Engine Room March 2024 – Part III

TUNES

Skepticism might keep you sane,
but it won’t necessarily keep you alive.

[- Mima Sawsaan, Carnival Row -]

When I was at the Engine Room event today to find my next look for a blog post, I came across that amazing outfit from CHANDRA. When I saw that, I immediately remembered that cool head, which BeSpoke released at the Warehouse Sale this round.
I have no clue why, but I instantly had a “Carnival Row Feeling” – you remember that show on Amazon Prime with Cara Delevingne and Orlando Bloom? When I found a sim called “Tirna-Nog” in Second Life, I just had to go that path for my picture today!

Lately you hear more and more about AI (Artificial Intelligence) used for artwork. I have to admit, I am not yet fully sold about that, if people create pictures only with AI and kinda just put words to get a full picture. Maybe I am too old to be convinced completely, or I do have a weird mind. Iam 46 years old – I guess it was 46 *laughs* – I learned to draw with pencils and colored pencils as a kid and it took me years to learn how to draw myself on a graphic tablet/monitor (… and I am still learning that). Maybe that is the reason why I can not yet allow myself andl my brain to think about art, if everything is just generated by words and no one ever touched it with any kind of pen, pencil, graphic pens or what ever you can hold in your hand to create something. Ok to be fair, a photographer is slightly different, but in the end he caught a situation with his own eye and camera in his hands as well *snickers* I hope you get what I mean 😉

What I found interesting after I forced myself to look more into AI, is that you do not have to create a complete ready made art piece with it, but you can enhance your work with it. That caught my interest. I am always looking for new tips, tricks and twists I can learn and use for my Second Life pictures.
Lately I was kinda depressed with taking pictures in SL. It felt all the same even if I tried to learn new techniques for Photoshop to enhance my pictures as even Second Life has it’s limits – especially with lights and shadows, movement or even sometimes with posing ot what you can get to set up a scenery.
You can add things you miss, you can correct minor issues, you even can enlarge a scenery if you took the wrong size to make the perfect picture… really interesting and as well exciting. If you miss a backdrop or a background you can kinda create parts of that. I tried to make a whole backdrop first as well but the way it does look like, I decided to not do that yet, as it was too far always from the look of a real Second Life environment and I do enjoy that still a lot. So I tried just to fool around with 2 birds – to be precise 2 crows – I wanted to add to my picture. It did take me quite a while, since I just started to play with it. I had to generate one crow like 50 times until I figured out what I had to put in to have it sit, no spread wings and facing the right direction. After a while I realized, that it does even pick up the lights I had put inworld already and since I wanted to change that a little too, I had to start over again after I worked all my lightning and shadows. I did not yet know how to safe the generated birds yet, so I started over new on those again. Then I wanted to darken the background a little bit and… DANG… the generated birds again looked wrong as they pick up parts of the background as well to fit in properly. Ok… deleting the birds again and get everything else right first *chuckles*.

It was the start of a learning process I really want to look into more, even if I do not want to fully work with AI and my avatar only – Second Life is way to pretty for that and so many amazing creators, designers and sim builders did (and do) put a hell lot of work into creating amazing places for us to be there and to create pictures.

Clothing

Outfit: +CHANDRA+ – “Lucca Outfit” (Reborn) – NEW @ Engine Room // March 2024

Accessories

Nails: V/. VoluptasVirtualis – “[Esbaa]” (Maitreya, Bento) – NEW @ Engine Room // March 2024

Head, Body & Tattoo

Head: BeSpoke – “Nature Spirit” – NEW @ The Warehouse Sale // March 2024
Eyes: REPULSE – “Post Mortem Eyes (Blind)” (BoM)
Body: eBODY – “REBORN v1.69.6”

Poses, Props & Tools

Pose (incl. Lantern & Keys): [piXit] – “Clementine Posepack + Props” – NEW @ Engine Room // March 2024

Location

Tirna-Nog

Model, Stylist & Photographer

Wicca Merlin

The Crow – Dark & Strong

Miss Darcy 4

Today I have the great pleasure to showcase another hat for the Art in Hats 2015 charity. This time it is the contribution of Miss Darcy”.

