Peer pressure, Pt. 2 (Fantasy Faire: The Plastik)

As I've said in previous posts, I don't know a lot about petite mesh avatars. I never thought I'd have one. They're so small — I'm always slamming into them in stores and tripping over them in the streets. I really don't want to be part of the petite AV obstacle course that's taking over the grid. I'd rather be a giant.

But then stores like Skinthesis and The Plastik came along and created their own versions of petites and I thought, "Well damn, these are actually kind of bad-ass." And now here we are.

The picture above — yeah, I actually used some WINDLIGHT SETTINGS, Y'ALL! — is one of the new petite mesh avatars from The Plastik. They feature The Plastik's Ataciara skins, and I'm wearing the Elven version in Nautical. If looking like a pointy-eared crayon isn't your thing, she also offers these AVs as humans in her six natural skintones.

One of the most awesome things about this AV is the head. Creator Aikea Rieko's petites have custom mesh heads with features that are a bit more distinguished and adult than those of other petites. They are exclusive to The Plastik, which is pretty cool in my book.

Here's a closer shot:


The Plastik's Petite Mesh Elven Avatars are 1500L and include the body, three types of heads (pointy ears, human ears and no ears) — each in five different makeups, two types of hands, some feet (just in case you were worried you'd have to go footless), more pairs of eyes than I feel like counting (sorry), a full-body alpha, the Yabusaka body deformer (petite mesh AV shape), the Yabusaka Fairy Mesh Control HUD (controls levels of brightness and other cool things), the Yabusaka Petite Control HUD (facial), and the Yabusaka Mesh Skin Tinting HUD.

Wooo. I feel like I forgot something. Now your world will crumble!

Aikea also offers three limited-edition AVs as her RFL donation items. They're 1000L each and include just about everything listed above. I love all of you passionately, but there's no way in hell I'm listing it all again. The only difference I can see is that each head type includes four different makeups instead of five and there are EVEN MORE EYES in these sets. I bought the RFL Petite Mesh AV in Cosmonaut:


MORE NUDITY! Let's see if Photobucket bitch-slaps me again for my offensive pixels this time. (BTW, the whole time I was taking this picture, I was praying, "Please God, don't let my neighbor log in and catch me crawling around naked in her yard.")

Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if I took the time to put on some, oh, I don't know, HAIR and CLOTHES? I had every intention of doing just that, except I couldn't log in to SL until about 1 p.m. Tennessee time today. And I don't own many things for petites. So hey everybody, look, I'm naked.

Sometimes I think maybe Linden Lab desperately needs a very involved SL resident on staff. You know, someone who could look at a calendar and say, "Oh hey, this is the last day of the month, which means there are dorks out there like Emerald Wynn who are scrambling to finish the Crazy Arse Hair hunt and, OH YEAH, it's the last day of a major fundraiser event for cancer so, um, MAYBE THIS IS NOT SUCH A GREAT DAY TO SCREW AROUND WITH NETWORK MAINTENANCE."

Sheeeeezus.

Fantasy Faire is open until midnight SLT tonight. At last count, SL residents had raised $24,646 USD in Relay for Life donations there. WOO HOO! Go us!

VISIT INWORLD: 
The Plastik at Fantasy Faire


FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Fantasy Faire 2012 Blog

(Poses in this blog by (pda), Magnifique and estetica, respectively.)

Em caves to peer pressure, Pt. 1 (Fantasy Faire: Skinthesis, Fairy Pearls)

Fantasy Faire has been extended by one more day, which is awesome. Ironically, I really haven't been able to spend a lot of time there. I last about three minutes before I crash. Hopefully people with younger, stronger computers are having more luck than I am.

I will admit that being assigned four (and don't get me wrong, absolutely fabulous) Fantasy Faire creators to blog kind of kicked my arse a little. I have to hand it to the writers/photographers who blog every day. These days I'm having kind of a weird problem where I'm associating my laptop — especially my email — with total sick anxiety. It's kind of a good thing because I've rediscovered my love of books. But it's not so good when email and other responsibilities go neglected. I didn't blog as much as I planned to, so I'm glad I have a couple more days to give love to the people who are working so hard to give love to Relay for Life.

