This one has been a bit of a labor of love, as I've kind of been toying with this picture for about 6 hours. I mean, that's on and off... with short bursts of SL shopping and RL interruptions (girl's gotta eat, yanno.)
I love the outfit too, everything. From head to toe! As usual you can grab some CAIWL unedited pictures below, so whatcha waiting forrr?
I've been trying to spend some time with people offline lately, but that's kind of melded into us playing computer games... that aren't SL. This is a little bit of a shock to me, because I am most definitely too old to be any type of girl, let alone a "gamer girl".
I always find it amusing how things that weren't cool 5-10 years ago, come around as being cool, and the only reason it becomes cool is because people love to be considered edgy or different... just look at the hipsters running around with their curled up mustaches, and the current 'fad' of being a babygirl. (No offence to anyone who identify either of these communities, but you haveta admit there's a sudden influx of both of these things)
Anywho, I hope your week is beautiful, and continues to do nothing but improve!
xoxo
Oh hi, did you say lipsticks? Okay! These are the Revoul Chun lipstick options, and I find them all gorgeous.
So I've done another vlog type whatsit today about the Shook Baddie Claws I mentioned a couple of blogs back. I'm going to try and do one vlog a week, hopefully in conjunction with a blog, but we'll see how that actually goes, because it's far more stressful than I want to admit!
For today, that means I've done the picture above, but I'm referencing items involved in the vlog too, so you get tons of information instead of just some!
I am so amazingly thrilled with the way this picture came out I may have done a happy dance.
Sometimes, I can take a picture and love it and it's done in 4 minutes.
Other days, it takes me a while.
If it's not the pose, it's the lighting. If it's not the lighting, it's the background. Sometimes my hair will stick through my clothing, or my finger will dig into my body, and i'll have to spend up to an hour editing all those little pieces to make the picture fit together the way it does in my head.
Today was one of those days, and I had to step away for a while, and come back and carry on.
There was a questionnaire that went out for bloggers to voluntarily fill out at some point... and I remember reading the questions and wondering whether i'm the only person in the world who experiences moments like I mentioned above. When it asked "How long does it take you to do a blog post from concept to completion?" I really didn't know how to answer. Some days, I can do it all in maybe two hours. Other days, it literally takes me ALL DAY... and the chances are before I've even started to take the photograph, I have had a conceptual idea in my head for at least half a day previous, sometimes a week or more, depending on deadlines.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining! I freakin' LOVE doing what I do, and I suppose in a way I am lucky that I can currently devote the time to it that I do.
I guess what I'm saying is that you really can't judge effort, or growth by looking at one picture... and that's true of people as much as it art.
xoxo
Soooo.. Shook has come out with some pretty effin' awesome nail addons. They come for Slink & Maitreya, and you can change two layers. I've enclosed a couple of gifs, and hopefully that'll be enough to set you on your way to understanding how these nails work. You can choose to have an ombre effect with two colours of your choice using the hud, or if you select both colours to be the same, you have some stunningly gorgeous single colour adornments for the tips of your fingers.
I'm wearing the Square version of the nails, and I'm using the metallics hud for varnish.
Background : .:Joplino:. Backdrop It Was All A Dream
I'm featuring the first of -hopefully- many hairs from a brand new sponsor, Fabia hair! Yay!
This one is available at Whore Couture as of today (March 1st).
Also, can we just SWOON at this Narcisse 'fit? Yeah, it comes with panties, but personally unless I'm leaving my sim, panties are non essential. As always, these materials absolutely floor me. I have not edited the dress AT ALL except for some very basic shite I did to the entire photo, and I would very much enjoy living in this until next week!
Today's post is going to be epic. I am literally going to throw information at you and expect you to completely understand, ok? Good.
Again today I have woken up with a bunch of spoons in my pocket. This makes me incredibly happy! I am also prepared for today thanks to completing the photographs for today yesterday! LOOK AT ME GO, being all organized and shiz!
I've never done a post of this size before, and I know I've made a couple of oopsies, but I implore you to overlook said oopsies and love me anyway, so uh, here goes nothing!
I'm going to go ahead and focus on the Go&See skin, available at the skin fair at the moment.
It's called Katarina and is available in 5 tones. Here's a picture of the tones!
From left to right, Goth, Pale, Summer, Tan & Dark Tan.
For the following photographs I have used the FIRESTORM viewer, on ULTRA with the windlight CalWL. The pictures are unedited except for the cropping effects.
My personal favourite is the pale, but that's probably because of the white hair i've chosen for the blog today. All of the tones are gorgeous - flawless in fact. Another bonus for me was that it fit perfectly with my shape without a tweak necessary, and as I've said before, that's a massive bonus!
I'm also sporting the white eyebrow version, but there are THREE options for eyebrows! The other two are shown below.
Left - No brow. Right - Black brow on Pale tone.
It's worth noting that the head skin is on an OMEGA applier. I'm showing it on my current Magy Catwa head, and I didn't try it on any other head, purely because of the fit I mentioned above. However... if your head is Omega compatible, this skin will work.
I want to go ahead and remind you that just because a skin says OMEGA compatible, it doesn't mean that it will automatically look great on your head. Sometimes you're going to have to tweak your shape to make it look good. Please, please don't be scared to do this! I know that many of you enjoy your look and are reluctant to change, but know that sometimes, the smallest little fiddle with your sliders can turn you from "OMGWTF?!! :( " to "OMG! WTF! :) "
I was a little overwhelmed with choices when I saw the body huds for this skin because there are LITERALLY SO MANY OPTIONS I COULDN'T BELIEVEEEEE IT.
Below I will show you some of the boobies!
