TUNES

After a rough week I finally can do a post again 🙂

The time before Christmas seems to be a hard time for many people. I feel it a lot lately with the kids at school. The quiet time, the time of love and family – for some it seems to be the opposite of that. Maybe it is because they miss that feelings at home, or they do have problems they try to hide the whole year and when Christmas comes close they start to realize even more. I do not know what it is, but some do need more attention and care. I try as much to give them what they need, in a way I am allowed to, but I realized it really soaks a lot of power and energy off myself – more than usual and more than in any other year before. That means to me I need to find moments and ways to refill my own ‘batteries’ and making pictures in Second Life is one of them 🙂

I had the great pleasure to meet Hattie Panacek – owner and builder/designer of Ex Machina – when she agreed to built us our new custom made Mainstore for Wicca’s Wardrobe. I never dared to even think about her as the builder for our store, as I know she usually not does any custom builts. Salt from Salt and Pepper encouraged me to ask her and even offered herself as reference. I hesitated for a while… I looked around to maybe find a store that would fit to us, our designs and our imaginations, but all that I found had one of those criteria but not more than one at the same time.

So I gathered my courage, took a deep breath and opened an IM to Hattie. I kinda was prepared to get a no to my request, but what I had to loose? I was a little worried, that she would be too busy to answer and so I thought it would take a while for her to come back on me and after I typed my proposal I closed the IM – maybe I just closed it so fast, as I was scared about the answer *snickers*

You know what?!?!?! It turned out to be one of the most amazing talk I had in Second Life. She replied kinda instant and I nearly fainted as I really didn’t expect that. She got our vision after just a few seconds and already had even some ideas for it. When she said she looked at our stuffs and liked the way we design and some of the stiff we do… I really was close to just pass out *giggles*. She pointed out some things and even did let our vision grow with her input. It felt like I would talk to an old friend – unbelievable. I always admired her work, her ideas and building skills and as well her incredible textures. She makes things look like used and not just shiny and nice – even if she certainly can do that as well 😉 I just really really adore her way to do things. The more we talked when we met for sneak previews of what she was building for us, or for some more talks about specific things for the built, the more she became a friend to me as well and we discovered, that we share a lot of things, thoughts and likings.

One day she showed me her newest release for an event and I instantly loved it. I already did showcase the right side of that amazing backdrop before (https://wiccamerlin.de/late-autumn-soon-i-need-to-turn-on-the-heating-again/) and today it is time for the left side 😉

I am talking about the “Atelier Baudelaire – By Ex Machina” backdrop.

The left side is a neat little atelier of a painting artist – according to Hattie the whole backdrop was inspired by the great French poet Charles Baudelaire. The backdrop has it’s own lights but since it is modify you can even turn them off if you want to use your own light setting. Did you ever see such an amazing love for the detail for just a corner of one room? The different paintings, the cool ‘used look’ details for the walls even behind the paintings and then the cardboard with the brushes and spilled paint… simply incredible and stunning. The more you look at that stunning backdrop the more details you will find like the awesome pipes at the ceiling. As well the materials are super awesome! If you are able to turn on materials the whole backdrop is like a new experience again. It does look already cool without but if you turn the advanced lighting model on in your graphics it does look like as you could even feel the little crackles or the bricks at the wall when you touch it – just breathtaking!

All the paintings, paint buckets and brushes reminded me of a fun mesh head/body applier of paint from Izzie’s I always wanted to use and never found the right chance to do so. The same I had with the super cool and amazing Paintball gacha set – I had no one yet playing that with me – where I had Redclaw shooting at me to get the paint splatter effect on the top 😉 I guess I drove him nuts with that, as I wanted too have as many colors as possible on my short and he had to change between the guns all the time until I liked the way the paint applied to myself and the shirt *giggles*

Overall todays pictures where a lot of fun and I wasn’t able in a long time to just fool around with items, poses and things as my RL kept me so much. I hope the next days it will be a little easier going and I have more room for creative pictures and stuff to fool around with and getting inspired again 😉

Outfit

Shirt: Salt & Pepper (S&P) – “Paintball Tank” (Maitreya, Gacha, Common)

Pants: Neve – “Pant – Destroy” (Maitreya)

Shoes: DECO – “Classic Sneaks”

Hair & Makeup

Hair: [INK] – “Colored Pencil w/Tanbarumori” (Gacha, Common)

Makeup: alaskametro<3 – “Bali Eyeshadow” (LeLutka Applier)

Body & Tattoo

Head: LeLutka – “Simone 3.3”

Body: Maitreya – “Lara 4.1”

Tattoo: Izzie’s – “Color Explosion” (LeLutka/Maitreya Applier)

Poses & Props

Poses: Le Poppycock – “Just Alice” (with ladder, paint bucket & brush)

Backdrop: Ex Machina – “Atelier Baudelaire”

Model & Photographer

Wicca Merlin