The “Stillness” hat not only includes the hat, but as well a wonderful and sad dramatic looking face tattoo.

Miss Darcy 3

The “Stillness” hat looks like a tree branch coming out from your head and has sitting a little crow in it. Additional to that you have crows flying around your head too what brought me on the idea of todays look.

The face tattoo reminded me about 2 things. First of all about the old silent movies, where pantomimes were used or even about the pantomimes, that you can find out on the street in the big cities who entertain the people while they are shopping.

And for the second reason.. I am a child of the 80s and back then those sad clowns, called Pierrot, were very popular. I know that the general term is way older, but they kinda had a revival in the 80s in black & white. And the mask kinda reminded me of that as well.

Miss Darcy 1

When I was putting the hat and the makeup on, I looked at it more and more the Crow theme was growing in my head. Again and again black crows and dead trees were floating through my mind.

The dead tree totally called for something late fall winter looking in my opinion and I remembered the “Corvo” outfit from Zibska. The dark branches were right what I was looking for.

The outfit is made by Leezu and I just used the clothing layers for today. The kinda ripped off lately was the perfect base for the idea I had.

Miss Darcy 5

For the shoes I was thinking a long time what I should wear. Boots? … to heavy for the filigree look with the branches… heels? … to elegant…

While I was trying several different shoes, a gift came to my mind. I got this shoes as a special gift, to remember something while I would wear them. The shoes are not common shoes, they are just leather straps wich surround the foot  and the ankles and as a heel they just have one iron pin. I am sure, that those shoes are kinda painful to walk in and as well not very comfortable with poking constantly into the back of the heel *shudders* But since I did not have to walk a lot for the shooting.. it was worth a try :p The shoes kinda underlined the gothic character of the look as well as they were filigree enough to not overload the whole look.

Miss Darcy 6

With my addiction to tattoos, I certainly could not miss one of my favourite tattoos from White Widow 😉 . The “Cavage” tattoo is available on the We <3 RP event and it is a full body tattoo, which goes from the upper body,shoulders and arms down over the belly to the upper thigh of the right leg. That was perfect for the kinda ripped lately since the bare skin was covered by amazing ink then 🙂 The tattoo works for the normal avatar and as well for all popular mesh bodies.

Last but not least I added – to complement the shoes – I added a collar from Revolt ([R3]), called “Isobel” with some chains and buckles to bring back those accessories from the bottom to the top as well.

Miss Darcy 2

Details

Outfit: LeeZu – “Liquid Latex”

Attachments: Zibska – “Corvus” (part of the outfit)

Shoes: Pixelfashion – “Slavia Shoes”

Hat & Makeup: Miss Darcy – “Stillness” (Art in Hats 2015)

Collar: R3volt – “Isobel Collar”

Tattoo: White Widow – “Caravage” – NEW (We <3 RP)

Hair: no.match – “No.Why?” – NEW (On9)

Poses: Del May

Location: Digital Art – Cammino e Vivo Capovolto

Model & Photographer: Wicca Merlin

Miss Darcy 7

Halloween at White Widow!

Julie Hastings got a ‘Halloween Mood’ and created 10 incredible face tattoos perfectly matching for the Halloween theme for White Widow!!! Perfect for Halloween all are in a black grey and white scale perfectly matched to create a wonderful pice of art for every fashionistas eyes 😉 For the most of the face tattoos you have different options to wear… one full version for both eyes like we see above… ..or even you can wear just the left or the right side for some of them 😉 To the full, left or right options some of the face tattoos have also the possibility for just the lower part or one full eye and the other just half… otions, options options…. 😉 and  I’m sure for every possibility you need you will find yours 😉 (Picture provided by White Widow/Julie Hastings)

All of them are available now at the White Widow Mainstore… for Halloween it is a must have for every fashionistas wardrobe!

Details

Face Tattoos: White Widow – “Halloween”

Model & Photographer Pic 1-5: Wicca Merlin