The Dark Nun – My Journey of Blogging

It is still sunny and hot outside but I already desire the dark months again… maybe exactly because of that. I hate hot weather and I never was a huge friend of the sun.

Recently I watched the movie “The Nun” again. I do love mystic, horror movies a lot and the 2 Conjuring movies with the spin-offs of Anabelle and The Nun are just a must if you love that kind of genre ๐Ÿ˜‰

So I guess The Nun was my inspiration for this when I saw the “Lost Saints ” gacha from ANTINATURAL[+] the first time. Like usual it took me a while before I found all my components and parts for my pictures, but I got used to that. I have a huge respect for those who get something at the release day and instantly have a cool idea what they could do with it for their pictures. I am not talking about the usual blogger pictures that are just showcasing the outfits (nothing wrong with them), but about those who make pictures that kinda tell stories or being made in an artistic way.

I remember times when I just blogged for blogging purposes like reviews, showcasing items, putting a simple stylecard and doing promotion for designers. Like I said before there is nothing wrong with that, but after 10 years of blogging I had to find something different for me as blogging started to feel like a duty only and the fun started to vanish. I started originally with one picture and a style card and never had more than one or two sentences to it. Back then it was cool as I could kinda pump out up to 7 posts per day. Back then we didn’t have any kind of windlight, shadows or meshes, so it was way more easy to shoot pictures and post process them lightly. Usually the only thing I did was to put me in front of a colored background, have more than one view of myself or closeups in the picture and in the end I added a shadow to give it at least some depth (EXAMPLE). Back then I felt really cool with doing that, as it did it’s purpose to showcase designers work as best as I could. Those damn shadows and the desire to have myself more than once on my pictures or have some closeups were the reason why I started to learn Photoshop back then *giggles*

Over the time I tried various things to develop my picture skills and to find new ways how I could showcase designers work properly. I tried simple backgrounds, busy ones and I tried the green-screening and having completely different backgrounds that did not came from Second Life. The last one I did not try for too long as it did not look right for me and I really wanted to keep my pictures taken in SL. I never had the desire to merge SL snapshots into RL pictures or backgrounds and so I gave up on that trend relatively quick. While I started with square pictures (512×512) I figured out fast, that other rations can look way more interesting and attractive. After experimenting quite a while with sizes and formats, I found out that I do love 4:3 (3:4 as well) ratio the most.

Back in 2009, blogging wasn’t as popular as it is today and as a model we were told we should do pictures of have a blog to showcase our styling skills away from the runway shows and vendor shots where the designers kinda put their own visions on us. It was a way to interpret clothing different than the designer initially did, but still it was a way to promote the designs and show that they could have different ways of styles and could attract different groups of people. I had the most fun to fool around with gowns, away from being just beautiful and pretty *grins*

First I was told if I keep on doing such things, like wearing gowns with shaved hair and piercings,ย  pull simple casual outfits to something wicked and dark with accessories and the location/set I was using, mix and match different outfits together or even use accessories away from their original purpose, I would damage my reputation and no one ever would give me things to blog anymore. I was new into the business back then and a little scared that those who already worked in the fashion industry would be right. So I calmed down again and went on with mainstream pictures again. Then something really funny happened. Designers, fellow models and some other people IMed me asking me why I would go back to those “boring” styles again. That was a wakeup call for me. Even if my ideas were unconventional and different, there were some people who enjoyed that as much as I do. I screwed the thought and the anxiety about my weird ideas and went back to what I really enjoyed. But I always made sure to not distort designers work with too weird poses and later on, when we got windlight, shadows and lights, to not change the color of an outfit or have things too dark so you could not anymore see them. I wanted to have more than one picture, so that I could tell a little story with them. To the same time it would give me the possibility to again focus on details in different pictures. I made the decision to put more pictures on my blog post and have one reference picture (mostly the one I loved the most) displayed on Flickr.ย  That all kept my pictures weird for my styles but in general relatively simple, as they looked flat without any emotion and depth. For quite a while that was ok for me and I enjoyed, that I could live my craziness of styles and got new sponsors now and then (EXAMPLE).

