Men’s Skins

If you’ve seen my store blog, I mentioned I’ve been thinking of closing shop in a few months because things have just taken a nose dive into crapville and it’s getting to the point where it’s not even close to cost effective to even have a shop any longer.  But, even though it’s been taking a very heavy toll on my creativity, I dusted off the men’s skin I had started on and finally got it very close to finished. And I’m hella proud of it. I took Eloh Eliot‘s Pleiades skin base (thank you again Eloh for being so freakin’ awesome!!! :D) and then shaded and tweaked and highlighted and modded the everliving crap out of it. I’m not sure if I’ll ever sell the skin or not considering the questionable future of the store.. but we’ll see. Let me know your thoughts. :) Just be gentle, it’s his first time. ;)

mens skin - tan

mens skin - goth

Re-Vengeance

I’ve been revamping my “scary” skins for a while and I think I’m finally done so I hope to get the vendors made soon and get those suckers out there.  While I was screwing around with them I took this snapshot and I loved how it showed off TSM’s Tenta hair in all it’s luscious glory so I had to share it! :D

Vengeance

Eyes by House of Ruin
Hair by The Stringer Mausoleum
Earrings by PERTURB/ation
Lashes by Cake

Last Ditch or Fever Induced Babble

Every so often I like to impose my “this is my personal blog” rule and write some emo dribble and then impose it upon the handful of readers I have.  Sorry!

***Warning, this particular flight of fancy is full of pity parties, fever induced babble, bad metaphors, general whinybuttedness, made up words, all heavily laced with OTC medication.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.***

Since I’ve been super sick I’ve had a lot of free time to sit around and ponder… ponder while in a cold medicine addled haze… but ponder nonetheless.  One of the things I pondered was where I’m going with my SL shop and what exactly I want out of it.  Well, of course, the answer to what I want is fame and money.  Naturally right?  But seriously, I really would like to have my shop pay for itself so to speak, tier and upload fees… which it has not been doing.  Part of the problem lays in pricing, which I stupidly dropped recently because I caved to asshats demanding lower prices.  Dumb, to be sure.  Part of the problem lays in my non-existent advertising.  Were it not for the kindness and awesomesaucedness of bloggers occasionally highlighting my shit, I’d never have even made a linden.  And a huge part of the problem lays in my own hangups about what I do.  Mod skins.  MOD.  I can’t get over that weird feeling that I should not be allowed to advertise what I do.  That it’s somehow so much less than creating something from scratch.. which it kind of is, but still.  I keep trying to tell myself that with the exception of the bodies, my skins (especially my newest ones) are very different from the original template.  I think they look different than other people’s mods.  And I price them ridiculously low because of guilt?  Something like that.  Yes it’s stupid, I know.  So I fail.  Nothing really new or different when thinking on it this time versus the last time I had an emo meltdown over my shop.  I still fail at advertising and my skin prices are still way too dang low to ever turn an actual profit, let alone pay tier.    So where does all that mumble leave me?  I have a couple of options as I see it.  

Option #1, leave it as is.  No more new releases, no more freebies, but the shop stays up as long as I can muster to pay for it.  This option blows because it’s currently what I’m doing and it sucks.

Option #2, shut down and leave town.  Close the shop, sell the land, salt the earth.  Dramatic!  Well I’ve considered this option a few times and it has it’s merits because I’d no longer have to deal with jerks complaining and I’d no longer have the emo meltdowns about my stuff which would be a nice change of pace.  But I honestly enjoy having my little shop, despite the occasional bad outweighing the good.. which creates the problem with this option.

Option #3, last ditch effort.  The riskiest of all.  What I’ve considered doing with this option is blowing the works.  Setting aside my personal hangups.  Expanding the shop because I’m almost out of prims, going whole hog.  Putting my nose to the grindstone to come up with a huge release.  Using a lot of metaphors.  And trying my damndest to advertise the hell out of it.  This option, quite frankly, scares the crap out of me because it will either succeed or blow up in my face.  It’s also a lot of work and I’ll admit it, I’m effing lazy.  But more importantly, I’m quite scared that it will fail and I’m not sure I want to deal with the backlash of it all.  