Fairy Pearls is my last assigned Fantasy Faire creator, and designer Napolde Vella specializes in making beautiful little accessories and more for PETITES, among her other work. A while ago I wrote a blog post that joked about stomping on Petites. I was sort of horrified and amused by the people who IMed me with loud "HELL YEAH!"s. Oops. In any case, I swore I'd never jump on the Petites bandwagon . . . until two of my favorite creators, Cane Sutter of Skinthesis and Aikea Rieko of The Plastik, announced their own petite mesh AV lines and then I knew I was going to have to eat my words.

So nom nom nom and all that.


Holy crikey, they really are small. (This is my favorite cat. I like him because he looks like a newspaper. I named him "No More Money" because back in the day he cost me a small fortune.)

This is the female Dualities in Nature AV in Chalk by Skinthesis. The 1400L set allows you to create two complete Petite Mesh Fairy AVs, including two skin tones — Chalk and Obsidian — with PG and not-so-PG mesh bodies, full prim outfit, two sets of wings, two pairs of matching prim eyes, two colors of hair, two nail options, and three hand options. Wooo.

It's kind of a personal tradition for me to go nuts in the Skinthesis store every year at Fantasy Faire.


The wings shown in these pics are not the wings that are included in the set. These are the Little Me & Petite Enchanted Wings in Blue from Fairy Pearls. The 222L RFL donation item pack includes five colors of petite wings, also including gold, green, red and gold.

Fairy Pearls also has this cool Little Me & Petite Meditation Bottle (99L) as its other RFL item:


Hang it from a tree or your porch or, since this is Second Life, just throw it up in the air and it'll stay there.

Om.

VISIT INWORLD
Fairy Pearls at Fantasy Faire
Skinthesis at Fantasy Faire

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Fantasy Faire 2012 Blog

Next up: The Plastik

Fantasy Faire: FallnAngel, Style by Kira

Woooooooo! I haven't been able to log in to SL for almost a day. I was relieved to see that it was a grid thing and not an "Em's Mac Sucks Again" thing.

Because of it, I'm about three creators behind on my Fantasy Faire posts. I know there are probably some of you out there who are screaming, "SO SICK OF FANTASY FAIRE - JUST STOP ALREADY!" but it's my favorite event all year and I've been assigned four creators to blog (not to mention a few I asked on my own).

There are only three days left of Fantasy Faire, BTW. Wow, it goes by fast.

FallnAngel Creations has four RFL donation items out this year. Here are two of them.


Azlyn Silks (also includes white top and bottoms), 475L, by FallnAngel Creations.

I've always loved the way creator Azriel Demain works with color. I could go wild in that store if I had the lindens.

(Also pictured, not at Fantasy Faire: Skin - Mia in Pale by Tzal; Hair - Cassie in Champagne, Roots, by Truth)


Sanaka Dress, Fantasy Faire Exclusive Version, 550L, by FallnAngel Creations
(Backdrop from Fairy Skybox/Photobox w/five animations, 400L, by Style by Kira.)

Kira Paderborn also has some gorgeous skins out.


Shino Fantasy Skin in Ribbon Fairy 02 by Style by Kira (500L)
(Hair - Velvet in Cool Mint, Roots, by Truth)

VISIT INWORLD
FallnAngel Creations at Fantasy Faire
Style by Kira at Fantasy Faire

In the deep and quiet water (FF 2012: Bibi's Coral Reef Shop)

Oingo Boingo (woo, I just dated myself) has a little-known song called "Long Breakdown" that I've always held close to my heart for various reasons. It has some lyrics about finding peace in the quiet depths of the ocean, which seems kind of fitting right now, particularly if you caught a ride on my last crazy-train blog post (now deleted). WHOOPS! Sorry about that! But hey, what's a blog without a little meltdown once in a while, right?

So let's get back to Fantasy Faire — and speaking of the ocean . . .

I'll admit that I panicked a little when I learned that one of my assigned creators to blog for this event was Bibi's Coral Reef Shop. I am not a mermaid, nor do I play one on TV.

I have a lot of respect for the merfolk of Second Life because they are beautiful creatures with stunning habitats. It often takes skill and artistry to create them (both the AVs and the habitats), though. I learned this lesson the hard way. Like an idiot, I thought I could just DIG A GIANT HOLE IN MY YARD and dive down there and create some mermaid magic. Not only did I turn my yard into one hell of a mess, but I jacked up and flooded my neighbor's parcel too.


Oops.

