So very very late Tuesday night, my real life best friend brought his new gaming laptop over to get a few Vista issues straightened out, to have a better wireless connection for a while, and to get into a couple of online games and such. I'm really excited that he's going to start gaming, because since we stopped working together, I only get to see him about once a week though sometimes he'll stay over a night or two. Still, going from seeing him practically every day to just once a week has left me kinda down, and its not like I can just pick up and go see him whenever I want because he lives almost two hours from me and gas is hideously expensive. So being able to hang out online and have stuff to do is a good way of settling.
Now, this time while Drae was here, I didn't get much done if it wasn't something we could do together mostly because he didn't really fall asleep until around when I did. Generally he falls asleep earlier than me out of habit, and I'll do whatever it is I want to do while he's passed out and then go to bed myself. A lot of the times he used to have to wake up early to go to work, however this week he's had off because he's changing companies to get a better hourly wage, so he could be a bit of a night owl as well.
Of course, The Man's platform was a definate requirement. He'd seen me working on a few things a while back, and asked about it, so Drae was completely into joining. Unfortunately, the current last name set was kind of dull compared to when I joined, and after many refreshes of the list, he settled on Starek though we considered Atlas, Staryk (which we never got back, sadly), and Byk.
First thing first was to define a new shape for Drae. Since he was actually here, I didn't have to go through the weirdness of flipping into a man's shape and building it. I just built it directly on his new little resident; his facial structure was designed after the actor Chris Evans, though the avatar nose does not conform the ways it needed to shape for an exact replica. I long for models with as many options and flexability as the Victoria 4.2 model for Poser and various other 3D programs were available to us in-world.
The next order of business was to get a skin for him. I had a freebie mens skin for him, however it had next to no shading on it, as well as caterpillers for eyebrows and a fairly hairy chest. Some women find it crazy, but I'm not a big fan of chest hair and neither is Drae - probably just because he lacks having any despite being a Marine. Though I did add muscle to his shape, it wasn't very well defined and clear on him with the skin, and he wanted to look cut in ways he can't be in RL because he has such lean muscles. Don't get me wrong, he's a strong man, he's just wiry instead of bulky.
Now, if I can gather up the 2000 needed, I prefer to get any man starting out a skin from The Abyss. The quality of the work there is phenominal, and there are quite a number of options for each skin tone. Unlike most of the people I know, Drae is very much so into having nicely tanned skin, though he wasn't quite so for some time due to working inside all the time. Now that he's back into construction again, I won't be surprised if he ends up as tan in RL as his avatar is. His skin is from the Osiris line, version D4 which gives him a definate Egyptian flair; I always did say I like my men in eyeliner...
Even bald, Drae was looking good, and I won't be surprised if he occassionally goes without hair to totally rock the Egyptian look. But everyone needs hair, especially since the majority of the Cyrians seem to be hair connosuires, so we traveled several places in the search of a cut Drae liked. He's weird, and likes short and closely cropped hair, or any type of buzz cut like most military men have. In the end, we spent a lot of time at Naughty's hair shop, since there were a number of shorter styles with more colours than most of the ones elsewhere. Sadly, the hairstyle that we both liked didn't come in the Sable colour he needed, so I begrudgingly got him the Deception style instead.
Is it just me, or does it not scream "Zell" from FFVIII?
Everyone has a distinct hatred for the newbie clothes, so it was off to Bare Rose to pick up a free AO to hold Drae over while I built him a custom AO and to shed the last visible vestments of newbness. He selected four sets that provided a mixture of gothic, preppy and grunge - the Short Vest, Leon, Eric and Block outfits; without any promting, he began mixing and matching them into several different outfits that were quite fitting for both his real life tastes and the styles used for Cyrian role play.
Next, it was off to Fairy Grove Creations to get Drae set up with an appropriate Passion Crystal Hunter outfit. Here is where I began to wonder if he and I have some sort of telepathic link - the male version of the White Celtic Sentry costume was at the top of his short list of likes. After a good bit of laughing, he purchased that outfit, so now Drae and I have matching costumes even though its not my main hunter garb.
Since I wanted to match Drae for pictures, I wore the freebie Bare Rose Drow skin instead of my Onigiri Drow skin, however the Celtic Sentry Outfit looks just as good with that skin. I think I might even try this really dark mocha skin I got a while back at some point, but I couldn't remember which one it was. I still haven't gotten around to really looking into some white and lighter hair colours, so I faked it using ETD's Phoebe hair since I had an all-colour pack. I don't like the shape of the boots, however, so I used my trusty Shoe Fly Gladiator Heels in black. Now I have to find men and women's white boots to match these outfits, as the whole pointy toe thing just doesn't work for either of us...oi!
Later on, Beetle gave me one of the most awesome presents ever. She and Aradia had found a mehndi tattoo set at Gardens of Ku that was just perfect! The patterns chosen are just amazing, though I kind of wish that it came in black and the natural henna colours, but the pack is truly beautiful all on its own. I may find a coloured tattoo to wear with it, but for now its all on its own and on paler skin, it stands out. My prior tattoo looks super good on Drow skins, so I will be using it for that from now on.
I didn't want to diminish the quality of the patterns by make them as small as I normally do for my blog images, so these are a bit longer than usual. The first one here is of the front of the tattoos, and the second one is largely of the back. Both sides dip down below the hips, though I try to keep things as work-appropriate as possible as some people like to look at stuff from work.
So they're going to bleed into the next little part of the blog, but its about real life, so I don't have to worry about pushing any other images out of their right place, which is why I saved the story for last.
Now for a minor RL shopping story. My aunt had bought some dresses for my grandmother for Easter, however the crazy old woman claims they're not her size, when we're all quite sure they are. So something else was found to give as a present, and my aunt gave me the store credit from the dresses to get clothing for work.
Well, after finishing up in that store, we went and purchased a few more things at another clothing store and the book store (the only place I'd spend more than I do at a clothing store is at a book store, btw) my mother was going to pay in cash. She could have sworn she had more on her, when I pointed out that my aunt had given her 65.00 so we could stop buy the store and get my aunt a carton of cigarettes and some green tea.
It appeared that my mother had accidentally spent my aunt's cash on our other purchases. The Borders bookstore manager seemed pretty amused by it all, and we were laughing as well; my mother could easily go to the ATM and replace it, but it was rather hilarious that she'd done it in the first place.
After sorting through things in the car, it turns out she didn't spend the money we were supposed to use to get my aunt her stuff, however it was still hilarious until we were able to find the other cash. Only in my family, hah.
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So I randomly got on a Neko kick, and started wandering around looking for various Neko bits, from fashion to avatar bits to decor.
I don't know how much Neko gear will slip into Triad. It crosses a lot of genres, though it does seem to focus mainly in the punk/grunge/goth area. There were a lot of post-Apocalyptic and sort of World of Darkness type sims that I went to over the past two days. Some of the extremes make me scratch my head, but overall, its kind of a fun subculture to visit in SL - I really don't know if I could spend all my time in any one genre!
Last night, Beetle Dumpling and I mostly browsed around Gritty Kitty, Koreshan followed by Harajukubox, Kalico Kreations in Innocence, Atomic Kitty in Wuranga and ending in Catnip's Hysteria shop. Most of the shops were their own island or part of a shopping district, though I did pick up quite a few accessories between Gritty Kitty and Catnip. ^.^
I spent a lot of time in the Quarantine area of the Ten Thousand Shadows sim, part of it with my dear Beelte and part of it alone. Its a serious post-Apocalyptic area. You teleport into a quarantine decontamination room, with a warning not to leave until you're "clean" which I think was meant for when you leave. Just outside on its wall is a free rebreather with animations and sounds to wear as you wonder around the sim.
There are a ton of shops in the area, ranging from the more sophisticated punk styles of Dutch Touch to some of the grittiest looks like what can be found at Crazy Bitches and similar stores, really giving a whole range of potential for anyone looking for a grunge/punk/post-Apocalyptic style.
I picked up a few articles of clothing, some because I liked them and they're beyond my current texturing abilities, and some to learn how to make that sort of style (particularly for some accessories). Most of it was fairly priced, but some of it seemed a little excessive for what was presented. I suppose I've just gotten into the "industry standards" on pricing already.
Following that, I checked out the Neko Gear main store. They had some pretty interesting clothing, and a good selection of stuff for men, which isn't always easy to find. A lot of it was more cutesy pop Neko, which wasn't what I was looking for this trip.
I took a quick trip back through Dutch Touch, though I've been there a lot for various reason previously. Mostly looking for a decent pair of jeans, but this time around I was actually looking for more of what they design and sell since they market to clean punk and grunge junkies. They have very nicely designed skirts, and a variety of awesome tops and jackets too.
Unfortunately, SL started acting up, so the rest of my trip through the shops wasn't quite as notable as it was prior to then.