I’d like to give a special thanks to Nyquil for the part it played in this particular moment.

I might go browse for some land just out of curiosity.  But I think I’ll wait until I’m OTC medication free before making any major decisions.  In fact, I should probably go take a nap.

And here’s a random picture, cause that’s what I do.
Zero Number Boots
Boots by Zero Number

Vengeance

I’d venture to say everyday in SL is a bit like Halloween for me.. I throw on a new costume pretty much every time I log in. :D But Halloween gave me an excuse to make some dark and creepy skins and I know, self pimpage is so tacky, but I <3 the way they turned out so there. And yes, I’m especially fond of these  particular poses from Imperial Elegance because they suit my ideas so well.. if you couldn’t tell from the way I only used a few different poses. :P I also couldn’t decide between with or without the blindfold so I did both.

Vengeance

Vengeance

Vengeance

Vengeance

Vengeance

I waited for you.
Hair – [Polly by Truth]
Skin & Eyes by {Frick}
Full Outfit – [Kaara by BareRose]
Shoes – [Ruffle Boots by Shiny Things]
Blindfold – [Satin Blindfold by Illusions]
Poses by Imperial Elegance
Taken at Templum Ex Obscurum

Ruthed

I decided to take on the Ruth challenge today. I actually just used the stuff I was already dressed up in and then tried on skins until I decided on one that suited her pretty well. My only complaint about good ol’ Ruth is that she has huge man hands. I ended up taking off the hand attachments for the top I was wearing because of a mini rant about No Copy items in another post. I think Ruth turned out pretty smokin’ if you ask me. She just needed a little love and accessories. :D And I think everything suited her quite well, especially the hair.

On to the pictures!

Ruth

Fricka

Hair – [Dare by [RQ]]
Eyes – [Transparency Shine Eyes by Glanz]
Skin – [Neko – Goth – Tart Makeup by {Frick}]
Glasses – [Browline Glasses by Gritty Kitty]
Top – [Wrap Tank Mini Dress by Ce Cubic Effect]
Belt – [Hana belt by =*UnTone*=]
Pants – [Mocca Wide Pants by MNK]
Shoes – [Chunky Ribbon Boots by Shiny Things]
Pose – [Circle Prop Pose by Long Awkward Pose]

Drowiness

Drowiness.. not to be confused with drowsiness.. which I am suffering from right now. I found out just how difficult it is to capture a Drow with Windlight. Most settings were way way too dark and you could barely see her.. throw a face lamp on and ugh, washed out and fake. It was hard finding a middle ground while snapping these shots and since they still looked like crap I Photoshopped the heck out of them and now they are passable. I’m not usually a silks kinda person but I wanted a kinda skimpy something for my Drow to wear that wasn’t a bikini or typical lingerie and silks kinda tread the fantasy line just enough to be usable outside of fetish wear. At any rate, the Drows have arrived and I worked on snapping the ad pics tonight so hopefully I can get those squared away to release soon.. not too soon though as I’ll have to do a major rearrange of my shop to fit them in.. so much so that I may have to close for a day or two to get them into action. Anyways, onto the pics before I fall asleep… and no slurls ’cause I already logged out.. maybe tomorrow.

oOOOooh! I must squeal uncontrollably at the lovely jewelry from Illusions. Siyu Suen released a set of jewelry to go along with the Elven ears and OMG, they are just stunning. I’m only wearing the necklace in most of the pics, but I splurged for the fat pack and hope to work the other pieces into my looks on a regular basis. The pieces are truly works of art. ^^

Drowiness 1

Drowiness 2

Drowiness 5

Drowiness 4

Drowiness 3

Ears & Jewelry by Illusions
Silks by Analise
Hair by ETD
Eyes by Pixel Dolls
Shoes by Shiny Things
Skin by {Frick} – will be released soon

