Red and Re-read

Feature: Reel Expression Innocence Poses

The lovely and talented Luth Brodie of Reel Expression made some new poses a while back, and they are as usual gorgeous. The set’s called Innocence — I’ve dressed in a less-innocent outfit in order to show the expressiveness of the poses.

So, we’ll run through my pose criteria, starting with expression.  These poses are stunning.  If you dressed your av in an innocent way, they express innocence, as the title implies. In any other outfit, they’ll also express a bit of shyness and especially a certain vulnerability.  They express the beauty of self-doubt — and yes, a bit of self-doubt in an otherwise confident person is beautiful.  After all, flawlessness is dead boring. Our human frailties are › Continue reading

Tags: Artilleri, Fri.day, Junk, Kunstkammer, Nova, Sheer, Tres Blah

Feature: Moo Love

This post will be a bit different than my usual.  A bit ago, the lovely moo Money sent me a copy of her recent release, the Sweet on You textures. I imagine the obvious use as a blogger would be treat them as scrapbooking patterns, but I don’t scrapbook.  As they may also be used as resources in the creative process, I’ve used them as such — I couldn’t properly evaluate them without doing so.

So, I’ve created a line of my Signature Tees using the Sweet on You textures.  I played a bit with various PhotoShop effects, and manipulated the textures themselves, scaling and rearranging the elements to create interest.  I also took the textures, messed with them a bit, and created a simple photoble, to use the textures as a background. (The floor and ceiling textures are also from made by moo.)

Now, about the texture pack: it contains › Continue reading

Tags: made by moo, Vanitas Vesture

Review: Reel Expression Burlesque poses.

Reel Expression recently released several Burlesque-themed poses sets.  I wanted to do these pose sets justice, really showing off their expressive quality (more on that later.)  As I was playing with the poses, I decided to try my hand at setting up poses in an intimate, photable-type setting, using poseballs to set the poses where I wanted them.  It’s a bit of work to get the poses to work all together, trying to visualize where and how each pose will interact with one another, but it was an interesting experiment — though certainly an area where I could use quite a bit more practice.  It’s funny; you wouldn’t think slapping down a few poseballs would be so much work to align.

Moving on to the poses themselves.  In this case, I’m considering the two Burlesque standing pose sets and one Burlesque sitting pose set from Reel Expressions.  So, how does one evaluate a set of poses?  For me, specific criteria: expression, naturalism, fit, mesh distortion, and value.

First, expression: does the pose express a certain mood?  Is it sultry, or emo, or standoffish?  I demand that my poses have expression.  I want them to tell a story.  You may have a perfect outfit and setting, but it’s really the pose that will tell the narrative — the narrative that helps to make a picture worth a thousand words.

Burlesque, in my mind, is about the contradiction between › Continue reading

Tags: 5th & Oxford, Aden & Anna's, Alirium Gardens, Beauty Avatar Couture, DeLa, J's, Reel Expression, Tres Blah, Vanitas Vesture, Zaara, [OH]

Review: Elsa Boots from Sand Shack Surf Co.

The lovely and talented Emma Gilmour of Sand Shack Surf Co recently asked if I’d be interested in doing an in-depth, proper review of her latest shoes — the Elsa boots.  I was a bit hesitant to do a comprehensive review, as the potential for drama isn’t worth it for me.  Anyway, as Emma and I chatted, we reminisced about the early days of SL fashion blogging, when a reviewer was supposed to be thorough, and include both strengths and weaknesses of a particular item, and their own experiences with the item — when we expected bloggers to educate us on what we should be looking for when we evaluated things.  I decided to rise to the challenge — though in this case, it was easy, as Emma is an experienced, talented designer, and so there’s little need for constructive criticism.

So, these are the Elsa Boots, available from Sand Shack Surf Co.  First, let’s look at the features available with these boots, and then we’ll analyze them more closely.  There are essentially three › Continue reading

Tags: 5th & Oxford, Blowpop, Chronokit, Error, Fri.day, League, Mechanized Life, Niniko, Reel Expression, Sand Shack Surf Co.

Feature/Tutorial: Mechanized Life FilterCam

The FilterCam, from Mechanized Life.  Version 2.0 was just released, and it adds a more user-friendly menu and more filters to the last version.  This tool — it’s amazingly awesome.  You want one. It’s easy to use right out of the box, and it’s also easily customizable with a bit of effort.  This will be a rather long post, so make yourself comfortable.

Getting started, the HUD attaches to your center HUD attachment point.  You’ll then want to go to File>Take Snapshot and check the “Show HUD objects in snapshot” box.  You’ll also want to remove any other HUDs, as they too will end up in your picture if you don’t do so.  (If you look at the pictures below, you’ll see HUDs I should have removed, but I forgot. Don’t look silly like me.)