Again I came across a point where I had the desire to change something as I wanted to have more emotions and feelings in my pictures. When we got windlight, shadows and lights, I found out that you can create cool, dramatic shots with a strong light and shadow combination and a powerful windlight. But there was the other side of the coin… with deep shadows some details started to vanish and first I had the feeling Iย  should not do that as it does hide designers work too much. The more I tried, the less I could resist to all those new features and I that seriously put me on the horns of a dilemma. I wanted to do more artistic pictures that have more content than just the clothing that I was wearing, but how I could do that if I loose details to the dark. When bento came to Second Life it was even worse, as pose creators started to make more crazy poses and with my 4:3 ratio pictures I didn’t want to use standing poses only anymore where I had more background than avatar on the picture. I had so many awesome sponsors (if I now look back, it were too many) and I wanted to satisfy them all. I wasn’t able to have a combination of blog pictures and personal pictures done, as I had so many deadlines and outfits that I had to blog. There was a point where everything became too much and blogging or making pictures became a burden and nearly all the fun had vanished. I had to make a decision – either I go on like usual and loose all my interest in blogging, Second Life and everything I loved, or I have to change something drastically and revamp my blog.

It wasn’t an easy decision as I had the feeling I do have to let my sponsors go, when I cannot satisfy them anymore. I left a few and as well explained to them why I had to. A handful of my sponsors really surprised me, when they told me they would still like to keep me and see where my journey would go to – I never ever expected that!

I took a few weeks off and started to reconsider my blog and pictures. During that time I watched a lot of Photoshop tutorials and learned a lot of new techniques about photo editing. When I came back I was full of energy and started to play with lights, projectors and shadows and experimented with all the new things I learned in Photoshop. It was a complete new freedom and feeling and I found all the fun back, that I missed so much. I am a very self-critical person and so even if the fun was back I felt there was missing something, as many times the pictures looked ok but not “cool”. That was when Silly told me about VISONAIRE. First I thought, why I should take a course if I can have all the tutorials and information on the Internet as well? But the more I thought about the more I did remember, how much I loved attending classes and workshops in my life. So I signed up and I have to tell you, I do not regret any second! (If you want to know more about my VISIONAIRE experience you can look HERE) It was a completely different experience and it did teach me a lot about things that I never thought of and just did because I felt it looks nice. What was again a huge surprise, with my new way of pictures (I did not dare to apply as a blogger at too many places anymore) I got requested as a blogger or even got flickr mails where designers or blogger managers invited me to join their blogger team. That certainly was the most awesome thing that could happen – I do what I enjoy and others do enjoy my new way of blogging too!

I am sure, there will be times, when the desire of changes will come up again, but for now I really do enjoy blogging and taking pictures again ๐Ÿ™‚

Clothing

Outfit: ANTINATURAL[+] – “Lost Saints / Unsainted Nun / Mini” (Gacha, Rare)

Veil:ย ANTINATURAL[+] – “Lost Saints / Unsainted Nun / Veil” (Gacha, Rare)

Shoes:ย ANTINATURAL[+] – “Lost Saints / Leather Boots” (Gacha, Rare)

Accessories

Wrist Armor:ย ANTINATURAL[+] – “Lost Saints / Gold Gauntlets” (Gacha, Rare)

Tounge Piercings: LeLutka – “BDYART-TBRBL” (Bento)

Headpiece:ย ANTINATURAL[+] – “Lost Saints / Sacred Silence / Gold” (Gacha, Common)

Horns: ANTINATURAL[+] – “Lost Saints / Gilded Horns / Gold” (Gacha, Common)

Rings: .:E.A.Studio:. – “Tunderstrike Rings” (Maitreya, Bento)

Nails: .:E.A.Studio:. – “Obsess Claws” (Maitreya, Bento)

Hair & Makeup

Hair: Entwined – “Jana”

Eyemakeup: CURELESS[+] – “Undereye Lines & Eyeliner” (Omega Applier)

Forehead: CURELESS[+] – “Onibi Markings” (Omega Applier)

Wounds: .{PSYCHO:Byts}. – “Badass Fighter” (Omega Applier)

Lips: LeLutka – “Beast Applier” (LeLutka Applier)

Body & Tattoo

Head: LeLutka – “Korina 3.3” (Bento)

Teeth: LeLutka – “Beast Teeth 1.1” (Bento)

Body: Maitreya – “Lara 4.1” (Bento)

Skin: *YS&YS* – “Immortal Skin” (LeLutka & Maitreya Applier)

Eyes: ANATOMY – “Reflect Eyes – Albino”

Ears: .:E.A.Studio:. – “Gormory Ears”

Poses & Props

Poses: Poseidon – “Evil Nurse”, “Puppeteer”, “Hil Nurse” & “Morgue”

Background: SEMPITERNAL – “[The Forbidden Room]”

Table & Dishes: DRD – “Black Widow Tea Table”

Model & Photographer

Wicca Merlin

Happy Halloween!

Finally it is Halloween!

The much I was waiting for it to happen, the more I am sad that it already is there now… Do you know that feeling? You desire something and when it is there or when you get it you are a little bit sad too, because now you cannot enjoy the waiting time as much anymore? Kinda like Christmas *giggles* even if I do like Halloween much more than that :p

Thank god we have SL where we can have Halloween through the whole year*winks*, so I won’t stop doing scary and spooky pictures as long as the dark season feeling has me in its hand…

Today again I would like to drag your view on those amazing nails. If you read my past 2 posts you will realize I got a lot of amazing nails from FORMANAILS lately ;)I really enjoy the details and all the tiny decorations the nails and hand accessories from FORMANAILS do have. Fingernails are overlooked so often. We just take them as granted, as an accessory we just ad to have something on our hands and usually they are so tiny that they get lost on pictures… same as shoes. What gets overlooked very fast are poses too, I recently made a post about that too. I catch myself a lot of times, when I add accessories that do complete my look and just don’t think about them anymore when I write my post. I soon will have another pose study post, as well as a nail spotlight I guess ๐Ÿ˜‰

For todays post I combined the “Buffalo” hand accessories and the “Stiletto” nails – I just love how they work together! Oh and before I forget to mention, even if I do use the Maitreya version only, there is versions for Vista and Slink hands as well ๐Ÿ˜‰

What better background you could use for a witch post, than the “Magick Shoppe” from DRD. I adore their buildings like in forever and since they had that awesome Stein/Reanimator hunt going this month.. I again was teased so bad for that incredible piece of art and I had to use it for my picture.

The hair is a Halloween special as well with that awesome 2 colors. The full pack comes with 3 special Halloween colors! It was made by no.match and it is named “No.Look”. You can find it at the actual round of Enchantment, but I am sure after the event ends, you will find it at the main store.

And now it is time to take my broom and go for a night out… it is HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Outfit & Accessories

Dress: [CoD!] – “Mentally Cute”

Shoes: UTOPIA@Design – “Halloween v2” (Maitreya)

Necklace: [Commoner] – “Monogrammed Planchette Pendant / W” (Gacha)

Rings: FORMANAILS – “Buffalo” (Maitreya, Bento)

Nails: FORMANAILS – “Stiletto 1” (Maitreya, Bento)

Hair & Makeup

Hair: no.matchย  – “No.Look” – NEW @ The Secret Affair

Makeup: CURELESS [+] – “Undereye Lines & Eyeliner” (OMEGA Applier)

Lipstick: LeLutka – “Beast Applier” (LeLutka Applier)

Body & Tattoo

Head: LeLutka โ€“ โ€œSimone 3.0โ€

Eyes: Clemmm – “Irritated Eyes Dark Grey”

Forehead Marks: CURELESS [+] – “Onibi Markings” (OMEGA Applier)

Body: Maitreya โ€“ โ€œLara 4.1โ€

Poses & Props

Poses (except the sky pose): Foxcity

Background (except the broom pic) DRD – “MS – Magick Shoppe – Full Set”

Broom: .AiShA. – “Vintage Bike Broom Sitting Black” (with poses, but I made my own for the picture)

Monkeys: [SWaGGa] – “Flying Monkey”

Bat: Manticore – “Hell Bat (Brown)” (not anymore available, store closed)

Model & Photographer

Wicca Merlin

They’re coming to get you…

“When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

[Dawn of the Dead]

God I enjoy Halloween and the dark season way too much ๐Ÿ˜‰

Today I started watching the 8th season of TWD – go figure where the inspiration of todays post came from…

Ok it wasn’t only TWD, it was the uber cool gacha from Salt & Pepper in cooperation with another one from Mina Hair as well. Salt & Pepper does some exciting interactive gachas for a while now. To me she did something completely new with those “changing” gachas. I guess it started with the wet clothing options, where you could go into linden water and had all of a sudden wet clothing, that dried again after some time when you were outside of water again. As well you certainly had the option of a drying towel as well if you wanted it quicker. That already was a great idea for roleplay scenarios. The paint ball game was an other one, that even had a HUD where you could fight with other residents , who owned the same set and HUD. That are only a few of her interactives… there are way more!

The one I would like to showcase today, is my personal favorite so far. The “Zombie” (Gacha Key) and the “Beatriz Zombie Hair” (Gacha Key) gachas were created for the special pop up round of the Arcade in October. Besides the interactive clothing and hair in both gachas you will find two different vents and fire-hydrants, that let you transform by walking by and a transformation HUD where you just can do the change by click.

To make my Zombie complete, I had to add 2 more creepy, scary things*grins*ย  The first one are the “Zombie” nails from FORMANAILS. When first saw them I was like “Are you kidding me?!?!??” I thought something like this would not exist but then.. who else than Ivi Bing should have done them ๐Ÿ˜‰ She is the one to be reckoned with, if it comes to extraordinary nail and hand designs. Nevertheless those nails are more than perfect for my Zombie look. They make me seriously look like being a Zombie for quite a while with my nails being damaged and ripped… just so kick ass cool ๐Ÿ˜‰

The second thing is that super scary facetattoo from CURELESS [+]. Actually I mixed a facetattoo and one of their eye makeup to make it even more creepy. The “XXX” face art and the “XXX” eye makeup made the perfect match to achieve the look I was looking for. CURELESS [+] always was one of my favorite stores for dark and scary things, the more I go there and shop the more I find things I want to use and due the fact of their designs, I see even more dark posts coming ๐Ÿ˜‰ I guess it was always inside of me and I just did hide it behind too much casual posts and ‘political correct’ do’s and don’ts ๐Ÿ˜‰ Maybe i should follow my dark and creepy mid a little bit more now and then ๐Ÿ˜‰

The only thing left was, to exchange my normal teeth with the LeLutka “Beast Teeth” and cover them in blood with their HUD. To me that worked beter with the bloody heart that looked so delicious :p

I found a new sim lately – my heart jumped higher when I found out it is a dark and scary place that will last the whole time and not just for Halloween! I am talking about Pendle Hill, another amazing creation of Lauren Bentham. She did a lot of amazing places already like Arranmore, Everywinter, the Baja sims and many more, but this one probably is my personal favorite. She used lots of DRD buildings and the environment is perfect for all creepy, spooky and darkness lovers!

Talking about creepy, spooky and scary places, I have to run to find more before Halloween is over and I can’t just do creepy things without having to explain it :p

Outfit & Accessories

Outfit: Salt & Pepper (S&P) – “Zombie” (Maitreya, Gacha) – NEW @ The Arcade

Shoes: Astralia – “Bloody Bandages” (Maitreya)

Nails: FORMANAILS – “Zombie” (Maitreya, Bento)

Hair & Makeup

Hair: MINA Hair – “Beatriz Short” (Gacha) – NEW @ The Arcade

Makeup: CURELESS [+] – “Undereye Lines & Eyeliner” (OMEGA Applier)

Body & Tattoo

Head: LeLutka โ€“ โ€œSimone 3.0โ€

Body: Maitreya โ€“ โ€œLara 4.1โ€

Ears: ^^Swallow^^ โ€“ โ€œDarkness Earsโ€

Eyes: Clemmm – “I’m Tired / Black Bloodshot”

Teeth: LeLutka – “Beast Teeth”

Facetattoo: CURELESS [+] – “Psycho Face” (OMEGA Applier)

Poses & Prop

Poses: Poseidon (First 4 Pictures) & EMOZIONE (Last Picture)

Location

Pendle Hill

Model & Photographer

Wicca Merlin

Creature


We are creatures of light and darkness
Only happy when we love, when we dare
We know nothing of moderation
Only suffer when we love, when we can

A human can only fly for so long
I’m coming in to land
It may seem strange, but I need you to
Help me understand
Who I am

[Information Society]

Outfit & Accessories

Top: A&Y Cybernetics – “Electra Cyber Top” (Maitreya)

Gloves: A&Y Cybernetics – “Electra Cyber Gloves” (Maitreya)

Pants: A&Y Cybernetics – “Electra Cyber Panties” (Maitreya)

Legs: A&Y Cybernetics – “Electra Cyber Legwarmers” (Maitreya)

Horns: E.V.E Studio – “Maleficent GW Horns” – NEW @ SL15B Lucky Chair

Hair & Makeup

Hair: no.match – “No.Shield” – NEW @ TRES CHIC

Body & Tattoos

Head: LeLutka – “Simone 3.0”

Teeth: LeLutka – “Beast Teeth 1.1”

Body: Maitreya – “Lara 4.1”

Skin: YS&YS – “Ginny Drow” (LeLutka & Maitreya Applier)

Eyes: ANATOMY – “Dragon Eyes”

Poses & Props

Poses: Poseidon – “Horror Set”

Location

District 18

Model & Photographer

Wicca Merlin