Then it dawned on me that creator Bibi Questi probably already has examples of her three RFL donation items — which are kits that are jam-packed full of everything you need to create three different underwater wonderlands — on her own gorgeous reefs, which are open for public use and include ballrooms, an ocean bar and a fish memorial (for education about overfishing), among many other sights to see.

And I was right! THANK GOD! And by the way, these kits do include (impressive and extremely helpful) step-by-step instructions for building a reef, which I obviously did not follow when creating my yard-reef monstrosity. She even includes instructions on how to make your reef glow at midnight and how to build your own realistic rocks using textures included in the kits.

Almost everything in these kits is copy/mod except for the hard coral fields. Without further ado, here they are. Pretend I have fins in these pictures:


Black Volcano Reef set, 475L. Dive down and see it in action HERE.

You get A LOT for your lindens in these sets, and this one includes 15 sculpted rocks in various shapes and sizes, one volcano, five rock coral textures, six different hard coral fields in four colors each, 13 fish groups, three (kick-ass) jellyfishes with sparks, 16 fusilier stream parts in silver, 17 corals, one cluster of fireflies, one sunbeam, one cloud, and one wave sound rock. WOOOOO! I'm out of breath! (Pardon the pun.)

BTW, I had to look up the word "fusilier," and the definition essentially was "a soldier," which excited and confused me at the same time. But in underwater lingo, it means a streaming school (or army, even) of fish, as seen in the picture below.


Midnight Coral Reef set, 475L. Check out the underwater example inworld HERE.

Includes 15 sculpted rocks in various shapes and sizes, six rock coral textures, six different hard coral fields in four colors each, 15 fish groups, three jellyfishes with sparks (SPARKS!), 16 fusilier stream parts in green, 19 corals, one group of fireflies, one sunbeam, one cloud and one wave sound rock.

And last, but certainly not least:


Sunset Coral Reef kit, 475L. Visit the underwater example HERE.

Includes 15 sculpted rocks in various shapes and sizes, six rock coral textures, six different hard coral fields in four colors each, 15 fish groups, three jellyfishes, 16 fusilier stream parts in grey, 17 corals, one group of fireflies, one sunbeam, one cloud, and one wave sound rock.

And a partriiiiiiidge in a pear treeeee! (LOL. Sorry — I just realized I was singing that list in my head.)

Almost all these elements can be purchased separately as well.

And I know everyone's blogging these free low-lag AV sets by Fallen Gods and Wasabi Pills — available at all the Fantasy Faire sim landing points — so you're probably sick of seeing it. But listen, people are leaving out a really important detail, and that's that there's a version of hair in the kit called "Teeloh FEM Mesh Hair - (BOOBS)" that got me all excited because I thought, "YES! HAIR with BOOBS in it!" But then I discovered that it's just shaped a little differently to accommodate busty females. Oh well.

Look at my butt!


(What is going on with that one leg? Sheeezus.) Admit it! At some point or another you have all wanted to walk around SL with book pages slapped to your privates! Especially you literary types!

VISIT INWORLD
Bibi's Coral Reef Shop at Fantasy Faire 2012
Bibi's Coral Reef & Underwater World

FOR MORE INFO: Visit the official Fantasy Faire 2012 Website.

Fantasy Faire 2012: Simply Fae

(I wanted to use "Simply Fae-bulous" as my headline, but I didn't want people to groan and throw things at me.)

This is the first time I've really gotten an up-close and personal look at creator Boaz Sands' work and she gets a big "YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU!" from me. This Chocolate Delight gown is one of her RFL items at Fantasy Faire (500L) and yeah, sadly my RL chocolate Easter bunny died a violent death while I was taking these pictures. As soon as I put on this dress, I turned into one of those raging "MUST HAVE CHOCOLATE!" monsters pretty quickly.

(Damn, between writing about dresses named Chocolate Delight and reading "The Hunger Games," I'm probably going to gain 10 pounds this week at the very least.)

This gown is part of Simply Fae's Confection Collection, inspired by creator Mayah Parx's whimsical (and tasty) candy build at the Faire's Jungle Bungle forest sim. Look at that chocolate lake!

So, ever since I started watching fashion designer shows like "Project Runway," I've learned how to toss around words and phrases like "draping," "pop of color," "color story" and the like. Allow me to do so now! "Look at the exquisite draping and detailing on the bodice of this gown!" It even includes a brooch made out of chocolate pieces. The one thing I really like about Boaz's work is that she pays as much attention to the back detailing as she does the front:


Lovely. (Don't look at my elbow.)