Earful

OMG, the new ears from Illusions. They are beyond awesome. Seriously, I haven’t stopped turning my computer screen over to my husband and going, “OMG, aren’t these the most awesome ears you’ve ever seen???!!?” He agreed the first 10 times and now just ignores me. :P I saw Siyu’s post recently about releasing new ears and awaited them with bated breath. And let me tell you, these lived up to my every expectation and then some. The piercings are gorgeous, the ears are beautifully constructed and the options are glorious. I love all the jewelry color options as well as all the skin tones!! Siyu Suen is truly a genius artist. I look at these ears as pieces of art and they are just a pleasure to wear and look at. Straight out of the box, no custom texture, these ears almost perfectly match the Drow skin I had been working on recently. I had to take her out for a spin to show them off so we went to La Reve. I’m still trying not to pull my hair out when working with Windlight. It’s a love/hate relationship for me. I did end up turning off atmospheric shaders to take a few non-Windlight photos to really show off the ears. On to the pics. If you click them it will take you to my Flickr page where you can view them larger.

4-10 Blog (Ears from Illusions)

4-10 Blog Zomg, Ears from Illusions!

4-10 Blog 4

4-10 blog 2

4-10 Blog 1

4-10 Blog 3

Hair – [Airy by ETD]
Skin – [Unreleased Drow Skin by {Frick}]
Eyes – [Transparency Shine Eyes by Glanz]
Eyelashes – [Prim Lashes by Deviant Kitties]
Piercing – [The Line by Deviant Kitties]
Full Outfit – [Scout Lady by BareRose]
Shoes – [Old Boots by Shiny Things]
Ears – [Mystic Ear: Elfin/Drow by Illusions]
Various Poses by [::ANA_Mations::] & [Cova AO]
Shots taken at Lash’s La Reve

Sleepless

I haven’t been sleeping well lately. To parrot a commercial for a popular sleep aid.. I have a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. So I did what any person having trouble sleeping might do, I fired up Photoshop and put huge dark eye bags on a skin. Plus some chapped lips for fun. In my defense, I was bored and tired.  Bad mix.

3-29 Blog 1

3-29 Blog 2

3-29 Blog 3

3-29 Blog 4

Dress – [*Babydoll is not dead yet* by Ghost]
Hair – [Kira by Refuge]
Eyes – [Group Gift – Jan2008 Large Red Eyes by *BP]
Shoes – [Nightmare (Hunt Freebie) by ::69::]
Piercing – [Mouth rings & spikes by Deviant Kitties]
Eyelashes – [Prim Lashes by Deviant Kitties]
Skin – [Unreleased Sleepless Skin by me]

Fantasy

I had been wanting to do a picture spread that was pure fantasy and inspired by my love of World of Warcraft and I finally did it. This is my Second Life version of a Draenei. This post is going to be picture intensive and they’ll be the wee sized ones so if you want to see the full sized ones, click on them and they’ll go straight to my flickr page where you can see them larger. The latest Sunwell Patch just went live so I’ll probably be spending most of my time playing WoW but I can’t stay away from SL for very long.. especially with the goodness that is Windlight.

Blue Fantasy 3

Blue Fantasy 7

Blue Fantasy 5

Blue Fantasy 6

Blue Fantasy 4

Blue Fantasy 2

Blue Fantasy 1

Hair – [Goddess by ETD]
Eyes & Skin – [Blue Fantasy Skin by {Frick}]
Eyelashes – [Prim Lashes by Deviant Kitties]
Full Outfit – [Lady Tuberose by BareRose]
Horns – [Glare Horns by Illusions]
Faun Legs – [Female Faun AV by Titania’s Court]
Staff – [Rustic Winged Battle Skythe by OMFG]
Various Poses by [::ANA_Mations::] & [Cova AO]
Star Poofer by [Tomo’s Party Particle Shop]
Shots taken at Lash’s La Reve
Windlight settings are by Torley Linden (Gimler Gronchi for Sky & Waterslide for Water)