Initially, you’ll also want to run through three basic chat commands: “/5normal”   “/5widescreen” and “/5ultrawide”.  These set the aspect ratio of the HUD to fit with your monitor aspect ratio.  I find the “Wanted” filter useful for determining which aspect ratio looks best.  Once you’ve found the correct setting for you, you’ll never have to fuss with this again.

To get started using the FilterCam, there are only two things you need to know.  First, a long click on the HUD will bring up your blue-box menu, from which you can choose from a large selection of filters.  Your blue box menu first presents several categories: Scatter, TV, Frames, Holidays, Horror, Artsy, Basic, and Custom (more on custom later).  Each category, when clicked, will show you several preset filters, all ready for you to use and take pretty pictures.

A few of the filters ready for use from the menu. There are lots more!

Second, a short click on the HUD will minimize it, allowing you to set up your composition, camming and alt-clicking and so on.  Clicking on the minimized HUD will › Continue reading

Tags: Bax Coen, Dark Mouse, Elymode, FilterCam, Maitreya, Mechanized Life, Tyranny Designs, [LAP]

Footwear Expo: SLink Bare Feet

I seriously love shoes; just ask my husband.  You may have noticed I’ve blogged one or two pair of shoes for the Footwear Expo.  It’s closed now, but all the footwear is available at the designers’ shops.

I’ve saved my favorite footwear grouping for last.  The thing is, sometimes you don’t want to wear shoes.  Sometimes it’s nice to be barefoot.  Sometimes being barefoot is the best design decision, for a particular look.  But, but, the system feet are so hideous!  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some very well-done skins, but skin creators don’t have a lot to work with, when it comes to our sad club feet.

Siddean Munro, creator behind SLink, has delivered us all from system feet.  I’ve been enamored with her bare feet since they were released; they were my first adventure in prim feet (I fought them for so long!)  For ladies, we have a choice of four foot silhouettes, from flat-footed to tiptoe, and the recently released extreme pointe foot.  (Gentlemen also have a few barefoot options, so men, you’re not left out!)

Now, I’m still not as good as tinting the feet as I’d like to be, but practice will make perfect, and the tinting HUD is very easy to work with.  The shading on the foot is incredibly detailed, with shadows between the toes, where light wouldn’t hit, and highlights indicating the underlying tendon structure.  Delicate subtle veins trace the top of the foot.  There are of course a variety of toenail options — both colored nail polish, and a range of natural nail shades to suit different skin tones.  I adore these feet, and if you’ve even once considered going bare-foot in-world, I’d suggest you give these a try.  Demos are free, after all.

Feet, left to right:
SLink- Jolie Pied Bare Feet, from left to right: Flat, Medium, Tiptoes, Extreme Pointe

En Scene Credits:
Hair: Tiny Bird – Precious Things – Stein Silver (tinted)
Skin: Imagen Skins – Irene 2.0 – Este – Natural (promotional sample)
Bubbles: Reasonable Desires Strippable Bubble Costume
Feet: SLink – Jolie Pied Bare Feet Tiptoes
Bathtub: The Loft – Oriana Bathtub

Disclaimer: Medium feet, Extreme Pointe feet, and Imagen skin are promotional samples.  I’m acquainted with some of the designers shown here.  However, I only blog things I like, regardless of affiliations or gifts.

Tags: Imagen Skins, Reasonable Desires, SLink, The Loft, Tiny Bird

Mira mami mira!

So.  Hair coloring awesomeness.

Kallisti Burns of Discord Designs has been making new color combos for her latest hairstyle, Mira, and they are awesome.  What I love about these is that each coloring has a unique pattern in the hair, giving each a really unique personality.  From the goth-y Noir to the beachy-surfer Sunkissed to the art-school-kid SarahTheRed, they all bring a very different feel to the avatar.

› Continue reading

Tags: Blowpop, Discord Designs, LeLutka, SLink

Feature: Blowpop N2 Skins

Outside cirumstances mean that this post will be significantly less word-heavy than I’ve intended.  There are still a boatload of pics for you to eyeball, though.

Annyka Bekkers has released the N2 lines of Blowpop skins.  These are updated and expanded versions of the former Infinity lines, and they’re awesome.  If ya like a particular makeup, click the picture for details on flickr.

There are four separate lines, each with four tones. 

In each line, there are a total of 6 eyeshadow options, each of which comes with two lip options.  With the four tones, that makes a total of 48 faces for each skin line.  For full makeup options, check out Annyka’s flickr pages: Maya Carmen Ava Elizabeth

Don’t mind the dropshadow fail on the last pictures. 

All hairstyles are from Tiny Bird, which as awesomely amazing hair.  The lingerie is from Artilleri, and all poses are from [LAP] Long Awkward Poses.  You can get slurls at http://slurls.wordpress.com.