Her other RFL item is this Jilyan II gown (400L):

If you would have said to me, "Emerald, you are going to wear a big purple gown and love it," I would have answered "Oh honey. No." And then I would've been wrong. Because this dress is awesome, and I'm not even pandering because Simply Fae is one of my Fantasy Faire blogging assignments, I swear.

YES. The vines are included, even the earrings.
   Don't do what I did and try to match your fingernails to the dress though. That's just noobish.

Look at the back:

 
(Wow, there's a ghostly paranormal orb in that picture. I'm leaving it there for scientific purposes.)

Seriously, I didn't want to take off this dress. I felt like royalty in it. It goes in my "All-Time Favorite Dresses" inventory folder. That's one of the folders I'll grab and try to save if my inventory ever catches on fire.

Visit Simply Fae at Fantasy Faire 2012 by clicking this link HERE, RIGHT HERE, CLICK IT!

For basic details about Fantasy Faire, hop over to my post "Death by Bear (and hey, Fantasy Faire is almost here!)" or visit the official Fantasy Faire 2012 Website.

Also featured in this post is hair by Osmose (formerly Plume), skin by Sugar, and eyes by A:S:S. The Delicate Nature necklace in the top picture is a Paper Moon RFL Fantasy Faire item and will get its own blog post in the very very near future.

Have a fun day!

Death by Bear (and hey, Fantasy Faire is almost here!)

Sometimes I like to think that if there really is a heaven, it'll end up being whatever wonderful thing we want it to be.

For instance, let's say that I die in some kind of a freak accident — like a bear flying through the air and smashing into the windshield of my car (and I'm not kidding when I say that I hope someday I too become a victim of death-by-airborne-animal because then my family could put "She never saw that bear coming" on my tombstone, which would make everyone laugh and that would make me happy) . . . ok sorry, back on point. So hypothetically speaking, let's say I die and when I get to those great pearly gates in the sky, Saint Peter greets me and says, "Hey, here are some terraforming tools and some textures and some sculpt maps and whatever else you need — knock yourself out!"


A portion of the whimsical Jungle Bungle sim at Fantasy Faire 2012

So if I could create my own heaven, it'd be a world with fairies and unicorns and griffins and centaurs and talking plants and singing flowers and gallant knights and robots — YES, ROBOTS — and spaceships and castles and chocolate lakes and big foofy dresses and an occasional visit from Lord Tyrion from HBO's "Game of Thrones" and many, many rides on Falcor from "Neverending Story." And I wouldn't necessarily have a royal title or anything, but I WOULD get to wear a big sparkly crown for the hell of it. And occasionally I would sprout wings. And all my beloved pets that have passed away would be there waiting for me. Oh, and family members too, but you know what? Let's just go ahead and assign them to a nearby kingdom or planet or something. Close enough to visit but far enough to keep my Mom from popping in to interfere with my frolicking and nag me about how I need to wear more lipstick.

I could go on and on and on about my fantasy heaven ("hey Em, you sort of already did"), but we don't have time for that right now. I really need to get to the real subject of this blog post, which is the next best thing to Emerald's Post-Bear-Tragedy Heaven . . . [drumroll] . . . FANTASY FAIRE 2012! IT'S JUST ABOUT HERE! Can you gimme hallelujah?

This magical fundraising event for the American Cancer Society is my favorite event in SL. I applied to be an official blogger and danced a little jig when I got accepted, so get ready for a few fantastical posts about the creators to which I've been assigned. (And somewhere out there, my English teacher applauds that sentence construction.)

But first, here's a rundown of Fantasy Faire 2012 basics:

• Fantasy Faire 2012 runs from Saturday, April 21 (noon SLT) through Sunday, April 29.

• The official Website, which is chockfull of useful information, schedules and maps, is HERE.

• The event includes nine days of shopping, live music, auctions, hunts and roleplaying to benefit Relay for Life and the fight against cancer.

• Avatars, clothing, furnishings, gadgets, goodies (GOODIES!) and exclusive items are available from more than 130 of SL's top fantasy creators.

• Every participating creator will have at least two RFL vendors.

• Fantasy Faire 2012 consists of eight lavishly landscaped, individually themed shopping sims, which combine to create one fabulous Fairelands fantasy continent. I went over and attempted to check them out in between MUCHOS CRASH-OS, and the stunning artistry of every sim made me wish I was a fabulous photographer so I could take awesome pictures of them. Hopefully somebody out there will. For a list of the sims, their SLURLs, themes and individual maps of each one, visit this Web page: Designers List.

• You can also access portals to the Fairelands sims, attend performances and check out the (I WANT WANT WANT THOSE) silent auction items at the Fairelands Junction HERE. There are also nifty (NIFTY!) free low-lag sets by Fallen Gods and Wasabi Pills for girls and guys to wear. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IN ALL-CAPS PUT THEM ON! Lag is such a buzz kill at these things.

• Visit the American Cancer Society in SL HERE. I'm ashamed to say I haven't been there yet. I'm putting it on my to-do list RIGHT NOW though.

If I left anything out, just give me a good whack and let me know and I'll come back and edit this post. (Hell, I usually edit my posts about 10 times after I hit "publish" anyway. I'm OCD like that.)

ZOMG KittyCatS gets cutting edge, y'all! (and more exclamation points!!)

I haven't been inworld much lately because I've actually had some RL job interviews (along with way too many OH-SO-ANNOYING bridal showers to attend). The interviews have been nothing to jump up and down about, but hey, at least a few people out there are taking an interest in my professional abilities. I'll take that over a silent phone and an empty email inbox any day.

Anyway!

I logged in today to news of the latest KittyCatS update and WAIT! I realize you might not own any, but BEFORE YOU STOP READING, DON'T! I'm pretty blown away by how groundbreaking this latest development is. Maybe you will be too.

KittyCatS has developed an online Cattery that allows owners to transfer their cats from Second Life to a Web page . . . and then bring them back inworld whenever they feel like it. And even when they're living on the Website, they can still breed and live their normal little cat lives — for instance, they also need to eat there, as you'll see in the picture below.

I'll admit, I had to read the update notecard a few times to grasp the concept, but here's a screenshot of my first tentative attempt to get my online Cattery rolling:


OK, so see those cats? They used to live on one of my parcels. NOW THEY LIVE ON A WEBSITE! All I had to do was click the new "Cattery" option on each cat's menu. But if I ever get the urge to pull one of them back in world, I'll just click the menu on a free dock that's available at the KittyCatS Main Shop and SHAZAM!


It's back! (You have to yell, "SHAZAM!" when you do it though, or it won't work.)

(Just kidding.)

Then I can send it back to the online Cattery anytime.

"BEAM HER UP, SCOTTY!" 

(YES! They need little "Star Trek" uniforms now!)

CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW AWESOME LIFE WOULD BE IF WE COULD DO THIS WITH OTHER STUFF IN OUR INVENTORIES??? Well, maybe I'm the only one who can, since my inventory is currently at 185K. And yes, I realize that everything really lives on a server somewhere, but wow, how I'd love to see it organized on a Web site — with pictures! — and not have to sit around and wait for my damn inventory to load all the time.

So get on that, Linden Lab!

Anyway, I'm practically weeping with joy right now because I was actually getting ready to bid a fond farewell to all my cats. I just can't afford the rent on their pricey parcels anymore. Now I can just choose a few to live in my house and rotate them from time to time.

To read more about the new online Cattery, visit the KittyCatS Website HERE.

VISIT INWORLD
KittyCatS! Main Shop

y u so angry?

I walked into a store the other day and almost EVERY AV in there had that same look of grumpy little downturned mouth, freakishly wide hips and way too many cracks showing. I didn't know if it was some kind of April Fool's joke or what, but I got bored and tried to make that kind of shape too.

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be and it still turned out kind of fail, so props to those chicks (a little). I cannot master the art of . . . well, hell, I don't even know what this look is called. It makes me miss the days of bling though. Back in my day, there was at least a kind of purity to the fug. *rocks in rocking chair thoughtfully*


Shudder.

I spent a day running around looking like this and it's amazing HOW GRUMPY I got after staring at myself for a while.

Speaking of grumpy, this chick wins my punctuation-less "I'm not sure if you were intentionally trying to make me laugh but you did so thank you" award of the week:


WHY U SO ANGRY, HOMELESS LADY?

She even had this "crazy angry homeless lady"-type AO that I couldn't quite capture in action. It had, like, a little foot-stomping, tantrum thing going on. I kind of want it.


At least her AV isn't boring.

And I do like her dress.

(The Dressing Room Blue is becoming my new favorite place to AV-watch.)

Poses by Wet Cat.