Genre: Valkyrie's Rage

Blood rains           from the cloudy web

On the broad loom             of slaughter.

The web of man               grey as armor

Is now being woven;        the Valkyries

Will cross it           with a crimson weft.

Darraðarljóð^

Valkyrie are the agents of the gods, flying over conflicts to pluck the Heroic Dead and bring them to the Halls where they will pass their days practicing and carousing in preparation for the End of the World. Foster Daughters of the One Eyed God, even as the Heroic Dead are foster sons, they serve and seek and weave in a world build by blood and wisdom. Associated with ravens and swans, Valkyrie are often depicted with winged cloaks or riding flying horses.

Cosmetics Faire: Six Colors, Six Looks

The amount of options at the Cosmetics Faire are simply jaw dropping, and I had fun flipping through the rainbow and exploring a bunch of options! The hair choices are awesome this time around. Pink Hustler has the cutest off-center ponytail design, another bit of hair wrapped around it's base and the rigged trailing ends available in normal and busty. It's recolorable via a HUD, offering up a ton of options with a single click. The textures come with a ton of options and most include subtle root shading. Ayashi also went the updo route - this time with a cute bun style complete with loose tendrils; I especially like the tendrils out of the buns themselves - gorgeous bit of verisimilitude. It comes both rigged and resizable and is recolorable via a HUD and the fatpack has a truly impressive array of options, from the realistic to the magical. [KoKoLoReS] has a couple of styles on offer; below I show off Robin, a short style with a fun, asymmetrical bang line. I really love the way the hair curves, as if it were cut by a master stylist. It comes with options for a single tint and a dichoromatic setup via various HUDs and the colors included are clear and bright. The final style I'm showing off is a short, curly style from Lovey Dovey with lots of body and one of my favorite things - tons of ombre textures including a fantastic rainbow - though I'm showing off a Torley style watermelon ombre in these images.

Genre: Erté Inspired

Genre is winding down, only a day or two left before it closes, so make sure to swing by and pick up some gorgeous Belle Epoche goodies. I'm channeling Erté today, or I'm trying - he's a devilishly difficult artist to rise up to, but this gown by LouLou&Co seemed the perfect vector to try. It has gorgeous drape, in front and in back, which is a mark of Erté's style - arm drapes would have been even more awesome, but I have no idea how they could be rigged! The extremely low-cut back is a step up from Erté's suggestive standards, but I don't think he would have minded. The drape is perfect, however, skimming over the buttocks and along the side of the body to frame each curve. The texturing works well with the mesh, long lines accentuating the fabric folds while lace-like tendrils catch the fabric up at the waist and set the stage for a more demure ankle length skirt to offset the thoroughly scandalous décolletage. It's fully lined, which is important with a dress showing off this much skin, and rigged to fit standard sizes, fitmesh, Belleza, Maitreya, and SLink. The rigging is good - usual skirt breaks with crossed legs, but otherwise no clipping or over-stretching and the textures work well with movement.

Fantasy Faire: A Traveller in Dangarnon

Dangarnon is a maze of a place, perfect for a sleek and sexy fae to make her mark. I went for a smooth blend of skin and hair colors. The skin is from Nephilim (Dangarnon) and is a lovely brushed gold with purple shadows, giving my skin an almost metallic effect. The use of purple instead of black or gray makes it seem warmer and richer, giving the effect of a natural patina despite this being a texture on a skin! Nephilim gives cleavage options as well as appliers for Belleza, Maitreya, and SLink; I matched my ears off of .:Soul:.'s included options and it works well. I also matched the skin with a similar tone in my Wasabi Pills hair, and continued that same shade of gold into my Deviance wings. One of the fun things about skin and hair is that you can use the to highly contrast with each other, or make a complete look which is really seamless across a lot of body parts. I went with the second in this case, and i think it really works with the high contrast clothing choices I made.

Fantasy Faire: A Traveller in Bright Haven

Bright haven is one of the shinies sims of the Fairlands this year - a delight of color and texture - and I put together a look primarily from this Haven, but flavored with some of the lovelies from previous realms I've covered. This hat and veil are from LOVE ROLEPLAY AND FANTASY STORE (Tinkers Hollow), and I adore both the styling of web and flowers, and the fact it is modify ok so I could fit the veil over my bangs. The large lotuses in particular are lovely, and helped to set the tone for my whole outfit. The gown is pieces from Tayren’s Fantasy Fashions (Bright Haven), making use of two of the colors sent my way to mix and match purple and gold. In the original, the bodice chan came with some flexible pieces, but I minimized them to focus on the lovely curves of the gown - fully lined! - and the way the scale texture was worked over its curves. The necklace has the same dragon motif, and for dancing the flexible pieces would give some fantastic motions and flow. The wings came with it and I love how they are textured and shaped; the shadows are awesome and rounded, mimicing the smooth curves of the scales dress.

Cosmetics Faire: The Light Eternal

There are only a couple of days left to Cosmetics Faire and the offerings are awesome! In addition to lovely things for the face, there's also hair, eyes, even nails to delight. For example, my hair is from Pink Hustler and is available in a ton of colors with a special Ice HUD to purchase as an add on. I am a huge fan of HUD driven hair colors, especially when fades are included - and in addition to solid colors, Pink Hustler's HUDs have some glorious and fun fades. The hair itself is well-rigged and interesting, with fun mesh hair strands and a natural flow of hair around the pig tail piece. I'm especially fond of the side part bang with it's delicate edging; it frames my face beautifully and actually looks like something I'd do offline! I chose a pale color to contrast with the very dark skin I'm wearing so I can show off NOX.'s metallic freckles. Available in silver and gold, and for the cheeks, the full face, and the full body, these add a bit of sparkle to the speckles. They come with Omega and Catwa appliers, but I'm showing them off in tattoo form on the basic body. I love the uneven placement, the rough edges, and the effect of total coverage - I'm not a freckle person in general, but I have to admit full body rainbow freckles are very appealing!