These are the 'normal' breast options in Tan tone. The only reason I skipped up to Tan was because for photography reasons, the differences just stood out further.
On the left, the body is softer, and on the right you might notice a little more rib action going on.
I want to point out here the collarbone definition, and the elbows.
It's been a long time since I've looked at a skin in such detail and honestly had a "Wow" reaction, but let me squee and tell you it happened with this. Also worth a second look are the knees (shown in my regular 3-panel picture) and the absolutely adorable belly button that makes me wanna stick my tongue in it. I'm pretty sure I could find an animation for that if i looked hard enough! xD
Shown here are the cleavage options, again in the Tan tone.
On the left is the first cleavage option with the ribs, and on the right, the second cleavage option without. Both the first and second versions of the cleavage come with the rib & no rib versions on the hud, so play around and figure out which one you like best.
More boobies? FER REAL, PICKLE?
YES!! More titties! These are the "Small" boobies, in Tan Tone.
On the left, is the soft body version, and on the right are the ribs version.
I'm pretty sure you can tell why this post was essential now! And there's MORE!!!
Here, I give you my booty.
I mean, I'm gonna need it back, but you're free to stare!
Far left is booty option one. The only way I can describe this is that it has an element of realism that I personally feel has been missing for a long time. There's extra creases along the under-butt, and also slight hints of imperfections and maybe even a little cellulite. I sorta kinda love this option!
Middle and Right options - I gotta be honest, I don't see a whole lot of change here. The skin is a lot smoother and the imperfections less obvious. However, not shown in any of these pictures are the front view options of the "booty", and the body hud has them in abundance. As comfortable as I am getting down and dirty with tits and arse, I'm not overly confident with getting my foof out and parading that around my blog quite yet, but let me just tell you if you struggle finding a foof that makes you tingle, you will definitely find it in this hud. On top of the foofage, there's also "hip" options, and I'm sure the differences come down to the slightest shading that I can't pick up because I'm not nearly as fancy and talented as Kristyna of Go&See.
I really really cannot suggest you demo this skin hard enough. All the body huds are on omega appliers too, so they will work for ANY major body brand, so long as they support the omega applier & you have (where necessary) the required omega relay/support.
Take a breath, and check out the picture below for the regularly scheduled outfitty things!
This is a SUPER fast gyazo gif (sorry about the quality) of the amazing bento tears by Dirty Secrets at the RLD event! If you're already an owner of the drool system by Dirty Secrets you'll be familiar with the hud included, and there's even an extra hud so that you can work both the drool & tears together without needing both individual huds on your screen at the same time. For those of you who don't already own the drool hud, just be well aware that you're going to explode with happy. There are several options for your tear type (clear, blue, bloody and more!) PLUS options for speed, and facial expressions, well worth the purchase! I'm wearing them with the catwa unrigged eyes, and combined with the pulsing included with those, I'm sure you'll agree that the result is just stunning.
Here, have some music. After all this information, I'm pretty sure you need to chill!
When I was little, my Grandad had a greenhouse. I don't remember being allowed in it too often, mostly because it was his pride and joy - we were free to run riot anywhere in the garden except his vegetable patches and the greenhouse and because Grandad was Grandad, we listened. On the rare occasion he beckoned me in, he would show me his seedlings, his big, masculine thumb and pointer finger, covered in dirt, delicately holding these tiny little tomato plants (usually) or sometimes the beginnings of marrows or carrots before they got transferred outside to finish growing.
He's long since passed, but I'll never forget looking up in that greenhouse, and seeing streaks of sunshine coming through the cloudy glass. I remember at one point he cursed (and Grandad never cursed), because one of the neighbours children had kicked a ball over and the glass pane had smashed on the roof, and all I can picture is the bright blue of the sky through the gap, which is incredibly unusual for England!
I was talking to my good friend Juni yesterday, wondering how decor bloggers do this, and wanted to challenge myself a little. I know I've done big posts in the past with lots of decor, but I feel like so far, this is the closest I've come to actually succeeding with something outside of -my- box. I thought "Surely it'll be easier for people to label their pictures with notes?" but on pondering that for a while, I just can't see how that'd work either, because no matter how I label it, there might be some confusion as to which product is which, so I settled on doing it via store-name. Hopefully that way it'll be quicker to sort through the piles of things I've used in this post!
I've also switched up the side-by-side inworld pics I usually do. I've almost always tried to use shadows in those images, but I've never been content with the way they look and have felt for a long time that they just miss the mark. I've done away with the shadows, and am now using CAIWL windlight, on ultra, nothing fancy, and I much prefer the finished product.
Most people who involve themselves in the SL blogging and flickr community will immediately see where this photograph is inspired from. AliceinChains Arun has been a long-standing member of SL, and is well known for her use of flowers and lighting in her pictures. I took a quick study of her pictures yesterday, and where I am no-where near her level of editing skills, I'm not at all mad about how this picture turned out, and I have learned a couple of things along the way. Isn't that what inspiration is?
I want to make a quick note and say while I have enjoyed this attempt to re-create something from someone I admire, I by no means intend to continue along this path. I am absolutely adoring learning at the pace I'm currently going at, and believe that my pictures should tell a story.
I want to work more on getting emotion into my images, along with becoming more comfortable with shading, exploring different angles, and eventually moving to slightly edited hair - mostly hairlines and fly-aways. I am grateful for every single piece of information I have garnered and hope that although I may take inspiration from other artists, I present what I have learned in a way that is "Pickle".
Today I want to challenge you to take inspiration from someone, and put YOUR personal spin on it. Whether that be a blogger, photographer, DJ or any other creative outlet, give it a go and see what you learn. xoxo
