine have these splayed-hands which tend to look quite unnatural, but these are curving and expressive, matching the mood of the poses perfectly.


Pose: Apple Spice, Sexy Pose 5

The dress is also a review copy, one of a bunch of different colors and types, from SL Couture. I was completely overwhelmed by the creator's generosity, and I have to admit I find this dress completely gorgeous. It's also large for a little faerie, but the skirt held a resizer script so I could shrink it down, and was well enough made so it fit even my plump little faerie - which was good since it was not modify-ok! I love the flower detail at the hip and on the gloves, and the cross curve under the chest is sexy without being overwhelmingly skin-baring. I'm not as fond of the thinnest of the shoulder straps - something wider would have matched the ribbons better - but I adore the curve along the back and the cross of ribbon there as well. The included stockings are sheer and very sexy as well, showing beautifully in the high slit skirt.



I added Favole's Falling necklace, which honestly I'm not sure when or where I got it. I love the little dangle, though, and the delicacy of it sits well next to the more complex, smooth dress. I ended up going to Pandemonium sim, where I got scolded for all of the scripts in my clothing and other prims, which made me a little sad. I'm an orange scrip wielder. This brings up the other, script-side problem with clothing which are not modify-ok. In order to be able to be resized, they need a script inside of that. If you delete a script, the prim is now completely dormant and unchangable. You can save copies, but that can be a complicated process ending up in inventory bloat.

Honestly, I don't have a good answer for this. I understand why creators make their clothing unmodifyable, and I understand why other places object to script-heavy clothing gumming up the works on their sims. There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to this problem which retains the sense of safety and security for the creator while also meeting the needs of the consumer.


( More pictures here. )

Credits:

Eyes: De La Soul, RooMee Eyes - Rainbow
Skin: De La Soul, Charlie - Phoenix
Ears: Illusion, Mystic Ear
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Iridescent
Hair: Tiny Bird, The Killing Moon - Wheat
Necklace: Favole, Falling
Dress: SLC Couture, Franni black
Shoes: G Field, Rose bootie "Diva" - red

Location: Pandemonium @ Legion Sim
Light Settings: TOR, EUPHORIA Plum Sunset

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping only