Second Life Relay for Life Clothing Fair - Part I

I decided that I am going to break up my Relay for Life review into seperate posts. It will make them more readable, and allow me to group everything into seperate catagories that match a general genre. It took me the better part of two days to make it through the entire set of sims, which includes the several hours of 'downtime' we experienced due to the gray texture issues. Despite that, the relay hit the 4 million mark this afternoon which is a huge accomplishment as far as collecting Lindens goes. There are still two days of the fair left, so they may very well break 5 million or more before its all said and done.

Several vendors have RFL vendors set up in their home stores, or have donation boxes for RFL set up. Elikapeka Tirimisu has three set up that she will make matching donations off of, so hurry over to ETD and donate!

There were a lot of signs up at the fair, but this one impacted me the most. It was in the Avilion Mist RFL shop, right there in the center of all the clothing and shoppers. I couldn't get a good image of it, due to lighting and texture issues, but this sign was beside a beautiful sword that was bathed in a sort of glittering holy light. It was very much so like the Excalibur images people have created, and tied the modern day trials back to the forgotten myths of old. Its also in a really awesome font that I just can't stop looking at, heh heh.

For the entire modelling shoot, I wore Totally Betty's Delicate Rose Makeup Skin, an RFL skin that is quite pretty, though its a very soft make up, so a lot of its details are a bit missable. Its only 100 L$, and there is a matching natural skin for the same price. Skins are often way more than that, so its fairly much a steal.

We'll start with the casual, gothic, punk and/or Neko bits first. Now, I arranged everything into outfits, and there were a number of single piece items that I've not got images for. I spent roughly 5k L$ at the fair all together, though I didn't keep exact track because it was for charity...a charity that I may eventually have to use, heh.

The Artiste
This first outfit is a mixture of several pieces I bought at various vendors throughout the fair. I want to have a number of red and black tank tops available to me, and this was for charity after all.

The hair is from Deviant Kitties, the style is called Latha and this is the red with white tips version. Its a fun hairstyle I use a lot more than I expected I would. It was purchased long before RFL, so don't expect to be able to buy it there.

The shirt is by Mischief, and it is available at their RFL booth. Its called Frill Camisole and this particular one is in Cherry. Its got a number of layer options and style options, which is always desirable in practically any and all clothing.

Around my neck is Callie Cline's Tomboy Signature Charm necklace with the black cord instead of the brown. I was a tomboy as a kid, so I was impartial to it after seeing the name...I may have to merge my other two neckpieces into one necklace...

The gloves are by Pushbutton Industries, and are also available at RFL. They're the Bindi Armwarmers in Gloom, and even though the image is at an odd angle to view it, there is a very stylish mehndi patter on the topside of the gloves.

Sitting pretty on my hips is the RFL Belly Chain in Black Iron, by Dark Eden. While the chain doesn't work if I'm wearing most skirts, it is tail compatible with jeans and other non-prim legwear. There's a fair amount of detail to it that is lost due to the size of the image, and from what I can tell its only available at DE's RFL booth.

Artfully torn and paint-splattered, the jeans are from Wrong's Look One and aptly titled "Spattered Black Jeans". Yes, that's a hole in the knee, you're not imagining it. It came with a t-shirt, however I rarely wear them in RL, so I've not bothered with them much in SL. I basically bought the set because it was for charity, and I liked the jeans. >.>

Go figure that after spending three months or so searching for boots I like, I start finding pairs all over after finding the initial pair. These babies are the Gothica Boots in black by *Hexed*, a boot that appears to have been released at RFL. They are very awesome, and actually required very little adjustment unlike most SL footwear. They're hard to see, but there are fashionable little rings on various places, a couple of which seem to be glowing due to the boots texture.

The Wilde Cat

Now, this outfit makes me wanna figure out skin design just to make a skin that looks like my old RL ren faire guild's body paint. I used to hang out with the Wildes in San Diego during faire time, and largely the guild wore white body paint with black stripes along with bits of leather and fur. When I say bits, I mean bits - the Wildes are a Visigoth group, and often wore just enough to cover their private bits.

Another DK hairstyle, this is Havok in Red with White tips. Its a messy short bob with a bit of long hair hanging in the middle of the face. Sometimes that little bit of hair gets annoying, sometimes I love how it looks.

I got this at Gritzi's booth at RFL. It actually comes with the corset, two different skirts, thong, long pants, stockings, gloves, collar, heels, tail and ears. All of them coordinate, so you can vary the look without having to purchase more items. The entire set is called Wild Cat - Complete II, and since it does include its own ears and tail, you don't have to worry about being a Neko to dress to the 9 lives.

I don't particularly like the shape of the shoes. I really don't like the way some extreme high heels make the foot look, it just seems kinda cartoony to me. Your feet don't really look like that in RL, they don't magically flatten when you put on a pair of arch-breaking pumps. I may end up trying to take them apart and retool them to work with less foot sheering, because otherwise they're not going to get use at all.

The shoes and collar also bling. I'm not quite sure if this can be turned off or not, but I don't know all the various channels bling scripts use, and there's no notecard included with the set to tell me what channel to use, if it turns off at all. It will be a pity if it doesn't, because its a really nice collar as far as non-scripteds go.

The Black Widow

Next we have a super-goth outfit that comes in leather and vinyl, all in the same package. The Spiderweb by Pixel Passion includes two different sets of the top, hotpants and pants for two different looks. I'm wearing the regular version in this image, though the vinyl version looks just as hawt too.

With the way the stockings are done, its possible to just create a shoe shape through the Appearance window and wear them without prim shoes, however I'm still stuck on these Gothica Boots, so I took the easy way out and used them.

This is available at the Pixel Passion RFL booth and actually wasn't all that pricey. Its also one of the better uses of the spiderweb mesh that I've seen so far, and I've been looking around a lot lately for one to off-set Beetle's regular fishnet shirt from Snatch. I kind of want a whole short dress in the spider mesh, mostly because I had this really awesome dress that was a neon blue slip dress with spiderweb sundress over it. The end effect was that the blue shifted between dark blue and bright blue as the fabric shifted, which looked totally awesome on the dance floor. I'm not quite sure if the same effect is achievable in SL, since all the shading has to be done on the texture due to a lack of natural shadow beyond the basic ground shadow that avatars cast.

Baby Doll Fairy

This is another instance of the "I want the pants, but its in an outfit" moments. Luckily the Devilish Cupcake set came with multiple colour varients so I now have several pairs of awesome pants, and several bright baby dolls for if I ever go to a rave in SL.

The hair is from Goldie Locks, and was also bought long before RFL. This is Hannah in Russet Red, and its got a braid in the other side that you can't see from this angle. I think its about the trendiest hairstyle I own...

The baby doll is actually three seperate pieces. There's a tanktop-like shirt, the prim flow skirted bit and then small tie prims that rest above the straps of the tank top. I do kinda like the idea behind it, however the colours are just different than anything I wear on a regular basis. This is in Lava Girl, which is about as red as the set gets.

Another thing you can't see is the little fairy drawing on the right thigh of the capri. These are a pretty high capri, and there were cuff bits included that didn't work with the pose. They're a really nice jean pattern though, nice seems and everything.

The shoes are from ShoeFly, which has been running a number of discounts this month. These are Pink's Summer Wedge, and are sorta like a style of shoe I have in RL. I haven't actually found an exact match in SL yet, but these'll do for now.

OMG, Pinstripes and Review: New Sirena Hair

So I did find something fun today before work - hot pinstripe pants for a really nice price!

Theses are the pinstripes. They've got matching zippered pockets on the rear, and they were only slightly modified to fit properly inside the boots. They were from a small wall vendor in the Pulse shopping mall. Its sort of out and to the right of Sn@tch, the company is called True La La, and it doesn't look like there is a main store or anything.

I also picked up the shirt I'm wearing there, and though its kind of hard to see entirely there aren't just slashed holes. There's a bit of white over the holes, that cuts away kinda like its been frayed or is fraying apart. The back is a racer back style, with the same kinds of slashes going up and down it as the front. The frayed parts of it are more noticeable on my back due to the dark tattoos down my spine, which is right in the center of the shirt.

The shirt was 50 L$ and came with a pair of gloves I'm not wearing while the pants were 75 L$. The belt is part of the pants, painted on and not prim so no tail conflicts, which make me a happy kitsune. The whole area seemed a bit geared towards Neko so that's probably why it doesn't conflict.

Now the hair is from Sirena, and its called Felina. Its got some fairly fresh ideas as far as its construction goes. Its scripted for colour changing, so you can make it different every time you wear it, with 66 colour options. It also is two separate parts - there is the main hair, which I chose to wear with blonde tips, and then additional fly away bits that I chose to use black tips for. The various colour combinations between the two along with two different set ups for the fly aways allows for a great range of versatility in style each time you wear it.

The boots are still the same ones from ::69::, and no, I've not made the charms for them yet because I'm very indecisive about what should go into them. I actually was pretty torn between using the boots or using the sound effect Gladiator heels I got at Shoefly the other night - I think either one would work with the outfit.

Behind me in both images is the sign for Nocturne, a nightly Gothic/Industrial dance club. There are several DJs and a regular compliment of dancers as well as several regular club goers that frequent the establishment. I've considered being a dancer there a few times, however up until recently my work schedule really conflicted with most of their nights. Now that it doesn't, I may re-apply for it.

While I was at Sirena's, I looked at the new hair that was announced via Fashion Consolidated today. Its called Faith and its another scripted hair style that is an updo that drops down into a long style with the click of a stylish comb in the back of it. There are a lot of good pictures aside from this promotional picture available at Natalia Zelmanov's blog. It seems Natalia's getting into scripted hair a lot lately as her last few releases have had scripted colour change items or hair itself, or an updo scripted into a long style like Faith here is. Not that I don't love the idea of scripted hair, I just haven't seen it done quite as often by the many hair designers I've frequented.

Natalia's blog is more than just fashion release notices, though. She does a lot of travelling in SL and always writes up something about each location she visits. For a lot of them, she'll make new outfits specifically for the trip or the trip will be the setting for some sort of tutorial or photo shoot. Just don't be surprised when there's more than just Sirena to her blog!

A short, fairly quiet night all and all, but I'm grateful for that as I'm still not feeling too well.

Encounters of the Neko Kind, Part Deux

So I was relaxing after taking a look around RAW, beginning to edit the evening's photos for the Animayhem post, and somehow end up in Encounters of the Neko Kind - only this time Zan Eldrich joined us!


I actually hadn't made it that far from Raw itself before I started editing. The mushrooms just looked so comfy, and reminded me of the ones Lucia was working on a week or two ago for Cyria. Granted, our mushrooms aren't so organic in colour...well, they are but they're more like flesh mushrooms. You know, flesh - skin, muscle, blood?


Anyway, when Beetle returned, she was wondering where the park was that we'd found during our first romp through the Neko world. I thought it had been near Gritty Kitty, because she'd mentioned the mini-carnival there shortly before summoning me to hang out in the park.


That reminded me that Yabusaka had posted to one of the fashion blog collection sites about a Neko AO that had been made by J's Factory. I dashed out to get it quick, edited it and some pairs of ears, and tried it out. I go back and forth on whether or not its a little too hyper, but the animations individually are amazing! The hover animation, though a little off at first due to Avatar size, is entirely awesome and works so well with twitch tails. Once I get an action shot from Beetle, I'll post it.


Well, we began our search across Neko territory, and the long and the short of it is that we ran into a rather large pack of Neko outside Gritty Kitty. I slipped from a Kitsune look to an amber Neko look on rez, and took a look about the store. This stacked with my own Nekoness and AO made Beetle want ears and a tail at least, so we began looking for such about Gritty Kitty before I ran through the sim looking for the park.


Now, when I say run, J's AO uses a feral run so I look like a feline bounding through the streets. Absof*ckinglutely awesome! I run every chance I get when wearing the AO just because of that animation. ^.^


Our search was unsucessful in Koreshan, so we began shop hopping until we found Atomic Kitty, where I got ears that are more um...trendy would be the word, I guess. They're not feral style like Wynx are, but are still twitchy and furry. There is a defining difference between my Neko sets and hers - our tails. She went with the slender short hair tail while mine are both long hairs; all of my cats have had long haired tails, even the one that was a shorthair otherwise.


We found our park in the same sim, and went to go play and talk while I worked on the review. I wasn't very far into it when I remembered that we'd tried going to Sn@tch earlier, but the region was going down as we rezzed. So we trekked over and began looking through the shop.


I was specifically looking for the new tattoo and hat that had been sent out across the blogs, and while I didn't give into the hat just yet (since I might get the one that comes with the Attitude set from RAW), I did finally buy the basis for my tattoos and a very nifty gypsy top and skirt from there as well.


The upper part of the image is in the store itself. The lower part of the image is actually one half of a really cute animation that Beetle found, but she got up before the textures around me had rezzed enough for a picture. But it was a really neat pose anyways, so I took a shot for the tattoo relaxation value - its much like I recline when I get them in RL, oddly enough.


We made our way back to the park and I began blogging in ernest again. Well, much to our surprise, a bit later Zan found us; I remembered after that I'd given him the ability to see where I was, heh.


Even more to our surprise... Zan whipped out a Neko look. Now, I'd seen the tail before, but I thought he'd just bought one at the time to try and figure out a HUD for me when I got the 9 tails. No, he actually has a full set.


"Everyone's got an inner Neko," was the excuse he gave. Which means even those who hate them have one, which is probably why they hate Nekos in the first place! ^.^


We wandered all over the rest of Klapheck, chilling where we could. Zan even played with a ball of yarn! Beetle's discovery of the tire swing let to more running, which I wasn't against, and the above kitty pile. Loads of trouble with blogger kept me from really being active, and a bit later Zan wandered off to his bed for the night.


Beetle and I went back over to the main playground and curled up on our sekrit favourite pillows. We end up here by the end of the night on most nights, and its quickly becoming a weird little tradition of ours. Since we're on slightly different schedules, she always has to log earlier than I do; I stay there until her Avatar de-rezzes, and then I'll go to the reading ledge in the park or return to Cyr.


Though she'd shown me much earlier in the night, this is the first picture where he's visible...Beetle got Gwen a friend! She named him Alistair and he's a little grey mouse who looks like he's wearing sunglasses in this image. O.o

Gwen's happy with having a friend! She squeaked a bunch tonight. Alistair, however, really only comes out if Beetle's ferrit is off spying on people for us. And to fight zombies.


That's right, the grey mouse fights zombies. Undead, be afraid!

Random Deviant Kitties Trip!

So after showing off a few sites on the Facebook Second Life Fashion group to Beetle, she was fiending new hair to match the post-Apocalyptic outfit she put together during our last trip out. So in need of exotic hair, we made our way to Deviant Kitties which is housed on its own sim - they have all kinds of things, but we were on a mission!


Beetle got the Sid punk hair, with multi coloured tips. I believe the clips and headband are tintable, but she went AFK before I could double check. I think with a bit of tinting to look dusty and abused, the headband will fit right in with the rest of her Apoc punk outift.


The only downside to this style is that you can't see that Beetle's eyes are mismatched. She's got one amber-gold eye, and one bright blue eye that give a totally jarring effect when you look at her.


The necklace totally reminds me of the Golden Snitch from the Quidditch games in the Harry Potter series. Rowley's completely tainted my mind, it seems at times since I keep running into random objects that make me think of stuff from the books/movies.


Beetle makes her own skins, and we'll be pairing up to make a few shape/skin sets together for stand alone use and for in costume bundles. She's made three skins for herself, two for Tobin Looming, and three for Masi Aeon thusfar, though I know she's worked on making a few others just for practice. Her doll skin includes partially open stitching along the spine in the back, as well as cracked alabastar sking while Tobin's have some very nice runes done on them and Masi's are extremely pale with several intricate tattoos on the collar and back.




I ended up buying three different hairstyles, though I need to run back to Cyria to modify two of them to work with my ears. One, however, had built in ears that make it look like I'm keeping them warm! This is the Mew-Two style, with some colour modifications to the cap; I think I'm going to make the base part of it a bit darker though, but I had to make it match my outfit.


The red tank top is from Jen's Fashion and Random Things in the Flagg area. She only has one type of tank top vendor, so you can't really miss it and yes, it does come in other colours. The shirt beneath it is the purple STripeSHirt from Dutch Touch in Willow Beach - its part of a pack with a whole assortment of colours to chose from. Both necklaces are from EarthTones: the dark longer one is from the Chakra Boho Beads set and the second one is the female Magik Vial necklace that I think was going to be discontinued...been a while since I visited EarthTones.


The mouse on my shoulder is made by Wynx Whiplash who is an absolute divine angel when it comes to sculpted pets, avatars and other things animal. Wynx Whimsical Wonders is located in the Raglan Shire area and the design looks much like above ground hobbit houses. The mice are Wynx's latest addition, though I did also get my sculpted kitty ears there the same time I bought the mouse.


I made a quick stop to check out Second Mirage's St. Patrick's Day sale, and ended up purchasing the female version of the Ankh necklace. Beetle needs one of them for whenever we get around to putting a Death costume together for her, so I dropped her the information for them as she'd gone to take a nap by then.

I'm sure we'll end up wandering more tonight, though I wanted to get this out fresh while Beetle was napping. I'll just append to it if we do anything else not worthy tonight.

Encounters of the Neko Kind

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.