Genre: Wild Derby Girls Run Free

This Genre look is a combination of bunches of things, and I think it turned out rather well! One of the things I love about Roller Derby is how the looks can combine femininity and aggression into a single, cohesive whole - neither undermines the other in this world of battle. In addition to a bunch of things pulled in from my inventory, I combined pieces from Sn@tch's Roller Rebel Bodysuit - most of the textures on my form - and :{MV}:'s Hellcat Derby rigged mesh pieces into a cohesive whole. It amazes me how seamlessly everything fits together; the textured bodysuit with it's long sleeves and high waisted corset piece tucks beautifully under all three :{MV}: pieces. I used the white bodysuit to balance out the dark red of my :{MV}: top, and balanced the red out with a pair of tights from Stellar and the Anachron helmet in black, red, and white.

Genre: Drag Queens

Drag Queens get their time in the Genre spotlight this month, and the offerings are glitzy, glimmery, and utterly fabulous.

Genre: Back to the Future

The theme for Genre this time is Back to the Future, and I'm showing off some of the 50's Popsicle glory available to you right now at a massive discount!

Genre: I Lava the 5th Dimension

It's damnably difficult to find a volcano in Second Life! I spend a short while in the Amazon River area, but found the volcano there impossible to easily find; to be in this area one must wear a HUD which punishes you for camming to other areas, kills you if you follow rivers, and puts you in a cage if you take it off - all of which definitely impede any attempt to find a volcano three sims away! I ended up instead on Orwood Volcano, a Linden build which is complete with occasional events - spouts of flame into the sky, flying lava rocks - as well as the even glow of flowing lava. I love the Protected Land of the grid, all of them little frozen balls of art created ages ago by Linden employees. Sadly they didn't continue their builds, updating them as the tech of Second Life improved, but they are often still lovely areas and good for photography, leaning heavily on legacy textures and Linden trees. Expect to be able to get a lot out of your windlights, and to have to angle sharply to avoid surrounding buildings - de-rezzing them can also work well.

2014 Fantasy Faire: Christmas in May

There is one day left to the Fantasy Faire, and there is so much to be done and so far we have gotten. There are nine total sims and this one, Medhir Woods, is the sixth I've visited. It's a lovely, simple village style of venue, with a simple gazebo overlooking the small pay in the heart of it. The lighting is quite red, and so I wasn't sure that my lovely gown - purchased on sim - from Apsara would work; it was a vibrant lime green that had caught my eyes as soon as it hit the feeds. It turned out simply lovely, however, with the red muting the green without completely overwhelming it. I particularly like the style of the dress - the halter-corset combination is one I'm fond off, and the long skirt was a lot of fun. One flaw is around the bottom of the skirt, though; sadly it "sticks" a bit too the feet and can make some odd, jagged edges depending on your pose; most of the time it's barely noticable. The colors are simply gorgeous, too; a rich olive, a bright lime and lemon, and hints of red worked into the complicated pattern of the bodice.I knew I had to have this as soon as I saw it, and now I'm so glad it's mine.

I've had some difficulty finding shoes and oddments to augment my outfits, so I dug deep into other things I've been picking up along the way. The butterfly mask, for example, is from 22769 and is one of a variety of colors which I simply fell in love with. The design is particularly nice, with smaller butterflies perching on the skin and then a small stream of them fading away, and it also come sin a hand-held version if you want something for a Masque Ball. I paired it with a Wasabi Pills hair which would overlay it slightly, giving it a naturalistic look. I also love how the hair flows over the bodice, catching here and there without being overwhelming. My Dark Passions nails I picked up ages ago, but each outfit I would try them with didn't work out - finally, with this one, it was a perfect match, even to the bits of gold on the nails to echo the bright lemon of the dress. And finally my shoes, something I've had kicking around in my inventory for ages looking for a home, matched so perfectly they could have been made as a cohesive outfit; these pointy toed flats from Bliensen + MaiTai match in style and color perfectly, from the olive of the shoe which picks up the green of the bodice, to the delicate metal which echoes the darker shades of red worked in. I really like how the curve of metal over the toe and the toe itself don't line up - it's such a charming little detail.

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: Izzie's, Irene
Sparkles: Folly, Rainbow Sheen
Hair: Wasabi Pills, Hanako
Ears: Illusions, Seelie Ears
Eyes: De La Soul, Rainbow
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Mask: 22769, Mes pensees sont des papillons
Eyeshadow: Elymode, Coal & Green
Lipstick: L. Fauna, Red 3
Wings: Illusions, Apsara
Hands & Feet: SLink, Rigged Mesh Hands & Feet
Nails: Dark Passions, Irish Tips
Clothing: Apsara, Kairavi
Bracelets: G Field, Floria
Shoes: Bliensen + MaiTai, Brennil

Pose: Grafica

Location: Medhir Woods
Light Settings: Sim Default
Water Settings: Sim Default

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only