It's the latest release from FATEplay and FATEstep which my whole look revolves around. There are five color options but I went with the lightest one, a soft gray with brown accents primarily in the wonderfully slung ammo belt. It may not be immediately obvious, but the outfit is four pieces - the long pants which are cut to fit into boots, the ammo belt which is slung low and rigged to stay on top of the pants, the half top with its cunning buttons, and the mask, which tucks up over the lower part of the face, and tucks into the loose cowl of the top. The mask is deceptively simple; it seems to be made of two pieces: one which is a loose hood that catches over the mouth, which quite realistic wrinkles, and the second which is a very long, narrow scarf wrapped around the neck with the long ends flying out behind.
The mask is rigged to the face, neck, and chest but the long ends remain static, and offer a nice hint of movement in an otherwise static world. The top is similarly well rigged, with wrinkles around the elbow and upper arm which make the fit seem much more natural and helps conceal the awkward elbow joint which is the bane of so many creators! My favorite part is the cowl and buttons combination, with the buckling between the buttons and the curves as the cowl falls against the top. The pants also sport these wonderful wrinkles around the calf, as if the fit wasn't quite right. I'm really struck by how the wrinkles add verisimilitude, bunching appropriately against skin and making it seem as if skin and muscle lurk right below the layers of cloth. And the ammo belt is one of the first I've seen that sits well on the hips and seamlessly rides over the hips as I move - fantastic rigging, and a whole lot of fun to wear!
The boots are also from FATE, FATEstep this time, and have the enormous wealth of options available in all of his shoes. They are fit perfectly over the bottom edge of the pants with a three-band style around most of it except for the smooth back. Like the clothes, his shoes have a wonderful attention to detail. The smooth back starts at the zipper and ends under the long three bands down the side; the bottom band makes a complete circle. The bottoms of the boots are rough textured perfect for hiking and riding across abandoned wastes, or marching around the Fantasy Faire tracking dirt through thirteen sims. The final touch are the spurs - although at a distance they look like they are built into the boots, up close you can see that they are actually built as a separate piece, with bands over the top of the foot and along the base of the heel, and the thicker metal of the spur itself.
Everything is color changeable via HUD, and the HUD also includes several pre-set slots - including the gray arrangement I'm showing in these pictures. They are also highly editable - in fact all of FATE's clothing is; you can select the entire item to tint or select faces to tint subsections of the outfit. I love the sheer versatility; this can be made into anything from the simple gray I'm showing here to the brightest combination of colors you could ever wish for.
I accented the FATEplay ensemble with a few touches form a dark future, or in one case a mechanical past. The corset around my waist is from Rosal and is steampunk in design, though I thought it really worked with the overall futuristic and mechanistic effect. I have to admit I splurged on almost the entire set, even though I only showed one piece of it here; there are two types of boots, gloves, and a neck corset in the same style. The combination of metal and matte was pleasing to me, as was the pinstrip effect of the fabric texture. I also added my new wings from C L A Vv, which are my go-to choice for rough mechanical these days. The rope-dangles work particularly well, echoing the fall of the scarf if not it's ultimate angle. On my face I pulled out the Noctis bike goggles from a past Genre; the dark color of the frame matches up with the rest of my look while the lenses offer one of the little bits of color I wore. The other bit of color is my hair, a lovely, bushy style from Underscore (a store no longer in world, but one of it's creators, Syndel Daviau, has some wonderful releases under the brands Asset and Tribal Soul Designs) which looks pleasantly windblown and wild; I liked it for how thick it was, with lose and heavy curls.
Among the cherry blossoms, even an apocalypse looks beautiful.
